Loop

Loop is a business game designed to offer participants a collaborative experience that encourages them to make the most of the talents of each team member, to work collaboratively with colleagues, to coordinate strategic moves, to allocate the common budget in the best possible way, and to react quickly to unforeseen events. The aim of the game is to bring a product or service to market as effectively as possible.

The idea for the game came from a customer who was in the process of completely reorganizing its sales, marketing and trade marketing departments, which were previously used to working in independent silos and were often competing with each other.

The roll-out of a new collaboration model was combined with the game, allowing people to experience the new logic of cooperation in a safe context. Players had the chance to absorb the benefits of the new set-up and discuss critical points in a constructive, entertaining and engaging way, instead of receiving the usual 20-slide document.

The game, which can be customized according to a specific industrial sector – in terms of both content and look – is a 100% digital format. It therefore allows all players to participate from virtually anywhere by using a virtual gaming platform along with conventional video conferencing software or collaboration tools, which are typical of gaming (Discord). The game was also developed in an analogue version.

Each game is played by a team of 3-6 players and several games can be played in parallel at the same time. One of our moderators is always at the team’s disposal to explain the rules and assist the team during the game, offering clarifications and advice. Players have to carefully consider their actions and choose a strategy together, coordinating their moves to generate the necessary resources to be able to sell the right product/service to the most appropriate target group through the most suitable channels. The decision-making aspects concern all stages of the product/service life cycle: from market research to the sales phase.

The customer’s leadership team took part in a pilot project that consisted of a mini-tournament made up of several games, aimed at involving middle management and operational teams.

The use of games to promote this type of corporate change is increasingly proving to be an effective way of simulating complex dynamics in a realistic manner and of putting players in a position to experiment in a new safe context where they can explore its boundaries by trial and error and learning by doing.