Today I will teach you some fun games that you can play during meetings so that you don’t accidentally doze off and get all the work assigned to you. (because everyone thought your silence was a sign of acceptance.)

Game #1 - Bingo
In this game, you and your friends pick 3 ‘jargon’ words that get repeated endlessly in meetings. Examples include ‘issue’, ‘QA cycle’, ‘production’, ‘hard deadline’ etc… Whenever someone in the room uses one of your words, you get a point. After you reach 5 points for any one word, stand up and yell ‘BINGO’

Game #2 - Train-Of-Though
The idea of this game is to try to make the speaker loose his/her train of thought. This is a timed game, so the faster you get the speaker to stammer or forget their thoughts, more points you win. Some strategies you can use:
(a) Look at the speaker and blink profusely. Then stare at him continuously for 30 seconds. Alternate between blinking and staring.
(b) Pick a random point behind the speaker’s shoulder and stare at it disbelievingly. Then, look horrified and act as if you are about to scream.
(c) Look at the speaker disappointingly (like your teachers did in school). Shake your head and roll your eyes. Look at the speaker as if saying ‘You couldn’t even think of such a simple thing?‘

Game #3 - Profound Statements
For 2 or more players. The idea is to interrupt someone mid-sentence and say something profound in jargoneese. Example:
“It is imperative to recognize the client’s build requirements with respect to issue 6543GK23. In my opinion, changing to .NET 2.0 enables the use of frameworks for highly optimized bytecode implementations to suit the iterative QA requirements. As Socrates once said - ‘Nescio quid dicas‘ “.
The number of people nodding their heads after your statements adds to your points tally. You get a bonus point if the speaker you interrupted doesn’t remember what he was saying before you interrupted him.

You can even have a ‘meeting olympics’ in your project and play a combination of these games. The winner gets to give a presentation in the next meeting.

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