The LeadershipGame Instructor's Guide - Discovery Innovation Growth
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The Leadership Game
Instructor’s Guide
Experiential Learning for Key Leadership Talents
Customer Centricity, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Modern Marketing
Collaboration, Team Performance, Business Acumen, Leadership
© 2016 INSEAD. The DiG Leadership Game (v1.0 and v2.0) has been developed under the direction
of Professor Jean-Claude Larréché, Alfred H. Heineken Chair at INSEAD, to offer an effective
experiential learning tool for key leadership talents. Kathy Lacey, Liliana Baquero, Rebecca Chung,
Dennis Contreras, and Yvette Roozenbeek contributed to this document under his direction. For
comments or further information, please contact Jean-Claude.Larreche@insead.edu.
Table of Contents
ABOUT DiG ............................................................................................................................................ 2
OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................................................. 3
A RICH BUSINESS LEARNING ENVIRONMENT ........................................................................... 4
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES WITH DiG ........................................................ 4
HOW TO SCHEDULE THE DiG EXPERIENCE ................................................................................ 6
HOW TO PREPARE FOR DiG ............................................................................................................ 8
HOW TO INTRODUCE DiG ................................................................................................................ 9
HOW TO SUPERVISE THE DiG EXPERIENCE ............................................................................. 14
HOW TO DEBRIEF AND CONCLUDE THE DiG EXPERIENCE ................................................. 19
Appendix 1: Frequently Asked Questions by Participants ................................................ 28
Appendix 2: Frequently Asked Questions by Instructors .................................................. 31
ABOUT DiG
The DiG Leadership Game (Versions 1.0® & 2.0® 2012-2016) was designed by Professor JC Larreche,
Alfred H. Heineken Chair at INSEAD (www.insead.edu), Founding Chairman of StratX (www.stratx.com),
and creator of several simulations, including the renowned strategic marketing simulation Markstrat.
More than 500 academic institutions, including 80 of the top 100 business schools in the world and 25
of the top 30 business schools in the USA, have used Markstrat.
The current version of the DiG Leadership Game has been developed, under Professor Larreche’s
direction, by DeMedicis. It has benefited from the contribution of many gifted professionals and friends,
including: Frank Massara, Yann Collet, Zohra Jan Mamod, Katherine Lacey, Laurent Bonnier, Jean-Michel
Chopin, Alan Slavik, Philippe Latapie, and Sebastien Lamiaux.
Further information on the DiG Leadership Game and the Global Network of DiG Instructors can be
found on www.digbusinesslearning.com .
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Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce
OVERVIEW
DiG (Discovery Innovation and Growth) is a leadership game, allowing executives and students to
develop key competencies, attitudes and behavior to power customer-based growth in business. It has
been designed as a versatile learning tool to effectively develop key business talents such as: customer
centricity, collaboration, innovation, entrepreneurship, modern marketing, team performance, business
acumen and leadership. The objective has been to offer a cost effective leading edge experiential
learning technology to all.
The DiG Leadership Game has been initiated as an INSEAD research project under the direction of
Professor JC Larreche. It is based on the research findings and business implications for leadership
development of Professor Larreche’s book “The Momentum Effect”. Before being shared with a wider
audience, the DiG Leadership Game has been tested and improved in many different learning situations
involving more than 2,000 participants in over 500 teams and from more than 50 countries. These
participants included business executives and students from a wide variety of sectors. Their learning
experiences have been captured and enriched over time.
In the DiG leadership game, small teams of 2-4 executives or business students manage a firm in a
fictitious context, far from their usual business setting. The mission of each team is to maximize earnings
growth over a 5-year period, through innovating and deploying new versions of their product, the
MagicPen®. Participants have to go through the business value creation process: discover customer
insights, test them, design new offers and growth boosters, and implement market deployment
activities.
The DiG leadership game offers a motivating, fun and risk-free environment, in which participants are
out of their comfort zone, with the opportunity to think and act outside the box. This creates
enlightening memorable experiences and long-term retention of key insights. In addition, it reveals
participants’ attitudes and behaviors and provides an ideal setting for coaching. During the 3 years of
pre-launch use of DiG in executive seminars at INSEAD, there is rich evidence that participants have
applied key learnings in their business activities.
