Procurement Remix: Methods for Public Participation in AI

As part of the launch for the Principles on Public Participation in the Procurement of AI this week we ran a play test of an adapted version of the Good Governance Game.

The idea for a procurement remix emerged at our local government focussed workshop with the Data Justice Lab in Cardiff earlier this year, when I had the chance to sit down with Warren Smith of Posterity Global and sketch out how the game might be adapted to think about methods for public involvement right across the procurement cycle. My best intentions of working up a revised set of game cards to reflect the personas involved in procurement, and some of the additional procurement-relevant methods that could be used hit up against the reality of a busy August and September. But, from constraint comes innovation - so last week I explored whether we could create an adapted version of the game simply on a sheet of A4, and the results were quite promising.

Below you can find the prototype in playable form. To use it, you will need to print and cut out cards, and then use the three A4 pages as instructions.

• Three A4 pages - instructions and game board (Use download to PDF or print options)
• Print and play cards (you’ll need the Method Cards; Person Cards and Challenge & Change cards)

Learning and next steps

Whilst we had previously tried to fit all the parts of the game into a standard playing card sized box, this iteration demonstrated the value of a larger canvas both for presenting game instructions and scoring, and for adding context to each of the four rounds of the game.

I’ve made a few tweaks to the version above already based on feedback from the session: making clear that it’s possible to select more than one method in each round, and better showing starting points for scores.

It was also interesting to see that the three groups trialing the game on Monday ended up with some variations in how cards were discarded or kept in play. In one group, the facilitator collected all the remaining method cards at the end of the ground, and re-dealt them to everyone: giving each individual player a greater variety of methods to consider over the course of the game.

There was consistent feedback that we need to boost the size of the cards, and simplify them. And I’m more and more aware of the need to update the list of methods.

Whilst we don’t have an ongoing project to develop the Good Governance Game further at the moment, I’m going to keep looking for opportunities to build on it, as it consistently seems to be a useful tool for engagement.