Discovering Your Core Values: A Workshop

This guide provides instructions to help you run your own values discovery workshop. It specifically targets a gaming studio looking to establish or improve their values, and it is meant to be conducted as a team or company-wide workshop. If organizing a group session isn’t feasible, however, you can complete these steps on your own and then share your insights with colleagues.

The author, an experienced workshop facilitator, has designed and delivered this program for their own studios as well as other companies by invitation.

big idea Introduction to Values in Gaming

Values are the heart of game design. They influence how players experience your game and the kind of community it fosters.

Why focus on values?

While spending time to explicitly identify core values may seem unnecessary or even self-aggrandizing, assuming your team has a shared perception of these principles is risky. Unarticulated or vague values lead to misunderstandings and team friction, which in turn can lead to poor design decisions that are later hard to undo. Some of the benefits of establishing core values include:

Guiding star — Values help you make important decisions, especially when times get tough.
Stronger teams — When everyone shares values, teams are more cohesive and know what to expect from each other.
Better games — Games infused with healthy values encourage the expression of those values among players and have a higher chance of resonating.
Building the company you want — Your values will shape your studio’s culture and what type of place it is to work.

Setting up a successful workshop

Keep the following in mind when preparing for this workshop:

There are no right or wrong answers — it’s about reflecting on what matters to your team. Make space for people to share. You can take time after the workshop to refine the language and consolidate.
Values work best when everyone contributes to building them. Try to involve a diverse and representative selection of voices from across your studio.
Set aside enough time to have thoughtful conversations. Be prepared for this to take multiple sessions. These values will support your company for hopefully many years ahead, so spend the time.
Recognize that while you may not have all the answers right now on how to create these outcomes or eliminate certain issues, setting these objectives is a critical first step towards making progress. For example, not knowing immediately how to eradicate hate speech doesn’t imply tolerance, it simply acknowledges the journey ahead in shaping the future you envision for your games.

A tight set of values will force you to prioritize what truly matters and make it easier to meaningfully infuse them across critical processes later.

Workshop outline

Generally speaking, most elements of the workshop are a pairing of breakout group discussions and whole-group follow-up discussions:

Breakout — Small group discussions without a facilitator. Groups should prepare to share key insights or takeaways with the larger group afterward.
Whole group — Facilitated discussions involving all participants. Use these sessions to debrief on breakout learnings, capture key points in a shared space (digital or physical), and foster broader discussion.

Start by deciding on the ideal number of values for your final list. Aim for 5-7 values to strike a balance between focus and comprehensiveness. Any more and they will be difficult to remember and prioritize; too many also risk becoming meaningless or even contradictory.

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Articulating Your Values Effectively

When articulated well, your values should inspire a sense of purpose, cultivate a unified culture, and steer your team toward its goals.

Section 1: Generation

This section focuses on generating content centered around your core beliefs as a studio.

Step 1: Get everyone comfortable

Start with a short and engaging icebreaker game. These may seem a bit silly, but they’re a low-pressure way for people to connect and feel more comfortable sharing ideas. Find inspiration for in-person or remote icebreakers online.
Explain the purpose of the values discussion. Emphasize that it’s a collaborative effort to improve the workplace, not about judging individuals.
Highlight that even if immediate solutions aren’t available, openly discussing values sets the stage for improvement. This empowers the team to proactively identify and avoid decisions that don’t align with your desired culture.
Collaboratively create a working agreement for a safe and respectful discussion. You can provide some starting points, but allow the group to shape the agreement for better ownership. Search online for recommended processes and examples.

Step 2: What makes us, “Us?”

Breakout.

Think about your studio history, including memorable moments, successes, and even early failures:

What lessons did you learn?
What aspects of your studio bring you pride?
What about the future of the studio excites you?

Reconvene and capture highlights.

Step 3: Dream big for your games: Crafting the player experience

Breakout.

Spend some time reflecting on what you think great gaming looks like:

Beyond just “fun,” what kind of emotions or deeper experiences do you want your games to create for players (joy, challenge, connection, inspiration, etc.)? How can your games leave a positive impact with players? With the community?
Imagine how you want players to interact with each other in an ideal world. What norms or behaviors would contribute to a positive, inclusive community? What experience would you like new players to have? How would you like players to talk about your games and communities?
Think critically about existing obstacles in gaming, from disruptive behavior to accessibility limitations. What elements, even if historically common, won’t be tolerated in yours? What kind of space do you refuse to create?

Reconvene and capture highlights.

Section 2: Refinement

This section focuses on taking what you created in Section 1 and distilling it into a set of well-articulated values.

