At the AGTC meetup on Thursday, 5/11, Marissa Fogal facilitated an online version of Codenames.
Participants were split into two teams (red or blue) with one person on each team being the ‘spy master’ and other team members participating as ‘operatives’. The game board contains multiple cards with a single word on them – 9 cards are blue, 9 cards are red, 1 card is black (the assassin card), and the remaining cards are beige. The goal of the game is for a team to discover all of their 9 cards first (i.e., the blue team wants to discover all 9 of their blue cards).
How do they find their cards? The spy master of the team reviews the cards and provides a one-word clue for their team to choose appropriate cards. The spy master also lets the team know how many cards they are thinking this clue could tie to (for example, a clue may be ‘farm’ and it pertains to 3 cards). The operatives of the spy master’s team will work together to determine which cards are theirs. If they guess a card that isn’t theirs (a beige card or the opposite color card) their turn ends. If they guess the ‘assassin’ card, they automatically lose.
How does this game pertain to our teams? Communication is critical when working with our teams. Communication can be enhanced when we understand our audience. Context is also important – a word or phrase or acronym to one person may mean something completely different to another person. Asking clarifying questions to gain a better understanding of what (or why) a person is thinking can also improve team collaboration.
How might you incorporate this game with your team(s)?
We learned some facilitation lessons as well – for some users, this site may be blocked on a work device. We had some players connect on a personal mobile device so that they were able to play along.
Connect with Marissa: LinkedIn
Play Online: Codenames