Try This: Fortunately, Unfortunately
“Fortunately, Unfortunately” is an improvisational storytelling game used in drama classes, with kids, and in group activities.
The game involves coming up with a plot and building on as the story goes.
It’s also a great way to add some program design and evaluation into your staff meetings.
With “Fortunately, Unfortunately”, we’re using this game to review processes and identify outcomes with our programming. Use this as a rapid-fire method to keep your staff on its feet by quickly identifying what went well, what didn’t go well, and how issues were addressed during the program cycle.
To add in the storytelling element, we’re retelling the program and its activities from start to finish, adding in moments of reflection where things went as planned (“fortunately”), where hiccups occurred (“unfortunately”), and how they were addressed (“fortunately”).
This activity is ideal for:
- Anyone responsible for developing, running and evaluating programs and services
- Students interested in evaluative thinking
Here’s what you need:
- A space large enough to fit in your program staff
- A space to write on that’s large enough for everyone to view
- Something erasable to write with
- Your program’s logic model or curriculum may be useful, too
The steps:
Have a program staff member start off, setting the foundation for the “story”. Here’s an example of how the game can go:
“Fortunately, we were able to recruit the program participants we needed. We outreached to our unusual programming participants, as well as from local schools and other programs.”
The next staff member, building on this aspect of the program design, can say:
“Unfortunately, we recruited more participants than we could accommodate.”
The rest of the game can play out like this:
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