Finds

№ 36 | Facilitator Card Decks, Drivers of Change, Foresight & Strategy, FutureCast, and Notes on Remote Working

Stephen P. Anderson

12 May 2023 — 2 min read

Facilitator card decks

Roundup alert! So I did a thing… I searched for the hashtag ‘CardDecks’ on LinkedIn, and discovered a bunch of posts by Rachel Davis, including this ”list of card decks” (which “has both decks you can purchase and ones you can download for free.”)

Drivers of change

Short piece on “Initiating Organization Change: Practical Tips for Activating Awareness.” I appreciate tip two, for giving language to 3 different drivers of change: Situational, Developmental, Volitional.

Foresight & strategy

Visual language FTW! In this article is a nice, concise “Graphical Representation of the Relation Between Foresight & Strategy.”

Speaking of foresight…

FutureCast!

Here’s an interesting find: A micro-site devoted to a specific forecasting method, designed to “help you and your team explore risks and opportunities in an election context by engaging various stakeholders in thought-provoking and inclusive discussion.”

It’s not a ready to play game; as with many facilitation activities, you have to provide specific content. But, it’s solid scaffolding, with plenty of supporting resources, within which you can set up this game / facilitation activity.

Okay. D’Oh! 🤦

More time spent on this site reveals similar treatments for “a selection of tools, games and workshop templates, ready to be used for your own foresight projects.” Methods include: Driver Mapping, Causal Layered Analysis, 2×2 Matrix: Scenario Building, Futures Wheel, Horizon Scanning: Implications, Horizon Scanning Validation, Horizon Scanning, Foresight Experiments Scoping, and… a game to Explore the Future of Data Governance. Where's the gold mine emoji?!

Notes on remote working

Fellow ‘Muralista’ Laïla von Alvensleben shares six insights from the recent Running Remote conference. Good, solid observations.

№ 89 | Defense Against Dishonest Charts, Make It Toolkit, Scale Up! The Business Game, Decision Trees for UI Components, ShadowBox Training, and Shadow Dynamics

Hello, and welcome to another roundup of playful ‘things to think with’ and think about! Let’s dive in… Defense Against Dishonest Charts Over the years, I’ve collected various examples of bad charts (most often from certain news outlets and political groups). This is a topic explored in-depth in

№ 88 | Flipspark, City Making 101, Adventure Playgrounds, 🌀 How To Speak Squiggly! 🌀, AfroRithms From The Future, The Great Cognitive Depression, and The Periodic Table of Questions and Connection

More playful things to think with. Though, this issue is a wee-bit longer, given that two of my “finds” this time are articles to think about, and not strictly ‘things’ to think with. 🧠Also… a request! I’m prepping for the 15th anniversary reprint of the Mental Notes card deck;

№ 87 | 2025 Visual Tracker, Survive the Tyrant! RPG, The Question Matrix, Distance Levels, Professions as Thinking Tools, and Diversity Rocks Conversation Cards

🫡Another issue. More playful things to think with. But, I wanted to briefly pause and share a bit about WHY I do this. Why is finding, curating, sharing, and making ‘playful things to think with’ so… missional for me? I wrote a short post answering this question: “Why I Believe

№ 86 | Assess and Manage Risk, URL Parts, TLDraw Computer, Dark Patterns Detective Game, and Joy Cards (+ Assorted New Years stuff!)

Happy New Year! 🎉 I am back with plenty more ‘playful things to think with’ and the occasional stray commentary. Assess and Manage Risk Here are two visuals related to risk, both from Olina Glindev (aka “The Visual Agile Coach”). The first, is a simple illustration explaining how to assess risk