The DiG learning experience typically includes the following 3 stages:
1. Preliminary sessions: to present and discuss the addressed topic, and to introduce the DiG
leadership game
2. Team assignment: includes participation in the DiG game and possibly preparation of a team
presentation
3. Debriefing sessions: presenting team results, lessons learned and possibly real-life applications.
The whole experience generally lasts from 4 hours to multiple days. It can be integrated into courses of
different topics, and in a physical classroom or in a virtual e-learning setting. Because the DiG game is
web-based, it can be run wherever there is Internet connection, with PC, Mac or tablets without any
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local installation. It is currently available in 6 languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and
Korean.
A RICH BUSINESS LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
The DiG leadership game has been designed to provide a time-effective learning experience. It has also
been designed to provide a rich business environment for a wide variety of learning opportunities. From
the discovery of customer insights to the creation of profitable growth, the DiG leadership game gives a
complete overview of the business value creation process, including:
- Understanding the particularities of a new unknown business situation
- Process of development of a customer offer: customer insights, testing, design
- Customer discovery initiatives
- The cost of non-innovation
- Creating options through innovation
- Selection of customer value components
- Selection of customer value propositions
- Creation of power offers
- Selection of growth boosters
- Effective pricing decisions
- The various meanings of customer value
- WTP (willingness to pay)
- Achieving customer engagement
- Deployment of resources for effective market development
- Creation of quality growth
- Creation of business value
- Monitoring of key performance drivers
- Adapting to the requirements and opportunities of an uncertain environment
It is the richness of this simulated environment that allows facilitators of various expertise to use the
DiG leadership game to add an experiential learning extension to their practice… and a deeper
experience for their clients.
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES WITH DiG
The DiG leadership game provides a stimulating learning environment for executive seminars,
workshops or special events. The DiG experience in these contexts requires from 4 hours to 2 days. It
can be used to address one or a combination of the following topics:
Customer centricity : bridging the gap from a vague understanding of customer orientation to a
pragmatic appreciation of real customer focus, the discovery of customer insights, and the overall
process to transform customer focus into business value
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Innovation : developing a broad innovation culture, emphasizing the importance of customer insights in an open-innovation environment and the link with value creation Marketing : providing a value creation perspective on the modern role of marketing, from the identification of customer insights to the development of power offers and the execution of effective market strategies Business acumen : illustrating and practicing the whole business process from customer insights to innovation, market deployment, and value creation, including the requirements for quality in both innovation and execution Growth: building a shared realization that each individual has unlimited opportunities to participate in the creation of quality growth, from the identification of customer insights to the aligned execution of a business strategy Value creation : understanding the various meanings of value and reconciling the creation of value for individual customers and for the firm Entrepreneurship: encouraging attitudes and behaviors for exploration, taking initiatives, managing risk pragmatically, and building the ability to bounce back from failures Collaboration : capitalizing on the full potential of others to create maximum value, based on a deep understanding of internal customer needs, motives and capabilities Team performance : revealing and applying the drivers of effective team performance in a realistic and intense business environment Coaching : placing individuals in a high-involvement competitive environment where they unknowingly expose their natural behavior leading to observation, reflection and debrief in the context of a coaching session Leadership: exposing selected facets of leadership (including self-awareness, active listening, collaboration…) and developing the ambidextrous skills of innovation and execution required in the value creation process In addition to typical learning settings, the DiG Leadership Game can also be used in a variety of situations, including special events, offering inspiring introductions to the purpose of modern business, and personal assessments. Special Events The DiG Leadership Game is well suited in special events such as annual management meetings, talent development retreats, new staff orientation programs, problem solving workshops, and brain-storming sessions. In such events, it can in a short time serve as an energizing team-building exercise opening minds and hearts towards collaboration, customer centricity, and innovation The Purpose of Business There is a growing realization that business is the major driving force of the economy, but the business world suffers from a poor image in some circles, including young students and other non-managerial professions in a diversity of areas such as humanities, politics, international studies, engineering, sciences, medicine and law. DiG covers a concise but complete perspective of the business purpose, from the customer to innovation to value creation and thus provides an inspiring eye-opening learning experience for non-business students or practitioners. The learning enthusiasm is further fueled by the team work, the competitive situation, as well as the fictitious and futuristic nature of the Magic Pen. Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 5
Personal Assessments
The DiG Leadership Game provides a rich environment where individuals can reveal their attitudes and
behaviors both in terms of the simulated situation (involving innovation and execution talents) and in
terms of the actual situation (managing their time, energy and ultimate purpose). If the DiG Leadership
Game is assigned to a team of 2 to 4 individuals, it will also allow them to display their interpersonal
skills.
