The benefit of constructive criticism showed up again yesterday.  Ten volunteers tested a new version of the online EnTeam Game Drawing Together – a collaborative version of Pictionary that challenges teams to draw and correctly guess one picture in 90 seconds on a digital whiteboard.   

As with all EnTeam Games, the players win together – or lose together – depending on whether they get better at helping each other in a series of games.  Yesterday, a team of five players in different places – Maine, California, and Missouri – went into an online breakout room to find something they all like to do for fun.  At the same time, another team was in a different breakout room doing the same.

When they came back into the main room, the first five artists sketched rough images of footballs, tennis rackets, and golf clubs.  Three of the observers guessed correctly that the artists liked to play sports.  The second group drew flowers, shovels, and rakes.  Five observers guessed that they all liked to garden.

So, the players drawing and the players guessing won together because their score – the number of correct guesses – increased.  The problem was that they couldn’t keep winning.  There were only five observers and they all guessed correctly.  They maxed out the score. 

They wanted to keep winning, but the rules held them back.  This criticism – that the score could not improve – was easy to solve: we restructured the game to score multiple collaborative drawings.  Then the score is unlimited – except by the speed and creativity of the artists.

Another way to increase the potential for varying the score was suggested – use a word generator with differing levels of difficulty. Then, the scores can be weighted based on the difficulty of the words being depicted.

Another critique that surfaced yesterday was that players could manipulate the score to inflate the improvement by intentionally underperforming in the first game.  As we discussed the issue, we realized that while it is easy to show improvement in the second game, increasing the score continuously in a series of games becomes increasingly difficult.  Manipulation of the scores can also be prevented by setting a minimum expectation based on benchmark score.

Criticism is a blessing when it drives us to improve.  

For information about more EnTeam Games is available at www.enteam.org