t-ORG – Understanding Organisations – management game

t‑ORG – Understanding Organisations is a complex simulation game designed to help participants experience and reflect on key organisational management concepts through active play. The method uses a card-based competition combined with structured interaction rules to simulate four different types of organisational structures: network, hierarchical (pyramid), matrix (project-based), and solar (leader-centered). Across these phases, participants explore leadership, communication, teamwork, decision-making, and organisational roles by adapting their behaviour to different constraints and systems.

You need prepare a card-based system where each participant aims to collect four matching cards through exchange, while adapting the setup and rules across four distinct game phases that each represent a different organisational structure. The session begins with preparation, introduction, and explanation of core rules, followed by sequential or parallel gameplay rounds where communication and interaction rules vary (for example, restricted communication in hierarchies or centralised exchanges through a leader in the solar model). Each phase includes clear time limits, structured interactions, and scoring to track outcomes, while facilitators observe group behaviour. After each phase and at the end of the full activity, detailed debriefing sessions are essential to connect the experience to organisational theory, comparing how communication flows, leadership emerges, and decisions are made under different systems, ensuring participants translate gameplay insights into broader understanding of organisational dynamics.