HOW TO SCHEDULE THE DiG EXPERIENCE
The DiG Leadership Game can be used by instructors for both executives and business students, in
courses, seminars, workshops or events addressing any of the topics listed above.
Scheduling – The typical approach
The DiG Learning Experience can be delivered in a classroom setting, or via an e-learning platform. It can
be scheduled for 4 hours at minimum in one continuous session, or in multiple sessions over several
days with or without take-home assignments. It typically includes:
Session Average Time Remarks
Duration depends on the breadth and depth of
Introduction At least 30 minutes
concepts to be covered
Team Team participation in running the competitive
At least 2 hours
Assignment DiG Leadership Game
(could be take-
home) Additional time Team preparation of learning points (optional)
Sharing of learning among teams and highlight
At least 1.5 hours
of key teaching messages by the instructor
Debriefing
Additional 0.5-1
“Back to Business” component (optional)
hour
Total At least 4 hours
Variant – Executive Audiences
For a long executive development program, instructors can consider the take-home assignment format.
For short executive development programs, instructors will usually schedule a continuous session, either
in the morning, afternoon or evening.
To leverage the practical experience of executives, instructors can add 30-60 minutes for the “Back to
Business” component, asking practitioners to reflect upon how they can apply their learning to their
own real-life business situations. The addition will make the whole experience last at least 4.5 hours.
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Variant – Graduate Student Audience
Because of the long duration and assignment-intensive nature of degree programs, instructors usually
prefer the take-home assignment format. In such a scenario, instructors may even ask each team to
submit a written report, in response to additional assignment questions, to deepen their understanding
of certain concepts and to sharpen their analytical and/or argumentative-writing skills.
Instructors may ask students to conduct research to come up with real-life examples illustrating the
concepts related to the DiG Learning Experience. Such research may include internet searches, literature
reviews, or interviews of associates or business executives.
Variant – E-learning Environment (both Graduate students and Executives)
The DiG Leadership Game being web-based, online courses can be delivered for practitioners or students
anywhere in the world so long as they have internet access, through e-learning platforms, such as Webex
or NetMeeting. Regional or global courses are particularly useful for customized programs, reaching
dispersedly located employees of international enterprises or organizations. Although instructors may
run a continuous session, it is more effective and flexible if they run a series of 30-minute sessions and
use the take-home assignment format (see scheduling below). Instructors may choose between real-
time video/audio/text communication only, and a mix of real-time communication and sequential
communication such as emails. The following considerations are important for e-learning use of the DiG
Leadership Game:
Team composition: While teams can be located in different parts of the world, the learning
experience is more effective if members of the same team can gather in the same location for
face-to-face interactions.
Timing differences: While it is easier to organize regional course to minimize timing differences,
sometimes it is necessary to deliver truly global courses for international enterprises or
organizations. If the teams are at extreme time zones, it is better to minimize the “plenary”
session that involves all teams at the same time, and instead, use alternatives such as the video
recording and comment posting functions.
Scheduling: Each session may last for about 30 minutes to keep participants’ attention. While
instructors should give the teams enough time to finish the assignments, the break between
two sessions should not be too long, i.e. no more than 2 weeks, in order to keep the momentum.
