Muutostaito’s Game Concept – Implementing Change Through Game

The Roots of Muutostaito’s Game Format

The foundation of Muutostaito’s game format was laid already in the late 1990s. At that time, a game-based intervention tool called “The Collaboration Game” was developed for team development. The tool was built around a question library covering all key areas essential for team growth. The game was developed at Helsinki University of Technology, and several academic studies were conducted on its application during the development process.

Unlike many of today’s training board games, the essential idea behind this game was not to teach teamwork. Instead, the questions within the game guided the team to engage in dialogue around topics important for team development, helping them to jointly address and agree on emerging issues. There were no right or wrong answers to the questions. The game was played on a board, and by moving on the board, players could choose the type of question they wanted to address. The questions were divided into three themes: rules of teamwork, problem situations, and getting to know each other. The game was structured as an individual competition, where players earned points, for example, by aligning with the majority opinion on a given theme. The winner was the first to collect a set number of points in each of the three themes.

This game was, first and foremost, an intervention tool for organizational developers—not an educational game. It was used in over a hundred organizations and, based on research, achieved strong results in supporting team development and improving organizational communication.

Development of the Game Format into a Team-Based Game

The Collaboration Game was a functional game concept, but it could only be played by a maximum of eight participants in a single session led by one facilitator. Additionally, the game’s scoring system needed improvement to make it more flexible in terms of game duration. At that stage, the question library was also tightly limited to themes related to teamwork.

Based on the core ideas of The Collaboration Game, the “Change Makers” game concept was developed in the late 1990s. This version was designed for groups of 16 to 25 participants, with teams—rather than individuals—responding to the game questions. The theme of this game was change leadership, and nearly 200 pre-written game questions were created and printed on cards, covering various aspects of change leadership at a practical implementation level. At the time, the game also included a game board placed on a wall.

The Evolution of Muutostaito’s Game Concept into Its Current Form

The Muutostaito game format has been developed over the past seven years. Muutostaito acquired the rights to the original game format developed in the late 1990s, and it has since been modified and improved so that the game elements function more effectively and the content themes have expanded to cover all key areas of organizational development and the needs of modern business.

The game board that was previously placed on the wall was moved to the table of each team. Small groups received their own game board in the center of the group, which helped to intensify group work. Scoring was separated from the board and became the responsibility of the game facilitator. As a result, all players can continuously see both their own team’s and competing teams’ point standings.

Oleellinen muutos oli pelivetäjän roolin vahvistaminen. Nykyään pelin fasilitoi aina Muutostaidon oma tai Muutostaidon sertifioitu pelivetäjä. Tämä sallii enemmän ja monimutkaisempia sääntöjä, jotka varmistavat, että pelissä on riittävästi vaihtoehtoja ja se ei liian helppo tai liian vaikea. Koulutettu vetäjä antaa tarvittavat säännöt oikeaan aikaan. Siten pelaajat tuntevat, että he hallitsevat pelin riittävän hyvin kussakin vaiheessa ja heille tulee sopivasti uutta pelin edettäessä. Koulutettu vetäjä pystyy myös etukäteen suunnittelemaan pelin dynamiikkaa tapauskohtaisesti ottaen huomioon kunkin asiakkaan tavoitteet ja ryhmän kokoonpanon. Ryhmädynamiikkaa ohjataan aktiivisesti myös itse pelityöpajan aikana. Hän voi esimerkiksi lisätä pelillisiä elementtejä, jos ryhmän dynamiikkaa sen vaatii esim. tuplaamalla pelikierroksesta saatavat pisteet tai toisaalta vähentämällä pelillisiä elementtejä ohjaamalla aktiivisesti pelinappuloiden siirtomahdollisuuksista. Muutostaidon peliformaatti toimi entistä mallia paremmin ja pelin toteutustavat alkoivat kehittyä entistä nopeammin useiden toteutusten myötä.

A Flexible Game Format

A key feature of Muutostaito’s game format is that the questions in the game do not have predefined correct answers. The scoring of team responses is based on shared discussion. The game design process focuses more on asking the right questions than on finding exactly the right answers.

Content design and delivery were improved and streamlined by implementing an information system that includes all previously used game questions. This enhances the planning process and makes it easy to select questions that best fit the theme and context. New questions are also continuously generated based on customer needs. Currently, Muutostaito’s question library includes over 2,500 game questions.

The Muutostaito game format supports the use of various game boards, each marked with key headings related to the board’s theme. Game boards can also be customized for individual organizations—even for a single workshop.

Today, a large portion of game implementations use custom-designed game questions and boards tailored specifically for each client. This allows the client to have a game and content aligned with their own brand. In addition, the client becomes part of a co-creation process, where Muutostaito’s game format and expertise in crafting suitable questions is combined with the client’s business knowledge and experience.

Why the Muutostaito Game Format Works

The purpose of Muutostaito’s game format is to create a structured process through the game, where participants generate interpretations, insights, and solutions to pre-designed questions and themes. The discussion in the game is generated by the players themselves, and solutions emerge through shared dialogue. Participants bring their own interpretations, tacit knowledge, and personal experiences into the game. They are motivated to engage in the conversation because the topics are directly connected to their own work.

In the game, participants first respond to questions and answer options in small groups, and then continue the discussion in a larger group. The answer options are designed to highlight different, relevant perspectives related to each question, ensuring rich and meaningful dialogue.

A Trust-Based and Open Atmosphere

The core philosophy of Muutostaito’s game format is polyphonic, multi-voiced dialogue—the belief that all perspectives are valuable. This creates an open and trust-based atmosphere within the game. Even participants who don’t usually engage actively in training sessions find it easier to take part, as the questions are directly related to their own work and there is no risk of “failing” with their answers.

