This week I thought it would be great idea to host board game night straight after some internal training. That way everyone was in the office, and everyone had a natural break in their day when training finished at 5pm. It would be nice for everyone to join in and enjoy the board game evening, including some people who had never managed to join in before! I guess this choice seemed great for inclusivity and team bonding, but perhaps not so great for a successful evening of board games?
Week 17
Number of Attendees: 10
Games Played: Telesrations, Dobble, Get Bit
The Successes
Enjoying language challenges
I was very excited when we hired two Germans into our team recently. I assumed that every German child grew up playing euro games, but unfortunately it appears this is not the case. Nevertheless we now have two team members for whom English is not a first language and who have only been living in the UK for a couple of months. Needless to say, playing Telestrations was hilarious, involving s lot of google translate for one player and a lot of fun with mis-translation added into the mix of poor drawings. In addition we have a Canadian corner of the table that changes everything into North American English and we get very few matches, but a lot of laughs!
Biggest turnout yet
I think ten people is the best turnout we've had except for when we took board games to our Christmas party. Board game night has definitely become an event that people look forward to each month and the promise of pizza this week certainly helped to encourage people to stay behind after work for some games.
The Challenges
Distraction
For my group, the distraction of work has been a constant challenge. The fact that we stay in the office to play means that you're never too far away from your desk and some people just can't stay away from the desk or their work phone. With a big group comes even more opportunity for distraction, with one person still working and then pulling other people out of games for a discussion or quick meeting. This week was really chaotic and it derailed a lot of our games. At least 50% of our time was spent waiting for people to join the table. It did mean that we played a few games of Dobble in between rounds of Telestrations, but more games played doesn't necessarily mean good game time.
Distraction
For my group, the distraction of work has been a constant challenge. The fact that we stay in the office to play means that you're never too far away from your desk and some people just can't stay away from the desk or their work phone. With a big group comes even more opportunity for distraction, with one person still working and then pulling other people out of games for a discussion or quick meeting. This week was really chaotic and it derailed a lot of our games. At least 50% of our time was spent waiting for people to join the table. It did mean that we played a few games of Dobble in between rounds of Telestrations, but more games played doesn't necessarily mean good game time.
Lessons for Next Week
Sometimes it's not board game night
With ten people around the table, not desire to split the group, lots of distractions, plus food and some drinks, this work board game night was not my kind of board game night. It was a social evening for my team and really the board games were just an excuse that no-one really wanted to invest time in or concentrate on. I think I have to learn to categorise this night differently and not consider it a board game opportunity from my perspective. I'm just the facilitator of a social evening and I can't pin my hopes on any quality game time. Hopefully the group will be right on some occasions to bring games like Barenpark and Kokoro back to the table, but I'm not going to get my hopes up any more.
With ten people around the table, not desire to split the group, lots of distractions, plus food and some drinks, this work board game night was not my kind of board game night. It was a social evening for my team and really the board games were just an excuse that no-one really wanted to invest time in or concentrate on. I think I have to learn to categorise this night differently and not consider it a board game opportunity from my perspective. I'm just the facilitator of a social evening and I can't pin my hopes on any quality game time. Hopefully the group will be right on some occasions to bring games like Barenpark and Kokoro back to the table, but I'm not going to get my hopes up any more.
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