One possible 3 to 4-week schedule is as follows:
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Timing Activity Remarks
Day 1 Introduction – Part 1
Day 4 Introduction – Part 2 If needed
Day 4-11 Team Assignment 1 Running of the DiG Leadership game
Day 11 Submission Deadline 1 Completion of the 5 years of DiG
Day 11-18 Team Assignment 2 Conducting self-assessment and preparing for the
sharing of learning
Day 18 Submission Deadline 2 Team presentations (2 slides maximum) and/or
written reports
Day 22 Debriefing – Part 1 Learning
Day 25 Debriefing – Part 2 Team results
Day 28 Debriefing – Part 3 If needed, for the “Back to Business” component
for executives
Variant - Second Run
In addition to the typical process outlined above, instructors may schedule additional time and ask
participants to run the DiG leadership game again, allowing them to refine their learning. Please note
that new logins and passwords are required for the second run. It can be done in two ways for different
teaching objectives:
1. Same teams (1 hour for simulation & 0.5 hour for debriefing): It is likely that each team will
achieve higher performance and hence gain confidence in grasping the concepts and satisfaction
of making progress; and
2. New teams (1.5 hour for simulation & 0.5 hour for debriefing): The additional purpose of this
approach is to test or further develop leadership and team building skills. It can be a powerful
extension of a team building exercise, facilitating participants to work with more classmates or
colleagues and hence to understand more about each other’s strengths and styles.
HOW TO PREPARE FOR DiG
Once the scheduling decisions have been made on how to use DiG in an executive program or university
course, in face to face or online fashion, the key elements in preparing for effective delivery of the
experience are the following:
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1. Instructor package: The package available to the certified DiG instructor includes:
a. The DiG User Guide
b. The present DiG Instructor Guide
c. The “Introduction to DiG” slide deck
d. The “DiG Conclusions and Debrief” slide deck
e. The DiG Instructor Software Guide
2. Pre-reading: It is advised that participants should read the short and self-explanatory DiG User
Guide before the introductory session. To add to the motivation, it can be distributed with a
note indicating that the exercise will be a team competition and that good understanding of this
document is important. This will allow the instructor to only cover the essentials in the
introductory session. If this is not possible, the instructor can choose to distribute the DiG User
Guide in the introductory session and give participants about 20 minutes to read it.
3. Team composition: Participants may already be organized in teams that can also be appropriate
for the DiG exercise. If specific teams can be organized, best is to aim for groups of 3 or 4
participants as our experience shows us that this group size produces the most effective
learning. The selection of team members can privilege diversity (to promote divergences and
network learning) or on the opposite homogeneity (to facilitate following implementation of
learnings in a corporate program addressing a specific challenge). In some particular settings,
instructor may prefer to let participants to form their own teams during the introductory
session, but then at least 10 minutes should be devoted to this task.
4. DiG logins: Each team should be given the URL to access the DiG software together with a
username and a password. In addition, the instructor will need an additional login if he/she
wants to do a demonstration of the software.
5. IT infrastructure: Teams can use their own PCs, laptops, or tablets to access DiG with one of the
standard browsers (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Firefox). DiG is compatible with all
existing operating systems (Microsoft Windows, Apple MAC OS…). A good internet connection
is required, wired or wifi.
HOW TO INTRODUCE DiG
The introductory session to DiG may contain the following parts:
1. Connecting the DiG exercise with the selected learning topic
2. Reviewing the essence of the DiG context
3. Making a short demo of the DiG software
4. Providing clear instructions to the teams
5. Answering questions
The slide deck “Introduction to DiG” contains the various illustrations used in this section and several
others. Beyond the more formal aspects of this session, the instructor should however be aware that it
should also help the participants understand the benefits of experiential learning, and feel the fun,
creativity and action-orientation of the exercise. This session should typically take between 30 and 60
minutes.
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Connecting DiG with the selected learning topic
The DiG leadership game is a versatile tool and can be used to facilitate learning in a variety of topics,
including customer centricity, collaboration, innovation, entrepreneurship, modern marketing, team
performance, business acumen and leadership. It is important that the DiG experience is positioned
appropriately within the overall learning context. The instructor who has been certified and knows the
DiG tool in depth will have no difficulty in this task.
If an overall perspective on the business purpose of value creation is appropriate, one may use the
following simple 3-step roadmap that is a leadership extension of The Momentum Effect (JC Larreche,
Pearson, 2008) :
Starting from the end, the 3 steps of this roadmap can be simply explained as follows:
o Customer engagement is the ultimate vision: Customers who are emotionally engaged
with your products pull your firm forward. They are loyal, convert other customers,
suggests improvements, and perform other activities without being paid. In the modern
business world, they are the ultimate measure of success and the key drivers to
sustainable value creation.
o Power offer is the engine: A good product is necessary but not sufficient to create
engagement. It takes a Power Offer, with “+++s” (trust, prestige, belonging,
confidence,…) on the top of a good product to create positive emotions leading to
engagement
o Customer discovery is the source: The development and nurturing of a Power Offer
entails new insights. This requires continuous discovery to understand customers better
than they know themselves, and to break the implicit wisdom that “we know it all”. This
requires coming out of the routine and of our comfort zone.
