Using a Gaming Exercise to Drive Innovation
At the recent NANDA-I Board of Directors meeting at Boston College, our president Carme Espinosa i Fresnedo challenged us with a gaming exercise.
In this exercise, we were asked to identify areas for diversifying our NANDA-I income stream.
(Of course, it’s never our goal to make money for the sake of making money, from our members, although the funds we receive go to good use in paying staff, funding our journals, etc. But we know that the more we can provide valuable products to nurses in practice, education, and research informatics, and to our students, the less we have to rely on membership dues. Diversifying our income stream is just good governance!)
The game consisted of teams facing off against one another. We were challenged to identify the best ideas that could help accomplish this diversification goal.
It was a lot of fun! And while it generated a lot of ideas that, on the surface, may seem “out there,” the seeds of these ideas are actually quite innovative and could support our organization in new and exciting ways. We then prioritized the ideas that could be put into practice.
As we look forward to what younger generations of nursing professionals need, and how we can best serve them as an association, our next challenge is to take the prioritized list of ideas and identify what can be accomplished quickly, and which take longer-term planning. These items will be added to our strategic plan.
Some ideas will inevitably drop off the list, but we never would have had so many ideas to choose from if we didn’t complete this gaming exercise. Stay tuned to find out what’s in store!