Case Studies › Team Dynamics Pilot
Sticky Fingers: proving team dynamics in the room
A global precision-manufacturing company wanted to know if an experiential serious game, not a slide deck, could actually shift how their people coordinate under pressure. One live session was the test.
The Challenge
Prove the format before the rollout
The client wanted to strengthen how their people coordinate, communicate, and self-organise under pressure, and wanted to see whether an experiential serious game, not a lecture or a slide deck, could actually shift that behaviour in the room.
The pilot was the test: prove the format on their own people before committing to a wider rollout.
The Approach
The mechanic is the message
A short overview set the frame, then straight into a live facilitated cooperative game, Sticky Fingers, a card-based heist "escape room" played by the whole cohort against a clock, with every clue in one shared central pile.
With ~10 people, one shared pile, and a running timer, the team can only win by self-organising: splitting the pile, tracking state, keeping no one shut out, avoiding a single person hoarding clues, and saying out loud what they see. That is the Team-Dynamics lever, self-organisation and communication, surfaced by the game itself, not asserted on a slide.
Facilitation was live and adaptive. The same person designed and ran it, so the flow bends to the client's specific objective in real time, with a tiered hint protocol held in reserve so a stuck moment never kills the session, and a structured debrief that maps the behaviour in the room back to Collaboration, Communication, and Transfer, "what would you take back to your team?"
Results
A rollout signal, not just applause
This was a pilot run as a qualitative test, no feedback scores were captured on the day. What it produced was the signal that matters at this stage:
The client's senior decision-maker observed the session live and responded positively. Proof by experience, not by pitch.
The pilot moved a multi-batch rollout into live consideration. The client already had a series of small-cohort (8-10 people) team events planned, so a one-off pilot turned into a multi-batch programme conversation.
Why It Worked
Four reasons the room turned
- The game forced the behaviour. One shared pile, one clock, self-organisation was the only path through. The team lived the lesson instead of hearing it.
- Live-facilitated to the objective. The same person designed and ran it, so the flow bent to the client's Team-Dynamics goal in real time, something a licensed-game-plus-separate-facilitator vendor structurally can't do.
- The decision-maker saw it live. Proof by experience, not by pitch, the shortest path from pilot to rollout.
- It produced a rollout signal, not just applause. A pre-existing series of small cohorts turned a one-off pilot into a multi-batch programme conversation.
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