For whom? 

• companies realizing creative projects, IT software, marketing and event companies considering an adaptation of agile methods of work; 
• directors, managers and specialists (HR, project management); 
• project managers;
• everyone willing to participate in their teams’ development;
• people who need to unite employees around their projects; 
• teams’ managers

The business simulation is an interactive behavioural workshop, created on the basis of the mechanism of traditional games (board, role play and card games).  It is in fact learning on the basis of one’s own experiences, the decision process analysis and a possibility to get to know often unobvious consequences of taken decisions. 

The participants take up different roles, working in a simulated world – a reality created for the workshop’s purposes. The world, although distant from everyday work reality, reflects particular business conditions. Therefore the participants, thanks to the trainer’s support, easily transfer their observations and conclusions to the reality of their own work, team or the whole company, at the same time acting in a new environment, far from the everyday routine.  

The business simulation is an effective tool for testing new concepts and solutions. It works both in case of a need to introduce a change in an organization, e.g. by implementing a new method of work as well as on the level of particular teams, where it influences the level of teams’ integration and allows for potential problems identification. Last but not least it is also useful as a tool supporting the development of competences, innovation and also the evolution of an organizational culture. 

The business simulation is connected with a feedback workshop, which enables a discussion and reflection on the accomplished tasks.

We recommend to complement the feedback workshop with topics related to team management, communication, dispersed teams, introduction to agile project management.

Examples of workshop programmes can be found on our website:  MG-ZP-01 Agile project management -  theory, philosophy, practice;  SF-KB-28 Communication in project teams. 

The Royal Garden is a complex and multi-layered simulation, with a possibility of wide implementation. It can be used both as an effective tool in the process of improving competences on the level of key behaviours as well as diagnostically. 

Even though the mechanism of the simulation was based on the Agile principles and philosophy, the workshop itself is not only addressed to persons interested in agile management and can be successfully used to increase the effectiveness of team work. 

Examples of the simulation application: 

• Supporting the Agile transformation  -  it enables to empirically understand the Agile principles and philosophy as well as to identify the potential problems while implementing a new method of work in an organization;
• Integration of groups and teams – increasing the effectiveness of team work, improving the communication and co-operation, also in case of work in dispersed teams; 
• Learning by experience – effective adoption of new techniques and tools thanks to the experience and understanding how one’s own behaviour, decisions and style of communication influence the simulation’s result.

The Royal Garden was created on the basis of the agile project management principles, according to the Agile philosophy and manifesto.

It shows a complicated project both from the managerial as well as from the operational perspective. There are operational (developers) teams, which in practise are self-governing teams. Their task, during a project, is to organize their own work and set up the rules of communication so that their workflow is undisturbed, and the vision of Sun King and quality criteria can be fulfilled.  

The following elements are emphasized in the simulation:

• Agile philosophy -  with a special emphasize on mutual reliability, transparency, openness to co-operation, and above all on „one team culture” concept;
• Communication – on the level of operational (developers) team and co-operation with the second team as well as with the project managers and a number of stakeholders in the project, whose help and opinion often prove to be indispensable to achieve success.
• Analysis of information – each role in the simulation has a part of specialistic knowledge, and only gathering of all information and correct analysis allows to successfully realize the project. 

The simulation does not require any special preparation.

The simulation can be conducted in the following variants: 

• Group of 16 participants (recommended variant)  
• Group of 8 participants (minimal variant) 
• Group of 9 – 13 participants (optimal variant)