Get a grip on sense-making and exploration: dealing with complexity through serious play

This paper focuses on the relationships between complex problems, sense-making, and exploration. We argue that we increasingly face complex problems for which we do not yet have effective coping methods. We further argue that, given the nature of these problems, it is useful to explore the role of play and games as effective coping methods. Through play we can make sense of complex phenomena and explore features thereof. Games, and in particular online games, seem to provide interesting features for capturing and dealing with complex problems. However, we argue that the games are not yet matured enough to fit the requirements for coping with specific professional settings. This leads us to propose a framework that includes games as one of four mechanisms. The framework is tested in a professional case