Depending on the topics covered around the DiG exercise, the instructor should be aware that this
roadmap may be extended, as shown on the graph below, to leadership (just replacing the word
“customer” by the word “people” in the roadmap) and to self-development (just replacing the word
“customer” by the word “own”).
Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 10If topics such as collaboration, coaching, or leadership are addressed by the instructor, this graph (included in the slide deck) can be used after the DiG exercise is completed, to foster a valuable discussion on the universality of the discovery to engagement roadmap for effective leadership. It is mentioned here only for completeness but should not be mentioned at this point to the audience as focus should be on the mission to be given to the DiG teams. Reviewing the essence of the DiG context The introduction slide deck contains a number of slides that can help in ensuring a clear understanding of the objective of the DiG exercise. Instructors can select the slides they want to use, and add their own. Most important is to provide, in whatever way, a clear reminder of the teams’ mission as indicated in the first page of the DiG User Guide: “Inovink is renowned for its revolutionary offer, the magicPen®. Our Founder and Chairman, Jim Shovel, built the company around a simple idea: a pen without ink, that writes by changing the color of the cellulose on the surface of paper. The product has been an instant success and, with a few more innovations, the company has enjoyed a rapid early growth. Jim has expressed the desire to slowly distance himself from the operations of the business, and to take a non-executive Chairman position. He wants you to take the company to the next level. In this context, your mission is to maximize value creation as measured by earnings growth, and your 5-year long term incentive plan is based on that single objective. Good luck and let's meet again in 2026” The 8 activities that the teams will have to manage can also be clearly reminded with the following slide. You may want to indicate that the yearly budget process has been simplified to concentrate on the big picture: 1000 units are available to be allocated between 7 activities (ie all except price). Also note that Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 11
the budget not spent this year cannot be saved for the following year, a point that business executives
know well, but that students may not always be aware of!
Short demonstration of the DiG software
Doing a demonstration of the DiG software may be useful if time allows. The main objectives are to have
a live illustration of what is in the User Guide, to prove how easy it is to browse through the software,
and to show the sequence of actions that teams will be able to go through.
In each of the 5 years of the DiG leadership game, 2021 to 2025, each team needs to make decisions for
each of the stages below:
While this appears as a logical sequence, following the Actions menu from the top down, teams can take
decisions in any order, in an iterative fashion if they prefer. The instructor may decide to reveal the
following items during the demo, or when answering questions, or to leave participants discover them
during the exercise.
1. Discover will allow teams to launch new customer discovery initiatives that will identify
customer insights, which can then be put to Test and used in the design of new Offers or new
Boosters. Design can be implemented only after an insight has been discovered and tested.
Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 122. The decisions on Discover, Test and Offers influence the unit cost, and hence indirectly affect
the decision on Price. One of the “company policies” is to cap the price increase over the
previous year to about 20% to reduce the risk of losing existing customers. This is not explicitly
indicated in the User Guide to keep the effect of surprise and to demonstrate the need to
discover and test the scope of management options. Price and the value contained in the offer
are the key elements of the potential “Waooow effect” that can lead to customer engagement.
3. The decisions on Discover, Test, Offers and Boosters influence the resources left to be allocated
between iComm, mComm and Access at the Deploy phase.
4. Once decisions are made on Discover, Test, Offers and Boosters, participants cannot revoke
them. However, they can still make additional decisions on these activities as well as Price and
Deploy, in any order
5. When clicking on GO TO, a warning message appears recapitulating the decisions made. If these
decisions are confirmed, the current year will be simulated and results generated. There is then
no way back to changing past decisions!
Providing clear instructions to the teams
Before letting the participants go into teams, it is important that the instructor gives them clear final
instructions in terms of:
Objective: The team objective in the DiG Leadership Game is clearly “Maximization of Earnings
in the year 2025”. Note this is the same as maximizing the CAGR (Compound Average Growth
Rate) in 2025, but not the same as maximizing cumulative earnings over the 5 years!
