Games as Capacity Building Instruments

1
Games as Capacity Building Instruments

• How seriously has Serious Play been applied in
  Urban Planning?

2
Why Games in Capacity Building?

• Complements Traditional Training
• Supports WBI action learning
• Scalability

Action Learning
3
Educational Games in Urban Planning ?
4
WBI Urban Street Addressing Board Game

• Background request from the African Local
  Government Action Forum (ALGAF) for a course on
  street addressing
• Objective Rely on simple interactive techniques
  to develop an educational game on Street
  Addressing that will familiarize technical
  concepts and demonstrate the importance of street
  addressing to developing countries.
• Learning objectives
• To learn about the benefits and applications of
  street addressing in an urban setting
• To be aware of the challenges and issues of
  implementing a street addressing strategy
• To develop collaborating, problem solving,
  resource management and team building skills
  through strategic play
• To learn important street addressing
  terminologies.

5
WBI Urban Street Addressing Board Game

• Game Mechanic Concepts
• 3-6 players
• 45 minutes to an hour of play time
• Can be facilitated in workshop settings.
• Rule book will be in different languages
• Challenges of differing severity levels, both
  positive and negative to allow for an element of
  chance. Derived from real life case examples of
  urban management issues in cities.
• Resources (eg. Municipal revenue, grant, street
  fixtures, street numbers etc.) used to progress
  in the game and encouraging resource management.
• growth in the physical form of the city

6
Conclusion

• Games used in Ad Hoc fashion for informal role
  playing activities in WBI workshops/courses.
• Design educational games or capacity games in
  more structured and targeted manner.
• Games appear to assist in i) raising awareness
  through play, ii) influence behavior and decision
  making and iii) sensitize on policy issues.
• Still lot to learn about their potential as
  didactic tools in building capacity.

7
Expectations from this Seminar

• The objective is to gather good practice and
  learn how to apply it in capacity building
  games- such as deciding on specifics of the
  street addressing game
• Floor to the Experts!