Design Your Own Games and Activities: Thiagi's Templates for Performance Improvement [Paperback]

Sivasailam Thiagarajan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0787964654 | ISBN-13: 978-0787964658 | Publication Date: February 12, 2003

Smart trainers know that games and activities can involve adults in learning like no other instructional method and no one knows more about games than Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan. In this must-have resource, Thiagi shows you how to customize more than thirty different kinds of games -- games that fit the circumstances perfectly and that can be designed in mere minutes.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It's a treasure if you use it for it's stated purpose of designing your own games and activities." (Training Media Review, April 8, 2003)

Review

"Thiagi has done it again! The man you love to listen to has created a book that brings HPI interactive strategies down to a level that everyone can use."
— George M Piskurich, principal, GMP Associates

"Though there are many collections of training and simulation games, only a few are able to give you the understanding and guidance you need to take full advantage of the power of games as learning tools. Of those few, none is more comprehensive, more fun, more practical than Thiagi and Son's Template— a master trainer and master player who has been bringing new levels of functioning fun to business and education for more than thirty years. His son Raja has taken the best of his father's wisdom, and added both clarity and humor."
— Bernie DeKoven, author, DeepFUN.com, The Well-Played Game

"At various meetings over the years, Thiagi has been sharing his
innovative approaches to action learning and we've all been taking
notes. Now, in Design Your Own Games and Activities, Thiagi and Raja
provide us with do it yourself templates. My working life just became
easier, better and a lot more fun! Thanks."
— Glenn Parker, team building consultant and author, Team Depot: A
Warehouse of 585 Tools to Reassess, Rejuvenate and Rehabilitate Your Team

"Teachers, trainers, church and community leader will want this collection of inexpensive, highly creative, useable games. Suggestions and aids for helping the participants gain the most value from each experience are included for each game. It's truly a valuable work."
— R. Garry Shirts, Simulation Training Systems.

"The Thiagarajans are the grand masters of games for training. In their new and richly illustrated book they tell all you need to know to become your own game master."
— Danny G. Langdon, partner, Performance International

"This 'Tjiagi in a box!' A comprehensive resource of highly interactive performance improvement strategies. This book is in Thaigi's tradition of sharing wisdom at it's best."
— Chris Saeger, Chair, North American Simulation and Gaming Association

"Once in a lifetime a book like this comes along. As a trainer, I'm going to make sure this book stays within reach on my desk. Is there anyone who would want to take this opportunity to learn from a master?"
— Sandra Mumford Fowler, editor, Intercultural Sourcebook: Cross-Cultural Training Method Volumes 1 & 2

"A Thiagi tour de force: people who understand performance will find practical templates for rapid development of training that supports performance improvement projects. At minimum, the templates, examples, and guidelines will excite expert facilitators, guide novices, and bring smiles to the lips of participants."
— Dale Brethower, coauthor, Performance-Based Instruction: Linking Training to Business Results

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Pfeiffer (February 12, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787964654
• ISBN-13: 978-0787964658
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,058,186 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Flexible, Adaptable, Effective Training Activities, November 11, 2004

By 

Les Lauber (Lawrence, KS USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Design Your Own Games and Activities: Thiagi's Templates for Performance Improvement (Paperback)

Long one of my favourite training game designers, Thiagi has given up all his very best secrets about interactive training in his book "Design Your Own Games and Activities."

Here you will find dozens of brief activity descriptions, 32 chapters, and 30 fully described training activities neatly compiled in one book. Need a better justification for this treasure chest? Fine--Thiagi describes 10 workplace trends that demand interactive strategies, including teamwork, learning organizations, and the changing characteristics of learners. The appendices include a glossary of 62 interactive strategies, indices of the activities in the book, and dozens of resources on everything from the design of interactive strategies to theory to workplace applications to websites on interactive strategies. Plus, a CD with the instructions and handouts for each of those 30 fully described games, ready for you to print off and use.

Each chapter covers a specific type of interactive strategy, and starts with an example. Thiagi then outlines the benefits, uses, and limitations of the strategy. Finally, one of those fleshed out examples is provided. Although the game can be played in a training session as is, you have enough information to adjust it to your own audience's needs. Plus the debriefing questions provided for each activity are extremely helpful.

I've used most of these activities, and found that this gem of a book has paid for itself many times over. TOP TIPS is an excellent game for sharing best practices. THIRTY-FIVE makes a great session review. TRIPLE-JOLT's Team Poker I is one of my favourite team-building exercises. QUICK DRAW illustrates cooperative creativity very well. This one volume alone can create the core for scores of training sessions--at a fraction of the price of many training activity sets available through other sources.

This one comes highly recommended.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Thiagi's Secrets are still his own., February 10, 2009

By 

M. Ryan "malcolmr" (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Design Your Own Games and Activities: Thiagi's Templates for Performance Improvement (Paperback)

As a university lecturer, I have often thought how much of teaching is actually game design. A lot of what I do is design activities to provide certain kinds of experience for my students. And while fun is not the primary goal of these activities, every teacher knows the importance of making exercises engaging and entertaining.

With this in mind, I went looking for books which addressed the design of such activities. If teachers have been doing it for generations, surely someone has stopped and asked how to do it well? There seem to be endless books cataloguing class exercises others have designed for one purpose or another, but I have found very little work that analyses why these exercises work and how new exercises might be designed.

In my search, this book caught my eye. Both the title and the publisher's blurb ("The most highly acclaimed authority on games for performance improvement shares his game-building secrets.") promise to teach you how to design your own games, and maybe let you in on some of the ideas behind their function.

Sadly, it is not so. What you get is 30 or so briefly-described `template' games. which you can fill out with your own material. There is no discussion of learning theory or design principles. There is just "add your topic material here". Thiagi's secrets are still his own.