Using Board Games as a Method of Evaluating Team Dynamics
The board games of today don't resemble much of what they once were. You have choices of heavy strategy, deep planning, cooperative play or even legacy play that has you irrevocably change your game from play to play. All these new board game options also engages the players in new and different ways. Many of these interactions provide valuable insight into the personal interactions and strengths of the people playing and is being embraced by even the CIA as a means of evaluation.
Cooperative games are excellent tools for evaluating team dynamics. Often times these games require a vocal leader to help facilitate planning between player's actions in order to achieve the win objectives. Not only can it show those individuals with natural leadership inclinations, it will also reflect their style. Do they order other players to take certain actions, do they provide suggestions, solicit feedback from the group? What type of leader does your organization's culture seek and is this the person to fill that need?
There is also a subset of cooperative and party games that require players to communicate non-verbally. These games are valuable methods of finding those team members that have connections beyond typical communications. This connection can be reflective of the way they mentally process and communicate information. By positioning these connected team member roles on a team in a way to utilize this association, you can get better results, more productivity and boosted morale.
Playing board games at work as a means of evaluating skills is a great approach as it can be a stress reducing activity for the players and give useful feedback to leaders. Because of the proliferation of board games today, there are several available that can directly or indirectly simulate real world workforce skills such as strategic planning, logistical execution, time management, programming, resource control, etc. Many of these games are excellent means of evaluating people's skill strengths or uncovering their work function preferences.
I would encourage more organizations to start considering having board games available or bringing them in for sessions at their organizations. Managers can and should participate in game play with their team but pay attention to the activities of your team members during these games and you might learn something unexpected and useful.