Team performance: The teams should start by reflecting early on what they need to do to
increase their performance. Some of the ideas they may have, or that could be suggested to
them, include: Creating their own identity by choosing a name (eg Tigers, Eagles, Diggers,
Stars…) may create more team spirit than using the default username for the software (eg
SW641, TYF015,…); Organize themselves and allocate different tasks; Keep track of time; Have
a process to learn from the outcome in a given year to improve decisions in the next year…
Timing: There is a learning effect over the 5 simulated years that should allow the teams to go
faster over time. A table like the following one can serve them as an example of what they should
decide for themselves.
Learnings. While the stated goal of the DiG Leadership Game is Earnings, the ultimate objective
is Learnings! The instructor may decide to let participants record freely their learning points (the
Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 13DiG software contains the facility allowing teams to do this progressively online) or to give them
some time (20-30 minutes) to discuss them after they have completed the 5 simulated years
and reached the end of 2025. In this case, the following form has been found useful to crystallize
the teams’ conclusions. The distinction between “Learnings on Strategy” and “Learnings on
Leadership” may sometimes surprise participants. This comes from the fact that they focus
usually on the game in the computer (ie DiG) and do not give enough attention to the game in
the room (ie team dynamics). This is in itself an illustration of the real life task orientation (as
opposed to the people orientation) of managers. Depending on the central topic of the event,
more emphasis can be placed on one or the other of the two types of learnings.
Answering Questions
It is always useful to ask for “burning questions”, if only to uncover non anticipated issues, but the
instructor should not allow too much time for questions at this stage. One of the aspects of the DiG
Leadership Game is to develop the participants’ discovery mindset and encourage their team-building
abilities through shared exploration. DiG is an experiential leadership game and participants should
learn by trial and error rather than by asking their instructor… But there are times when the instructor
should definitely help teams in despair!
HOW TO SUPERVISE THE DiG EXPERIENCE
The DiG experience really starts when participants meet in teams to learn about each other, to access
the DiG Leadership Game on the web, and to eventually start making decisions. In an executive program,
teams will typically meet at the same time and in the same building. In university courses or online
programs, teams are likely to be dispersed and to meet at the time of their choice within deadlines. The
DiG Leadership Game can fit any if these situations but the instructor will ensure a better learning
experience by anticipating his/her role in the exercise, understanding the general pattern in the
Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 14performance of the teams over the 5 simulated years, and creating a forum for the exchange of learning points within and between teams. Role of the instructor during the team DiG experience The role of the instructor during the team assignment will vary highly depending on the topic addressed with the DiG Leadership Game. When the learning objective is more centered on a business strategy area such as customer centricity, innovation, entrepreneurship, modern marketing, or growth, the role of the instructor can be flexible. He or she can decide to let the teams totally on their own, to be just available in case of questions, or to be more involved with the teams. If the objective of the exercise is more in the sphere of leadership, including coaching, collaboration, team performance, or assessment, the instructor may have to be more present during the team meetings, at least as an active listener. However, even in such situations, the instructor can also be absent from the team meetings if the choice has been made to produce a video recording of the team sessions for later debriefing. In all cases, it is best for the instructor not to interfere with the teams at the beginning of their DiG meetings, and to let them develop their own dynamics. The instructor can then, at a distance, monitor the progress of each team with the DiG instructor software (see the separate document for details). The first benefit from this web-based software is to allow the instructor to see how the various teams advance through the 5 simulated years until the total completion of the exercise. If the instructor desires, he/she thus can contact specific teams and tell them that they are running late and should speed up, or on the opposite that they seem to move too fast and that they could maybe spend more time reflecting on their strategy. The same software also allows the instructor to have access at any time to the results of a specific team to review their performance, or to answer a question. Finally, it is the same software that automatically generates a comparison of the teams results and allows the instructor to easily and promptly do a graphical debrief of the DiG Leadership Game when the exercise is completed. Team performance over the DiG experience Each team is unique and develops its own identity and its own way to operate. However, there is a general pattern in team performance over the DiG experience that is partly engineered in the design of the game to ensure effective learning. Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 15
Round 1: 2021
This is really a warm-up round to familiarize team members with each other, to practice the DiG
software, and to experiment with different strategic options.
