A Fun Way to Experience How Resource Management Can Succeed

For the last three years, we have played our very own resource management board game with many different organizations (check out some photos below!). Our colleague, Christian Jacob, first introduced this game in 2020 at the itdesign PPM conference. Since then, the game has led many organizations to their big “Aha!” moments. 

The Resource Management Game is amazingly fun, a wonderful competition, and playfully explains how organizations can better plan their employees’ capacities. 

Why Did We Invent the Resource Management Game? 

• Talking about resource management and actually practicing it are two completely different things. Negotiations about people and what they should be doing have their own particular social dynamic. We play the Resource Management Game to learn the intricacies of this, and to recognize the difficulties in the process.
• In the game, similar-to-real-life tasks are given to the participants. With these, a winner is established, and some pressure is put on the teams – there is something at stake!
• In the safe environment of the game, typical role-based relationships come to fruition. These relationships can also bring conflict.
• Each team has the chance to reflect on which challenges arose during the game, and if these could also exist in real life.
• During the game, different solutions for resource management are introduced and played out – this can also serve as a blueprint for changing Resource Management in the future.

How Does the Game Go? 

• Teams compete against each other. Each team acts as a business that competes against the other businesses.
• Each team consists of three project managers, two resource managers, management and employees.
• Each round has different rules. In the first round, employees are freed of processes and can be selected for any job. They can simply be planned by the project managers. In the second round, the resource managers enter the game. They decide which projects should be staffed. In rounds three and four, the rules change again.
• For successful “staffings”, the team gets one point per round. The team with the highest amount of points after round four wins.

What Do You Learn in the Resource Management Game? A Little Cliffhanger… 

• We’ve heard consistent feedback from many surprised players and organizations: Now we understand, indeed […trade secret that we won’t reveal here…] Surprise yourself! Play the game and see what insights you reach at the end.
• We have to spoil the end for you a little bit: resource management works best in an organization that cooperates. And optimizing one part of the process doesn’t lead to good solutions overall.