Why Facilitators are Important for Responsible Play

By Alex Suchman

If you’ve checked out the information on the annual NASAGA conference, you may have noticed the October 16 pre conference, “Play Facilitator Certification.”

Play facilitator certification? Why would play need a facilitator? You just pick a game, read the rules, and hop to it, right?

Wrong. Let me explain why you should get certified as a play facilitator. 

What is Responsible Play?

You know how all alcoholic beverage ads include the phrase “Drink Responsibly”? Applied play should come with similar precautions. We all know that games can accomplish so much more than just moments of fun and joy. Games are incredible tools for fostering relationships, learning, networking, team building, community development, and much more. Unfortunately, the phrase “forced fun” comes up a lot from people who have been subjected to irresponsibly-used (though well intentioned) play in learning and development contexts. In most of these cases, a game or activity was simply tacked on to an existing program or event in order to make it more interactive. 

Applying games for deeper outcomes is very different from playing a game with friends and family. The experience of play requires a certain degree of vulnerability from everyone involved for a number of reasons, such as: 

• New players may feel uncomfortable until they fully understand the rules.

• Game outcomes are inherently uncertain, and some people find that uncertainty discomforting.

• People might have a hard time fully engaging if they don’t already know their fellow players.

Because of this vulnerability, there are many ways an applied game experience can go awry. Whenever the desired outcome of a game goes deeper than pure fun, it’s important to have a facilitator to make sure the experience and the takeaways are as intended.

Play Facilitators and Responsible Play

Let’s dive into 3 critical functions of a Play Facilitator in ensuring responsible play:

1. Determining Readiness and Willingness to Play

As mentioned above, games are often used to add more interactivity into a course or event. If the participants aren’t in a positive mindset, the interactivity can be a very negative experience. There is a certain level of psychological safety, empathy, and curiosity required to play games because of the vulnerability. It’s important to assess the mindset of the group to determine whether they’d be able to reach the desired outcomes from the game.

For example, a manager might decide to do something fun with a team who recently saw some turnover, because the manager thinks having some fun together will help the team members bond. But the team members might be fearing for their own jobs because of the turnover, and might interpret the game session as some sort of performance test. This means that the team members, in their current state, are not ready to play: they’ll be on edge during the game, and not able to have fun or build new connections. 

2. Selecting the Right Game(s)

There are thousands of different games and kinds of games out there. They are not all created equally in terms of the skills required, complexity of the rules and objectives, player roles, and so on. Applying games for deeper outcomes requires selecting a game that somehow connects to those outcomes. There’s a reason trivia games like Jeopardy are often used at the end of a course or lesson to measure knowledge retention, rather than kinesthetic games like basketball. 

Let’s go back to the team example. If the manager’s goal for the game is to have fun and build trust, she might want to select a game that encourages collaboration and storytelling, so team members learn something new about each other. This may not be the right setting for a social deduction game that requires high levels of deception!

3. Connecting the Takeaways

Aristotle famously said that the key to successful communication is to 1) tell your audience what you are going to tell them; 2) tell them; and 3) tell them what you just told them. This technique of framing the content both before and after delivering the content is very important for any kind of learning and development to take place. Even a perfectly selected game might not yield the desired outcomes if it’s not introduced and debriefed in a way that draws the participants’ attention to the most important insights. 

This is often the cause of a game coming off as forced fun, rather than a meaningful experience: participants don’t see any connection between the game and their priorities, concerns, values, and goals. In the case of our hypothetical team game session, if the manager calls a team meeting and immediately starts explaining the rules of the game without explaining WHY they are playing the game, the team members will only be more suspicious and less likely to fully engage, meaning it’s unlikely they will be open to having fun and connecting with each other.  

This Could Be You!

A skilled play facilitator knows how to design and lead applied play in any context. They start by getting a clear understanding of the team’s overall learning and development objectives and existing culture. Once they have that, they connect game mechanics and dynamics to the desired outcomes in a given situation, and select the best game. They also are able to frame the game as part of a strategy to learn and grow, connecting the experience to the team members’ concerns and desired outcomes. And finally, they can lead a debrief conversation to help participants reflect on the experience and connect those insights to real life.

If you are interested in learning how to better facilitate games and play, you’re in luck! Barometer XP is offering a one-day Play Facilitator Certification as part of the NASAGA preconference in October. You can learn more about the program and register here, or contact Alex at alex@barometerxp.com with any questions. 

Alex Suchman is CEO and Cofounder of Barometer XP. Her mission is to foster thriving teams, so work can be a source of genuine meaning and connection for everyone. She uses games and play with her clients toward various learning and development outcomes in order to build stronger workplace cultures.