The Benefits Of Creating A Corporate Board Game

The Benefits Of Creating A Corporate Board Game

By Colin Ong

In the age of mobile and virtual reality gaming, it can be quite hard to be convinced about the use of creating a corporate board game to boost strategy and team-bonding.

The board game seems to be quite out of place and meant for people who want a slower pace of life.

This is so much further from the truth.

Different Components Of The New Board Game

For example, the board can be created to highlight the current immediate fixed processes that cannot be changed in the short run. As an illustration, if you own a baking confectionary, the board can be the brand and the well-known cake offerings that your customers are expecting whenever they buy from you. Alternatively, if you run a DIY laundromat, the board can be designed tp take into account that you are using the current number of coin-operated washing-machines and dryers.

Now let's shift to the design of the playing cards, where each card can be a possible scenario that may occur in the daily running of your operations. Continuing from the case-study of a confectionary above, an example of a playing card can be a situation where your customer is asking for a change in the cake design for an upcoming wedding and you are given a very short notice to respond to this urgent request. Alternatively, you are informed that an important ingredient to make a marvellous wedding cake is out-of-stock and to respond to the chosen game card, you are supposed to propose an alternative ingredient that satisfies your customer.

Lastly, the dice can symbolise the number of days you are given to be able to solve the problem. Thus if you roll the value of 8, it can mean that you are given 8 days to change the ingredients and that you have to produce a Gantt Chart for each of the 8 days to win one round of the game.

With this simple board-game example in mind, here are some advantages to consider when your company set aside some time to design a board game.

Advantage 1: Relook The Entire Work-flow

Designing a board game has the important benefit of encouraging your entire team to relook the entire work-flow of your organisation. Every detail has to be presented for the design of the board or else it will not produce an accurate outcome.

Advantage 2: Official Vs Unofficial Work-flow

Immediately into the design stage, your team will discover that there will be a clash between an official versus an unofficial way of doing things in your organisation. This is not too difficult to understand as members of your design team will have different number of years of working experiences. Do reflect, not, reject these differences in your board game.

Advantage 3: Dynamic Environment

In the design of the cards, the entire team will draw out all the different scenarios of their dynamic working environment. This design can be further improved by getting external consultants onboard to provide futuristic insights to the environment or the introduction of commissioned market research.

Advantage 4: The Final Win

In the short run, this board game is meant as a strategic and internal communication tool. However, there will be private information and intellectual property that cannot be revealed to people outside of the organisation. It should not be played outside of your organisation premises.

Also as a learning tool, there should not be a final win in the game to reflect that the working environment is always dynamic and that there will not be a permanent winning position.

With this all in mind, enjoy building your own corporate board game!

Colin Ong TS is a recognised business lecturer and writer based in Singapore. He is also an adjunct business lecturer (entrepreneurship) in Nanyang Technological University, Asia's top-ranked university. He can be contacted for training and consulting work globally at  colinongts@hotmail.com

Article Source: The Benefits Of Creating A Corporate Board Game