Decision making techniques 6: Scroop

Reference Cards

Method

1. Everyone writes down 5 ideas on seperate pieces of paper.
2. Choose a person to start. They will lay down one of their ideas for everyone to see.
3. The second person has a choice: they can either lay down one of their cards face up next to the existing card, or face down underneath the existing idea to vote for it.
4. Each person after that has the same choice. Each idea can either have a chance of being selected or be used to vote for the idea you want to win.
5. The decision is made when everyone has used their cards. The winning idea is the one with the most votes.

Tips

1. Don’t worry if you write down the same idea as another person. If they place that card face up, you can use your card just face down, for voting.
2. You can play with any number of ideas per person. Between 3 and 10 is ideal.
3. This game can be a ot of fun and forces you to make tough decisions which can reveal what’s important. It’s not good for nuanced issues or issues whaer you might want to combine ideas.
4. This technique was invented by Mindiply, let us know what you think!

Example

You’ve just done a brainstorming session about what to call a new product your company is developing. Everyone has come up with lots of options and you want to find the one with the most support.