#Blaugust2023 Asynchronous Engagement Games

I don’t currently supervise, but I am encouraged to do things to support the team’s morale and build up our shared engagement. Recently, I saw a game called MonsDRAWsity for sale on Amazon and decided to grab it. The game includes a deck of cards, each depicting a unique monster, and some drawing tools. However, I bought it specifically as an “asynchronous engagement game”.

In plain English: a game we play together but not simultaneously that is supposed to make work more fun.

Here is how it goes:

1. I pick a team member to be our witness. Their job is to look at a monster card and memorize as much as they can in 30 seconds.
2. Then, I ask the witness to give me an account of what they saw and I write it down word-for-word.
3. I then post the description to a communication channel (in our case, a group in Microsoft Teams) and challenge everyone else to draw it over the next week.
4. At our bi-weekly office meeting, we look at all the submissions, the witness picks the one that best represents what they saw (based on their own memory), then we all look at the actual monster and vote who came closest.

It is simple, silly fun and has thus far been a big hit!