200 in Kansas play Strategic Doing: The Game
We completed a leadership training this week at Kansas State University. Our Agile Strategy Lab team led about 200 participants in Strategic Doing: The Game. Participants learned to apply the deep skills of collaboration to design and guide strategies to address wicked problems or seize shared-value opportunities. This approach helps us scale the learning. We can play the Game with as few as 8 and with no upper limit.
The game begins with the scenario based on a real-life situation. Initially, we developed the game to teach residents of Flint, Michigan how they could begin rebuilding their neighborhoods and reducing youth violence by using the assets within their own personal networks. Players assume a fictional role that we have developed based on our experiences. We have developed games for different situations.
Our initial game focused on a midsize Midwestern city facing tough times. Think Flint or Kokomo. We’ve also developed a game to teach Strategic Doing to 50 teams at universities interested in transforming their engineering curriculum with more emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship. We developed a game for Lily’s IT department to explore how a functional department could provide a foundation to corporate innovation. Our colleagues at Mississippi State developed a game for small towns in Mississippi.
Each of these games introduce complex situations in which participants learn to make progress by linking and leveraging the assets within their own networks. As they follow simple rules, they see how complex, sophisticated strategies can emerge. They also learn how to drive strategy from thought to action. We are also exploring how the use of this simulation game can provide a base for research.
The Founder of the Lab at UNA and co-author of Strategic Doing: 10 Skills for Agile Leadership, Ed’s work has focused on developing new models of strategy specifically designed to accelerate complex collaboration in networks and open innovation. He is the original developer of Strategic Doing.