approach has a very strong impact on engagement. Participants feel compelled to play in
teams thus contributing to team-building addressing together a common challenge. The story
telling aspect also contributes to tangibilization through its metaphorical side and the fact that
people become part of their stories. They therefore collectively endorse the issues they work
on, are able to take some distance and find there is value in the process. This was particularly
true for public administrations. The key lesson is definitely the power of tangibilization.
In very rare occasions we have witnessed negative reactions to the approach. The only one
we are able to report on was a case where a participant following the workshop commented
with a statement: “ok, that was interesting but now we need to get back to work”.
Among some of the other aspects let us briefly mention the following. The perceived risks
appears to be relatively low as participants are immediately put in a “safety” position through
a brief introduction stressing the value of creativity, trial and error, collaboration and having
fun. In terms of costs, the highest cost incurred is most likely the actual time spent for the
workshop, and therefore not working as usual. From the point of view of immediacy, there is
no doubt participants have instant takeaways to inspire their work. Finally having fun along
the way is a key building block and success factor of the approach leveraging the creative
capabilities we have.
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Finally, we also learned a few useful things we share as tips and noteworthy moments to
lookout for when running the workshops. Success of such techniques is greatly improved
when participants are put in the proper mindset. This requires setting the context through
well-known techniques like using a short video, playing a game, etc. For example, we have
used the “Did you know?” video [25], a simple “yes - no” exercise among two people. Person
A states ideas and person B systematically responds No arguing why it’s a bad idea. Then
they switch roles and person A systematically answers positively enhancing the idea of person
B. Another technique is the sound ball where people exchange a virtual ball making a sound.
Each person then repeats the set of sounds adding his own at the end.
Another interesting and noteworthy event is when during the workshop you see all the
participants in a group get up. We have systematically witnessed this event as being the
tipping point moment of success for a group. Often this is unconsciously contagious as all
groups end up standing working together.
A last key element is trying to meet the deadline: indeed a good timing of the workshop is a
key success factor, as well as having a dedicated timekeeper has proven to be valuable. Using
observers from the organizing team can also be useful to capture noteworthy events and / or
help answering questions when needed.
5 Conclusion and Future Work
Our experience running co-creation workshops based on design thinking and gaming in
intellectually protected settings such as an independent, not for profit Think Tank has led us
to witness the value of the approach for participants. This has in turn led us to discuss and
consider the role played by design thinking and gaming in stimulating participation. Based on
three cases we discussed the lessons learned in terms of perception of usefulness and ease of
use. Stimulating and augmenting participation is a source of empowerment for people when
addressing and trying to solve wicked problems. Future work involves assessing our
hypothesis through formal methodologies. In doing so, we plan to study and define the criteria
allowing to not only assess the workshops but also serve as best practice supporting
engagement and participation based on design thinking, serious gaming, story telling and