Step 0: Get ready

Choosing a small set of values to really focus on will ensure that you are upholding them effectively. These should be what truly define your collective studio and your work. Nonetheless, narrowing down your values can be a source of concern, so it’s important to be equipped to handle common concerns:

“But we have SO many important priorities!” — Stress that values aren’t a catch-all. You likely have many goals and aspirations separate from core values. These still matter, but shouldn’t undermine focus within the values framework.

“What if a vital concern gets left out?” — This is why the values-discovery process is so critical. A smaller set of well-chosen, fully discussed values should encapsulate those fundamental pillars, even if the exact wording takes work.

Step 1: Get specific

Breakout or whole group.

Reflecting on the outputs from the previous step, spend some time to turn those ideas into proto-values.

It can be useful to start with simpler one- or two-word concepts (e.g., “creativity” or “inclusivity”). Invite the participants to brainstorm a big list of everything that comes to mind, and reassure them it will be narrowed down and refined into more discriminating statements in the next steps. The goal now is to be comprehensive and generate the building blocks from which you’ll develop your value statements.

These should be captured in a shared space.

Step 2: Consolidation

Whole group.

Before starting this stage, identify any overlaps and group them together to simplify the decision space. If possible, invite all participants to help rearrange. Once this has been settled, briefly review each to identify any outliers and make any clarifications before moving on to the next step.

Step 3. Focus on what’s most important

Whole group.

Invite all participants to now vote on their top values:

Dot voting — An easy way to come to a group consensus on priority is to give everyone the opportunity to identify their top 3-5 values using dot voting (or a similar tool).
Stack rank — Once everyone has had a chance to vote, create a stack rank of everything that was selected. Based on the number you agreed-upon above, highlight those top values as the ones you will focus on.

Step 4: Refining your value statements

Once you have your top X values, it’s now time to refine the language and help turn them into useful tools that can be understood and applied by anyone. A great exercise to facilitate this process is asking “how” repeatedly as a way of drilling down to find the essence of what you are trying to communicate.

example

From Values to Action: The Power of “How” Questions

Walk through an example of asking how questions to refine a team’s values.

Step 5: Reality check

As a last step with the participants, it is helpful to have a discussion about how these values feel for where you are at as a company. Are any values unrealistic right now? It’s OK to have long-term aspirational values, just be honest about where you’re starting from.

Test your values to see if they actually provide value when it matters. A good way to do this is to think of past scenarios you have faced or to imagine tricky scenarios you might face in the future. For example, what happens if a popular streamer says something harmful while playing your game? Would your values help you respond?

You can use this discussion to help refine the values in the next section.

After the workshop

Avoid rushing to finalize values during the session itself. Instead, allow time for reflection and refinement afterward. A skilled facilitator will guide the workshop and then help synthesize the insights into a clear and authentic set of values.

Complete these final steps either individually or with a very small group. This focused approach ensures a satisfying outcome and avoids getting bogged down in “design by committee” at the final stages.

Section 3: Operationalization

Step 1: Make it official

Define and refine — Craft concise and easily understood descriptions for each value. Aim for clarity to avoid misinterpretation. Make the evolving values accessible to all employees and display them prominently.
Invite feedback and ratify — Share draft values with employees, inviting constructive feedback. Set a clear deadline for this process. Incorporate valuable feedback and finalize the values by the established date.
Balance clarity and perfection — Prioritize clarity over achieving absolute perfection in the initial wording. If there’s debate over specific language, consider adding brief explanatory notes to enhance understanding and alignment.

Step 2: Build in accountability

To ensure meaningful change, your studio’s values must permeate every aspect of the organization. Incorporate these values into hiring practices, employee and leadership evaluations, social events, and daily work. A successful values-driven studio thrives on collective accountability toward shared goals. When leadership empowers employees to actively pursue and uphold these values, a powerful and positive culture can take root.

Step 3: Show commitment (don’t just say it)

While it is important to take time to discuss and align on values, once you have them actions speak louder than words. Work with your team to identify relevant, feasible goals and work toward them with clear deliverables. Be accountable toward those goals and their outcomes.

Step 4: Revisit your values regularly

Values and the work we do to support them can shift over time. It’s important to revisit them regularly and investigate if they have been serving your needs:

Did they help when you needed them?
Do they need updating as your studio grows?
Have your goals for players changed?

Method Truly Operationalizing Your Values

The following practices will help ensure your core values will be both impactful and widely adopted by your team.

Last tips

Seek examples — See how other gaming studios express their values on their websites or in interviews.

Don’t get stuck — If any step feels challenging, try a brainstorm or use sticky notes for people to write ideas anonymously.

It’s OK to have fun — Celebrate your accomplishments! Values become part of your team identity, so building them together can be a bonding experience.

And remember… There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Adapt this guide to fit your studio’s unique needs and culture. Let the process help you discover what truly matters.