How to Cultivate Gameful Project Management
By being aware, breaking every step to your goals, accomplishing tasks, solving challenges into smaller ones, and being gameful and playful while taking those steps and appreciating them.
The best open secret of life is that you can bring joy and excitement into any activity, including project management. You can even
turn it into Gameful Project Management.
Here are a few thoughts on the aspect of cultivating Gameful Project Management.
The wisdom of games
There is fundamental wisdom to games, such as those we learned when we were small — those created for fun and to make their players happy.
These games are a safe place to be ourselves, to learn, to try something new, to challenge ourselves, without being judged, either by ourselves or others.
Applying this wisdom to projects
If a game can be designed to bring fun and happiness to its players, can’t then any project or activity be re-designed to make them both fun and successful?
Yes, they can.
Moreover, as both their designer and player, who is better placed than you to make them fun and engaging?
That is why it is so important to turn our real-life projects and, thus, also the management of them, into such fun games and safe spaces for us. We — and all the other players — will surpass any expectations.
The true goal of Gameful Project Management
The true goal of Gameful Project Management is for you to have fun and enjoy any of your projects and activities (including the management part of them) as if they were fun games. Or not even quite that. When you expect fun and concentrate too much on demanding it, you will end up not having fun. Being curious and open to discoveries is a goal worth aspiring to and practicing, as well as being willing to have fun too.
There are so many unexpected and fantastic possibilities when you turn whatever you do into fun games. These possibilities might be things you’ve never heard of or seen before, or you might have witnessed or experienced them before but do so now in new circumstances. Life is always surprising and can teach us something fresh in every moment. All we have to do is let it.
So, instead of resisting all the new information and all the surprises that come up in your projects, you can regard them as a game environment and yourself as a part of it. And suddenly, it is easier to learn, to be open-minded, fully present, and resourceful.
Gameful Project Management and the effortlessness of the growth mindset
When you enjoy designing and playing your projects and the management of them, the growth mindset develops all by itself. You don’t have to force it or be afraid that you don’t have it.
I have realized that we humans are often afraid to be stalling and not moving forward, not growing. The truth is we do grow, every single moment. Especially if we are fully present in the moment of now, instead of hurrying somewhere. Don’t beautiful flowers grow anchored to one spot? They do! Slowing down and enjoying every project and activity game can work wonders.
The unexpected gift of slowing down
Some time ago, I discovered a brilliant and enlightening quote on slowing down. Here it is:
“Slowing down is just another way of waking up.” — Elena Brower, author of Art of Attention and Practice You
So the whole trick is to slow down a little and be willing to see what you are doing as a game. It is also about getting inspired by “real” games or by anything that appears to be gameful or playful to you. Mind you, not something to disregard as a waste of time, but something you are eager to be great at, like your favorite game, which you both design and play.
Cultivating the synergy of three
Thanks to the Gameful Project Management (and Self-Gamification) approach, you can develop the ability to be aware (in other words, honest, kind, helpful, and non-judgmental toward yourself and others), to make small and effortless steps towards your goals, and last but not least, formulate the challenge and appreciate each of these small steps (develop and maintain the project game’s goals, rules, and feedback system) in a fun, gameful way.
Cultivating Gameful Project Management means that you practice being honest, kind, and of service to all those involved in your projects, including yourself. You can identify the most appropriate next steps towards your goals and dreams. You design your own self-motivational games (= your projects and activities turned into games), independent of whether you think you love doing or just “have to” do them. You have more and more fun in the process and, at some point, discover how much you enjoy “playing” and further developing (designing) them.
If you get frustrated and stuck again, you can repeat the following:
- Become aware of where you are and where you want to head in any given task or project.
- Identify the next smallest step that you can take with the least effort and resources to move forward.
- Take and appreciate that step in whatever way you find fun and exciting.
The bonus effect of the Gameful Project Management
Another great thing about Gameful Project Management is that your colleagues, managers, and customers become your allies in the project, not someone to resent or resist, but someone to learn from, cooperate with, share your experiences, and play with.
Best wishes as a call for action
And now, all there is left for me to do is to wish you the following:
Enjoy your project games! Enjoy your project management quests!
And have fun designing, playing, and living!
That was a modified excerpt from Gameful Project Management: Self-Gamification Based Awareness Booster for Your Project Management Success. To view a video series based on this book, click Gameful Project Management.
Thank you for reading!
I hope you enjoyed this article. If you did, then in addition to it and the one referred to above, you might also like these two:
P.S.
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About the author:
Victoria is a writer, instructor, and consultant with a background in semiconductor physics, electronic engineering (with a Ph.D.), information technology, and business development. While being a non-gamer, Victoria came up with the term Self-Gamification, a gameful and playful self-help approach bringing anthropology, kaizen, and gamification-based methods together to increase the quality of life. She approaches all areas of her life this way. Due to the fun she has, while turning everything in her life into games, she intends never to stop designing and playing them.