Gamifying interdisciplinarity and decision-making

Experimenting organisational culture with a role-playing game

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Sector

Education and organisational culture

Summary

Analysis of decision-making processes
Analysis of competencies and leadership
Definition of a collaborative purpose
Process design to define possible interactions
Game design

The need

An academic background that trains young talents to the structure of corporate organisations is quite rare. However, once young talents graduate, they start working in teams and sit at decision-making tables sharing processes with people who bring other skills to develop complex projects.
In addition to this specialised education often, even unintentionally, nurture disciplinary biases that produce distrust between people with different backgrounds.

This approach has a negative impact on companies' life, produces difficulties in collaboration and limits the ability to innovate.
How, then, is it possible to train collaboration between different competences and explaining at the same time the different roles of an organisational structure?

The insight

What kind of experiences can drive people to discover spaces out of their comfort zones? How is it possible to engage people to look at the world through the eyes of others? How to drive a group of young talents to reframe?
These research questions fuelled our project.

Our research led us to the world of role-playing games where players have fun experiencing conditions different from their own and simulating the lives of others. A challenge, however, is needed.

The solution

Unlocking innovation through role-playing

We developed a team challenge inspired by the role-playing game of Dungeons and Dragons in which each participant plays a defined character, with roles, decision-making profiles, known explicit objectives and secret implicit objectives.

Each role was defined based on the most common roles found in manufacturing companies and design companies, formulating a typical catalogue of different decision-making approaches and responsibilities due to different competences.

Unlocking innovation through role-playing

The challenge of this project was to find an engaging and educational gimmick to prepare new talents for the challenges of innovation in a world of increased complexity.

Experiencing how different cooperation and synergy skills produce more effective solutions

The game was developed as a deck of character cards in a business challenge where the purpose of the match is to reach the best possible deal between a manufacturing company and a design company.

Will the different characters be able to withstand the opposing personality pushes and manage the hidden decision objectives in a way that creates shared value?