Junkyard Games is an innovative game for employees and management development. The team activity is an engaging and interactive experiential instructional game that effectively improves the effectiveness of team and individual innovation skills.

Doing more for less, increasing productivity and reducing costs, innovation is the lifeblood of all successful organizations. Without it, organizations may survive, but they seldom thrive. The fact of the matter is that anyone can be innovative, regardless of profession or level of responsibility. The opportunity for process improvement exists everywhere and at every level within an organization. Everybody's innovating, but often it isn't formally recognized as "process improvement" or "innovation".

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Now there is a way to encourage innovation and develop the skills needed to have a positive impact on organizational performance. Junkyard Games is an exciting team development game from HRDQ that combines energy and fun with creativity and process improvement. Teams work together, plan, strategize, and execute their ideas to create the most innovative tabletop games for an international competition among imaginary countries.

The Challenge:
Teams may only use the miscellaneous "junk" available to them. The parts are random, and not every team is given the same stuff. After an initial round of planning and testing, teams are asked to practice their innovation skills to improve upon their original design. Then the outrageous fun begins when the teams get to play each otherís games and compete to win at all costs!

Learning Outcomes:

• Differentiate between innovation and creativity
• Understand the value of managing task-driven and process-driven behaviors
• Learn and apply a 7-step innovation process

Uses for the Game:

Junkyard Games is effective either as a stand-alone activity or as part of a more comprehensive team development program. Here are some suggested applications for the game:

• Kick off a team-building workshop or seminar
• Introduce the concept of innovation
• Energize an existing teamís level of creativity for innovation
• Practice using innovation skills in a "safe" environment

How It Works:
Using only the miscellaneous "junk" available to them, teams compete to create the most innovative tabletop sporting event for an international competition. After an initial round of planning, teams are challenged to practice innovation on their initial game designs. Things get really interesting when teams have fun playing each otherís games. Following game play, additional learning takes place as teams give honest feedback on each of the game designs and how well they met the stated objectives and goals.

PARTICIPANTS:
Includes materials to train up to 3 teams of 4-8 participants. All parts are reusable. For training sessions with more than 3 groups, order one extra game pack per team.

TIME: 1.5 to 2 hours

Authors: Ron Roberts & Bernie DeKoven