Team building with a science-fiction board game: the BNI Italy case
One hundred people, ten tables, a starship in trouble and a single rule: no one is left behind. That is how No One Left Behind was born, the cooperative board game IPPOPO designed together with UPAYA for the BNI Italy National Conference.
Many people know IPPOPO for its LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® workshops. But the method is a tool, not the only one: when the goal, the group or the context require it, we design tailor-made team-building experiences, like this one. In this article we tell how the game is built, why it really trains trust between colleagues and how it went with a hundred participants.
How the game is built
Each table becomes the crew of the starship Aurora, called on to solve a mission on an unknown planet.
One crew per table
Each team builds its own identity and works as a single unit, with a common goal.
Different roles, different information
Medical, Science, Communications and Security Officers: each holds a dossier with clues the others cannot see.
A map to explore
An illustrated village, with places to visit and details to observe: the mystery is solved only by putting the pieces together.
No one left behind
No role can win alone: the mission succeeds only if every member of the crew contributes.
Why a game like this trains trust
Something surprising happens in work groups, studied since the 1980s by Garold Stasser and William Titus: when everyone holds different information, the group tends to discuss mostly what everyone already knows and to neglect what only one person has. Often that is exactly what makes the difference.
No One Left Behind is designed to break this pattern. Each role has clues the others cannot see: to solve the mission you have to share what you know and, above all, trust what the others say, without being able to check it yourself.
This is what social psychology calls positive interdependence: when everyone’s result depends on everyone’s contribution, people cooperate more, help each other and build mutual trust, as decades of research by David and Roger Johnson show. The game creates this condition in a few minutes, in a light context where making mistakes costs nothing.
What it trains
- Trust in colleagues’ information and skills.
- Clear communication, because every clue has to be explained well.
- Active listening to whoever holds a different piece of the puzzle.
- Shared decisions and distributed leadership.
How it went at the BNI Italy National Conference
About one hundred participants among executives and area directors, divided into crews of one table each. People who work in different cities and often know each other only by name found themselves depending on one another to complete the mission.
The game was co-created and co-led by IPPOPO and UPAYA: joint work from the design of the story and the puzzles to the management of the room.
The organisers’ feedback was very positive, and the word that circulated most at the end of the day was a single one: together. Laughing, working hard and collaborating in the same experience consolidated bonds that normally take months.
Board game or LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®?
It is not a matter of taste: it depends on what needs to happen in the team.
Bespoke board game
- Ideal for large groups and events, even with a hundred people in the room.
- Trains trust, communication and collaboration through direct experience.
- Strong narrative and fun component: it creates energy and enthusiasm.
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® workshop
- Ideal for teams of up to about a dozen people per facilitator.
- Works on the team’s real content: vision, goals, guiding principles.
- Produces concrete outputs to take back into daily work.
The two approaches are often combined in the same day. Discover corporate team building or read how to choose the right team building.
Sources
- Stasser, G. & Titus, W. (1985). Pooling of unshared information in group decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- Johnson, D. W. & Johnson, R. T. (2009). An educational psychology success story: Social interdependence theory and cooperative learning. Educational Researcher.
Written by
Samuele Granata
Certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitator and founder of IPPOPO. With over 10 years of experience in IT, he designs team-building workshops and games for companies, events and schools in Milan and Lombardy. About me →
Organising a company event?
We design a tailor-made team-building experience for your group, from small teams to large events.