Your next kick-off, played on a board
A board game of your business and your year ahead, built for your team and run by me on the day. Up to 20 people, around two hours, and everyone leaves knowing what the year’s priorities mean for the decisions they make.
Why it's different
A kick-off often has one session people remember: the escape room, the quiz, the cook-off. It’s fun, and it rarely has anything to do with the year ahead.
This one does both. Your team plays your own business through the year ahead, with the priorities for your year built into the events and decisions on the board. Every table faces the same year and the same surprises, makes its own choices, and sees where those choices lead. The debrief brings it back to the priorities the kick-off exists to launch.
How the session runs
1. Briefing
About 15 minutes. Teams of four to six sit at up to four tables, each with its own board. The briefing introduces the business, the year ahead and everyone's roles, and walks through one example decision on the board.
2. Play
90 to 120 minutes. Play moves through your year in rounds. Each round's events are announced to the whole room at the same moment, so every table plays the same year. Each person takes a role based on your own team, so nobody watches from the side.
3. Debrief
25 to 30 minutes. Tables compare results and the reasons behind them: why one table put its effort behind one priority while another spread it across all of them, and what that says about the year ahead.
At a glance
- Group size: up to 20 people (four tables of five); tables work with four to six.
- Time: 2 to 2.5 hours, including briefing and debrief.
- Where: your venue or office, within about 80 miles of Reading: London, the Thames Valley, Oxford, Bristol, the South Coast, Milton Keynes, Birmingham and Coventry. Further afield by arrangement.
- What's provided: printed boards and cards for every table, all playing pieces and the room leaderboard. Allow about 45 minutes to set up.
- Price: £1,500 plus travel. For the first sessions, £1,000 plus travel.
Built around your year
Each game is built from scratch for your business. Before the build, we talk through your year ahead: what the business is aiming for, the priorities the kick-off needs to land, and the pressures your team will face along the way. The Sim Smithy framework then builds the game around them, and you see and approve the board before it goes to print.
Printing takes up to two weeks, so for a January kick-off the time to talk is by mid-November.
See an example
Two short looks at example games, each built for a fictional business. Yours is built around your own business, your priorities and your team’s roles.
What I need from you
- A date, a rough headcount and the location
- An hour of conversation about the year ahead, plus some background on your organisation: what the business does, the priorities, and what's getting in the way. Rounded figures are fine, and I don't need personal details about your people or customers
- A room with up to four tables
- For three or four tables, it helps to have one person at each table who knows the rules a little ahead of the others. If that suits you, I'll brief them for 15 minutes beforehand
- Sign-off on the board before printing
Your information stays confidential. I’m happy to sign a mutual NDA before you share anything. Your game is built with AI, so what you share is processed by my AI provider with model training switched off.
Prefer to run it yourselves? Tell me when you get in touch and we’ll talk through what that would involve.
The first sessions
These are among the first kick-off sessions I’m running, which is why the price is introductory. Half when you book, half after the session. If the session doesn’t meet your requirements, you don’t pay the second half. In return, if the session meets them, I’ll ask for a short testimonial, a few photos or a short video of the day and a reference call with a future client.
Planning a kick-off?
Tell me the date, the size of the team and where you’ll be, and I’ll come back to you within a couple of working days.