The cover of

Game: ‘Go / No Go – A Game of Boundaries’

‘Go / No Go – A Game of Boundaries’ is a game developed by Roskilde Festival in 2022 to help teams and organisations have the tough conversations surrounding boundaries and different lived experiences. When teams become diverse that means we might not all have the same backgrounds, privileges, views or types of experiences when moving through the world. That is a really good thing, fostering more diverse ideas and ways of solving problems, but it also means we have to work on understanding each other and getting to know each other. 

Different backgrounds and life experiences mean people often have different interpretations of politeness and boundaries. So, a way of fostering understanding and inclusiveness in a team is to talk about these things. That might be easier said than done, though. To help, Roskilde Festival developed this conversation card game to facilitate these types of conversations.

Any team can play ‘Go / No Go’, but especially newer teams, teams with new members, and teams that work together for longer periods of time may benefit from the conversations the game brings up.

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Rules (from the PDF):

“GO / NO GO is a conversation game designed to highlight different boundaries, how and where we differ on boundaries and how important context is when communicating.

The point of the game is to give a team more insight into each other and facilitate more open conversations about communication, cultural differences and lived experiences.

  1. You play the game by gathering a group of people (4-8) and point out two places on the ground, with 4-8m between.
  2. One end of the line is called “GO” and the other is called “NO GO”.
  3. Then a statement is read out – one at a time – and the participants place themselves somewhere between the two “GO” and “NO GO” points, according to if they think the statement is appropriate (GO) or not appropriate (NO GO)
    By placing themselves along the line between the two points, everybody is showing everyone else if they experience the statement as completely okay, crossing the line or somewhere in between. 
  4. When everyone has positioned themselves, a joint discussion is held about why people stand where they stand. In this way, we open a joint conversation about the statement and trying to put ourselves into the experiences of others.”