How Black Stories Invoke Creative Thinking
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This document discusses Black Stories, which are riddle-like stories about bizarre deaths that players have to solve through asking yes or no questions. The author found that facilitating Black Stories with kids at a summer camp improved their lateral thinking and creativity. This led the author to introduce Black Stories into agile meetings to energize teams and change their mindset. The document provides tips for facilitating Black Stories and information on finding more details online.
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How Black Stories Invoke Creative Thinking
- 1. @JordannGross Agile Coachsultant #Xebia agileety.com Thinking Invoke How Creative All artwork in this presentation is as it appears on the Black Stories cards and can be found on their Facebook page. The typical red and black drawings will be immediately recognised by those familiar with the game.
- 2. About Black Stories 50 black stories, 31 crimes, 49 dead bodies, 11 murderers, 12 suicides and one deadly meal. How could all this happen? Black stories are tricky, morbid, sinister riddle-‐stories. Above is flavour text taken from the back of the box. Black Stories are riddles about how bizarre deaths could've happened which the players have to guess by asking closed questions. Gave the audience some background how it seems I'm no longer a lone nut who believes in this (Agile Coach Camp '15, Agile Testing Days '15, Play4Agile 2016).
- 3. Try One!!1! During the presentation I moved this to the end because the time slot was quite short. Originally it was here, where it is much more powerful. Above you see the first Black Story I used as an example.
- 4. Where I Got the Idea • Summer Camp Coach • Kids 13-‐16 • Thinking patterns • Works on kids > also on grown-‐ups Facilitated way over 100 Black Stories by now, about half of them on kids during summer camp. There I noticed how the kids who joined the game the most often, started thinking differently. This sparked my inner German Scientist to investigate further. As lots of psychologists would say: "If this works on ze kids, it will surely work on ze grown-ups!"
- 5. The Effects Lateral Thinking "using reasoning that is not immediately obvious and involving ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-‐by-‐step logic" -‐ Wikipedia Other Effects • creativity • ask right questions • think out o/t box • collaboration "No, but > Yes, and" Main mechanic at play here is the concept of lateral thinking. As I found out with [or on ;)] the kids, there are multiple beneficial effects noticeable. These effects made me decide this brainteaser would best be fit for meetings where creativity is key.
- 6. But Wait... There's More • Energizer • Clear previous context • Change mindset • On time • Make meetings fun Starting to bring it to work, I thought within Scrum the refinement and sprint planning would be the meetings gaining the most from this. By doing it, the team and I noticed some other side effects, some obvious if I would've given it some more thought, but the last ones were things I could only dream about. :D
- 7. Facilitips • Don't overdo it • ANY brainstorm • Planning & Refinement • Timebox • Hints when needed • Social/cultural factors • Introduce as energizer Some take-aways if you want to try this with your team. :)
- 8. http://agileety.com/black-‐stories twitter.com/JordannGross linkedin.com/in/jordanngross Read the whole story on my blog if interested. Feel free to contact me for more info. Also really interested in your experience if you start using it. Thanks and good luck!