Management Mania 2023: Revolutionising business management education through board games

ATLAS SkillTech University is using board games as a hands-on and interactive approach to teaching management concepts. This approach provides students with valuable skills and strategies that can be applied in real-world management scenarios.

Recently, the university organised Management Mania for FYBBA students, encouraging them to create board games that presented management concepts in fun and interesting ways. The event was a part of the assessment component for the subject of Organisational Behaviour and was conceptualised and planned by faculty in-charge Prof. Aamir Anees Munshi. The event was a huge success with 450 students across all six FYBBA divisions participating and showcasing 30 different board game models. The models were examined by an eminent panel of juries from the world-class digital agency Deloitte Digital, including Ayan Pal, Head of Experience & Design, Deloitte Digital US, Rajasee Rege, Specialist Leader- Creative Director, Deloitte Digital USI, Ravikant Joshi, Product Design Lead, Deloitte Digital USI, and Zahra Munshi, Experience Design Consultant, Deloitte Digital USI.

When individuals are given the opportunity to apply theoretical classroom knowledge in the real world, where there are complex situations, time constraints and consequences that cannot be undone, they are able to develop profound practical knowledge and decision-making abilities. Games have an important place in cultivating good strategists and that now more than ever games can give student leaders an edge over their competition.
–  Meena Desai, Dean- Undergraduate Programs, Admissions & Partnerships

Winners

1^st Place: Strategy of Success

The game strategy of success is an adaptation of the iconic game of monopoly with a twist of various management based concepts. It takes you on an exciting journey of entrepreneurship by covering every aspect of the fundraising journey from pitching to investors to taking your company public.

The game challenges players with management-based questions of varying difficulty levels, from multiple-choice to one-line questions. Players choose the number of steps they want to take and must answer a question from that set. Incorrect answers result in moving backward the same number of steps. With higher steps comes greater risk, as the questions become more challenging. The game’s objective is to guide players from a self-funded business to an IPO using strategic management skills demonstrated through successful question answering. In the end, the highest funded company is the winner.

Team members: Mitali Bhutta, Suzy Paladiya, Kanika Bachani, Archie Arora, Sanya Dhruv, Daksh Chheda, Rajprit Sahni, Rayan Hegde, Krish Kothari, Jay Malani, Zain Moon, Nityanand Shetty and Dev Parekh

2^nd Place: Crossroads (Ludo with a twist)

Crossroads is a game of Ludo that takes strategy and intelligence to the next level. Players start by rolling a 1 or 6 to begin. Challenges of varying difficulty levels from 1-3 must be crossed within one minute, or players will skip a turn. If two players land on the same mark, they must answer a Pictionary-style challenge, with the first to answer correctly moving forward. A star-marked block poses a similar challenge, with success resulting in a safe zone and failure meaning the player moves back a block. During the home stretch, failure to answer a star-marked block question results in skipping a turn before rolling again. The winner is the first player to reach their home section, making Crossroads a thrilling and challenging game.

Team members: Heer Shah, Aditya Shroff, Aditi Bhagat, Aditya Dhanak, Shrruti Shinde, Aryaveer Goel, Dhriti Vora, Dhananjay Vardhan, Ranvir Gaur, Tanisha Ratnani, Yajat Singh, Khush Gupta and Dhruv Dabral

3^rd Place: The Chase

“The Chase” is a fantastic game where contestants face off against a Master Quizzer known as “The Chaser”, in a battle of knowledge and strategy. The game consists of the following rounds:

Cash Builder Round – Players roll a dice to land on colored tiles and complete instructions on corresponding cards to earn points for the next round.

Head to Head Round – Players face off against the chaser in a quiz round, choosing between higher or lower offers with corresponding levels of difficulty. They must answer multiple choice questions to reach the bank before the chaser catches them. If caught, they are eliminated and lose their money; if they reach the bank, their money is added to the prize fund.

Team members: Areez Dordi, Vidhin Shah, Nandini Poddar, Ananya Bhala, Nishit Mehta, Ryan Shah, Vatsal Navsariwala, Tirth Patel, Saaib Sopriwala, Chaitanya Tolani, Ishan Tarwani, Manav Bajaj, Surabhi Attarde, Dhanvi Galande

Benefits of using games to enhance management skills

• Games offer cost-effective and prompt feedback, simulate tailored environments, and adapt to learners’ individual needs, enabling faster knowledge absorption compared to traditional methods.
• Games provide an interactive learning experience through immersive audio-visuals, requiring students to analyze, judge, decide, and reflect. Multiplayer games develop game-theoretic skills and tap into traditional board game culture.
• Games facilitate structured analysis of student leaders’ behavior, exploring alternative scenarios and paths not taken, improving the decision-making process by reflecting on actions, implicit choices, and intermediate steps.
• Games enable testing of different scenarios, simulating exogenous shocks, and requiring specific strategic responses.

Glimpses of Management Mania 2023