Serious Play

Planning teams are faced with increasing demands concerning their work. The variety of products, globalization, agility or sustainable manufacturing leads to increasingly complex planning processes. Furthermore, planning teams are distributed around the globe and are affected by a growing number of communication interfaces. Building upon this, this paper introduces a particular serious play method. The method intends to improve communication in planning teams and to support knowledge work in general. Furthermore, it tries to foster close collaboration among the planning team members using an interdisciplinary workshop setting and intense communication. Two case studies are utilized to validate the method’s supporting functions. The findings indicate that the method supports communication and knowledge work. Nonetheless, furthermore research is necessary to determine quantitative effects and additional application scenarios.

The purpose of this paper is to show how corporate strategy can be aligned with the production system of an enterprise to derive an operations strategy. Consequently, the operations strategy is employed to define prospective needs of agility. The research methodology builds upon action research that is realized in a long-term approach with two joint manufacturing companies. Both can be classified as small and medium sized enterprises (SME). The preliminary findings underline the importance of a holistic view towards agility emphasizing organization and people as major drivers of agility. These drivers are addressed by means of a playful intervention with LEGO-bricks.