Investing in Responses and Listening to Others

A central element of Muutostaito’s game format is understanding and listening to the perspectives of other teams. Within each team, participants must also make joint decisions within a limited timeframe, reaching a group consensus without voting.

The game motivates and encourages participants to provide well-reasoned and high-quality answers, as teams evaluate each other’s responses—and every team will, in turn, be evaluated. Because teams assess one another’s answers, those responses become even more engaging, and listening to other teams’ viewpoints happens naturally in the workshop, further increasing the game’s intensity.

This combination of thoughtful response-making, active listening, and time pressure creates a level of intensity and a working atmosphere that differs significantly from traditional group work.

An Emotion-Driven Game

In Muutostaito’s games, emotions arise primarily from the dynamics between players—not so much from the interaction between the player and the game content itself.

Although the games based on Muutostaito’s format are clearly not entertainment games, the competitive setup and the different interpretations of questions and wording often create humorous moments and space for laughter. The facilitator manages this emotional dimension with professional skill, lightening the atmosphere when needed or guiding the group back into a focused working mode.

Emotions are more likely to emerge in Muutostaito’s game format because familiar colleagues provide feedback to one another—either in the form of points or verbal comments. Since there are no “correct” answers, the feedback is based on each person’s or team’s subjective interpretation and viewpoint. Emotional reactions often surface in situations where participants must accept differing ideas as part of the game. For example, a team might not receive points for a well-thought-out answer because another team interpreted the question differently. On the other hand, moments of joy and success can be strongly felt when another team shares a similar perspective—and the result is reflected on the scoreboard.

The Emotional Dimension Is a Core Part of Muutostaito’s Game Dynamics. The involvement of emotions is a fundamental part of the dynamic in Muutostaito’s game format. It makes the discussions more personal and deeper, as players are required to view issues from perspectives different from their own. Because of this, the conversations that take place during the game tend to be more memorable than those in a typical training day.

Activating the emotional side is also crucial at the end of the game, when participants create their own personal action plans—reflecting on how they intend to think or act differently in the future.

Equal Dialogue

The structure of the game plays a key role in ensuring that all players participate on equal footing—regardless of their role or position in the organization. At the same time, the game’s structure and timing are designed to ensure that all planned topics receive the intended amount of discussion time, and that socially dominant personalities do not take over the conversation.

The Right Questions Are Essential

When it comes to the outcomes of the game, the selection and formulation of questions is the most critical factor. The game must steer the discussion in the intended direction, creating a clear need to move from the current state toward the desired goal.

However, the topics and wording of the questions play a crucial role in shaping a solution-oriented and unifying atmosphere in the workshop—and in determining how well the game discussions lead to practical actions and future changes.

When selecting topics, it is important to ensure that the questions address issues that matter to all participants and that as many participants as possible can influence through their own work. The questions must also be worded in a way that avoids “pseudo-democracy”—where people are seemingly invited to discuss something, but the actual decision is made by someone else. For this reason, the questions rarely focus on strategy or alternative courses of action, but rather on how the chosen direction can be effectively implemented within the organization.

Another Perspective on Framing Discussions and Questions: Static vs. Dynamic

Another important lens for approaching discussions and question design is the distinction between a static and a dynamic perspective. Since this is a change-oriented game, we formulate the questions to highlight the tension between the current state and the desired future state. The aim is to guide the conversation toward how to move from the present to the target state in the specific area being addressed.

The game format itself encourages understanding differences, appreciating diverse viewpoints, and tolerating various interpretations of the same topic. At the same time, we want to support a focus on practical action rather than getting stuck in semantic or linguistic nuances. The emphasis in discussions should remain on actionable steps rather than theoretical differences.

In the future, Muutostaito will continue to focus on games where the core function is to activate peer-to-peer dialogue—where the interaction happens socially between players, rather than between the player and the game tools.

Implementing Change Through Muutostaito’s Game Process

In recent years, Muutostaito has not only developed its game format but also the entire process by which the game is delivered.

Early in the process, the game design phase was refined to allow highly agile and rapid customization of content for each client. As a result, an increasing number of games are now tied to timely and relevant organizational themes. In most cases, the aim is to use the game as a catalyst to initiate or accelerate a change process that is important for the organization.

In this context, a change process is understood broadly—it may involve large-scale initiatives such as strategy implementation or cultural transformation programs. On a smaller scale, it can mean supporting a group participating in the game to start behaving or working differently in specific areas. Examples of such games include the Leadership Game and the Wellbeing-at-Work Game.

The design process focuses especially on identifying the key question areas where real change is desired. A parallel approach to question design is to ensure that the game content covers the essential dimensions of change leadership: the why, the what, and the how. In practice, this means that in addition to discussing what is changing, players also compete in articulating why the change is necessary.

Post-Game Process

The game concept is intentionally designed to include both a collective responsibility and an individual responsibility level. In practice, this means that, for example, at the individual level, we never run a game workshop where participants leave without a concrete challenge, plan, action, or commitment they intend to carry out afterward. This is rooted in our core philosophy: we do not view the game as an educational tool, but as a means of implementing change. Therefore, it is not enough that a participant gains new insights or learns something—the goal is for them to immediately take something from the workshop into their everyday work.

Over the past two years, we have developed a process to follow up on the plans made during the game and evaluate their implementation. This follow-up process typically lasts 3 to 6 months, meaning that from the participant’s perspective, the game process now extends beyond a single day to several months.

From a change implementation standpoint, the process helps to create and sustain intrinsic motivation for change. It gives participants autonomy to choose the specific change they want to make in their own work. Because the plans are made public, the process also promotes social commitment and peer learning. In the final phase of the process—the “post-game”—participants reinforce their sense of achievement and receive positive public feedback for the progress they’ve made. Successes are noticed and celebrated.