I’VE GOT A SECRET

GAME INSTRUCTIONS

Game Instructions

This game is modeled after the 1960’s classic game show “I’ve Got a Secret.”

The purpose of the game is to have fun! And to practice techniques for talking to your collaboration partners about budgets, programs, money and other resources. 

There are eight players in the game. One person is the contestant, three people are “Panelists” and three people serve on the “Remedy Team”. The Project Director plays “Emcee”.
 
The Contestant is an actor, playing the role of a collaboration partner. The Contestant draws a card to see what role he or she is playing. The Contestant’s job is to give clues about her identity – and her attitude about talking about budgets. 

Panelists start the game. They ask the Contestant questions. They try to guess the secret identity of the Contestant and name that secret in five minutes or less. Panelists might ask questions such as “Do you know a lot about your agency’s budget?” “Are you the person in charge of planning?” “Are you interested in changing the way your organization spends money if it helps deaf women?”

The Remedy Team suggests how this character might be helped to have useful discussions about resources, budgets and money.

The Emcee reads these rules out loud and helps get players assigned to parts. The Emcee starts the game by asking the Contestant to draw a card. The Emcee times the game; each Contestant has five minutes to act out her part.

The game requires Secret Description Cards. The contestant draws a Card. Only the contestant sees the Card. The card tells the Contestant what his/her secret identify is, and gives some hints about how to describe this secret identity.

The Contestant uses the hints on the card to pretend to be someone in your collaboration. The Contestant begins the game by talking about him/herself to the Panelists.  The Panelists try to guess who the Contestant is pretending to be. Panelists can ask questions, but only one question per person at a time. The Contestant may need to make up some answers; be sure to keep playing the part of the secret identity at all times.

The Remedy Team is observing.

The game is over when the Panelists guess who the Contestant is, or when the Emcee calls time at 5 minutes, whichever comes first. 

The Emcee then asks the Remedy Team to brainstorm out loud all the ways this kind of person could be successfully engaged in a discussion about resource allocations and future budgets.