The software is designed so that the results of this first round are likely to be good (earnings
growth between 20 and 90%) to create an encouraging and positive learning climate. The
expected positive results are due to three main effects: the high proportion of the population
still unaware of the existence of the Magic Pen, the potential for a quantum jump in innovations
(the previous ones being minor beyond the basic Magic Pen concept) and the additional
disposable resources (as in the previous year a substantial portion of the budget had not been
spent).
When teams obtain their good results for 2021 they usually attribute them to the quality of their
decisions without investigating other factors
Round 2: 2022
This is usually the most challenging year, although the teams do not realize it until they obtain
the results of this year
Encouraged by their good 2021 results, teams operate in a good collaborative atmosphere and
tend to consider marginal improvements in their strategy, hoping for continued success
When teams obtain their below expectations results for 2022, they most often are surprised and
disappointed. The good team atmosphere that prevailed for two rounds of decisions usually
ensures, however, a constructive attitude towards seriously reviewing the situation and
rethinking their strategy
Teams that preformed less well in 2021 are more likely to have got through more reflection and
to perform better in 2022. Teams that performed well both in 2021 and 2022 without being
seriously challenged may face a crisis in future years, for lack of having been challenged earlier.
Round 3: 2023
This is usually the time for deep questioning by the teams. By then, the context and the
operations of the software are well understood. The focus of the discussion is really on strategy
and on team dynamics
The teams are usually ready to spend more time and resources on innovation and customer
centricity. At this time, the test is if they also keep an eye on execution and especially monitor
the evolution of the unit contribution
In reaction to their poor results, some teams may on the opposite go back to basic instincts and
protect their earnings. They can achieve this by increasing price, cutting down on innovation,
and accepting a drop in the number of customers. While this may increase earnings in the short
term, it is not sustainable and set the situation for valuable future lessons.
The results for 2023 show differentiation between the performance of the various teams.
However, as the above remarks indicate, it is not the level of earnings that most influence future
performance, but the way these earnings were achieved
Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 16Round 4: 2024
Most teams should have established a “way to operate” and should just be fine-tuning their
strategies, increasing the value delivered to customers at the same time as they are increasing
the value for their firm.
Some teams will still be consolidating a sub-performing unbalanced strategy, either capturing
too much value from the customers at the expense of future growth, or giving too much value
to customers at the expense of earnings
Other teams will enter a late crisis and will find themselves in a situation usually encountered in
round 3
The results for 2024 should show the teams if they have had a stable earnings growth for the
last 3 years, a sign of stability, or if the evolution of earnings is still shaky.
Round 5: 2025
For most teams, this should be a year of fine-tuning with easy and fast decision making
Some teams will still be consolidating, restructuring, or attempting an ultimate move to create
significant value.
Whatever the situation of the teams at this stage, one valuable observation is if they keep
investing for the long term (especially through innovation, discovery, testing, and maintaining a
reasonable margin) or if they try to maximize short term earnings in their last year (by cutting
down on innovation or abnormally raising prices and their margins)
When teams receive their final results at the end of 2025, most of them will see that they have
created value, ie the earnings they produce in 2025 are higher than the earnings in 2020, just
before they took over. However, they do not know if they have created more of less value than
other teams. It is a good idea to tell them to keep their results confidential to keep the suspense
until the final debrief
Team reflection on learning points
When teams have completed the 5 simulated years, it is a valuable exercise to ask them to reflect on
the lessons learned through the DiG experience. The form presented above, separating learnings on
strategy (“the game in the computer”) and on leadership (“the game in the room”), has been found very
effective to organize the discussion in the teams, to help them list a large number of points, and to
record the ones perceived as most important by the team. This exercise is particularly valuable as each
team comes up with different learnings based on their background, composition, and particular
experience in the DiG exercise. The items recorded are also an eye opener for the instructor who
generally has anticipated more general and conceptual learning points. As an illustration, see below the
outcome from two teams:
Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 17This team session on learning points can take many forms. In an executive program, allocating 20 to 30 minutes for this is sufficient. Placed in between the completion of the DiG exercise and the debriefing session, it also gives time to the instructor to review the teams’ results before the concluding session. In longer courses with business students, more time can be made available and a written assignment can be given in which teams have to analyze their performance and present their learning points in a more complete format. While the above form separating learning points on strategy and leadership has been found effective, instructors can design their own tool depending on the topic addressed and the objective of the exercise. The general idea is, however, to create a forum to give the opportunity to discuss the learning points from the DiG exercise first within each team, then to enrich them with those of other teams, and finally to put them in perspective with the learning objectives intended by the instructor. Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 18
HOW TO DEBRIEF AND CONCLUDE THE DiG EXPERIENCE
The concluding session to the DiG experience may contain the following parts:
1. Learning points as perceived by teams (20 minutes)
2. Learning points presented by the instructor (40 minutes)
3. Presentation of results by the instructor (20 minutes)
4. Answering questions (10 minutes)
The timing above is based on a typical session of 90 minutes and will need to be adjusted according to
the time available and the dynamics of the session. The DiG experience provides ample learning
material, and if the instructor can allocate more time, best is to have two separate sessions, one just
following the exercise for an open discussion of learning points (1 above) and a later one with more
inputs from the instructor (2-4 above)
The slide deck “DiG Debrief and Conclusions” contains the various illustrations used in this section and
several others. If offers a structure and the contents to provide important learning points, an explanation
of some more intriguing aspects of the DiG Leadership Game “inside”, and an effective approach to
present team results. It is designed to be used “as is”, in totality or in part depending on the time
available. However, with experience, most instructors will prefer to develop their own presentation,
using this slide deck selectively and adding slides that cover the topic they wanted to focus on, relating
the learnings to previous sessions.
An important consideration, however, is to concentrate on learning points before presenting results.
Given the competitive nature of executives or business students, reinforced by the DiG experience, most
are eager to discover the results. When these results are revealed there is usually a burst of emotions,
followed by passionate comments and discussion. Following this by a presentation of learning points is
not impossible but challenging. On the opposite, leaving the revelation of results at the end, allows the
instructor to keep attention and to build the suspense until the end of the session. Moreover, this
sequence also allows the instructor to come back to some of the key learning points when presenting
the results.
Learning Points as Perceived by Teams
When teams have been asked to reflect on their learnings through the Strategy/Leadership form, or
another instrument, a good approach is to start the session by asking volunteers to present, insisting
that they should be punchy and concise. If the audience is relatively small (5-6 teams), all teams may
end up presenting. If the group is larger, the instructor could limit this part to around 4 or 5
presentations, or stop earlier when teams do no longer volunteer.
Depending on the situation and the style of the instructor, another approach consists in calling on teams
that have had very different performance: some of the best and worst teams in terms of results, some
Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 19teams that have had a particular performance (for instance poor initial results and impressive turnaround), or some teams that have had especially strong or poor interpersonal dynamics. This more directive approach is less spontaneous but more likely to bring good material that can be referred to in the rest of the session. If teams were not given specific time to reflect on their learning points, it is still a good idea to challenge the audience and ask them what they have learned through the DiG experience that can be transferred to the “real world of business”. This will usually start a valuable and good-humored discussion which can be fed by separating the two issues of strategy (the game in the computer) and leadership (the game in the room). Although this part of the session is really valuable, it has usually to be limited to 15 to 20 minutes. If time is available, the instructor can however have a full session on the team’s discussion of their learnings and keep the other parts (debrief and conclusions) to a later session. Learning Points Presented by the Instructor This presentation will highly depend on the elements that the instructor wants to emphasize depending on his/her area of expertise and the topic that he/she has decided to focus on with the DiG experience. In the slide deck provided, the first slide provides a mapping of 4 avenues for value creation, as shown below. This slide usually creates a “aha” moment as participants realize the challenges they have gone through in their DiG experience and also witnessed in the business world. The instructor may want to comment this slide in his/her own words starting from the bottom left hand corner and ending with the top right hand corner. The instructor may also want to change the labeling of the horizontal (“Business Focus”) and vertical (“Customer Focus”) axes depending on the emphasis of his/her program. What is important to communicate, however, is that value creation and business success require mastery of the “hard” horizontal dimension and the “soft” vertical dimensions. This leads to the development of ambidextrous leadership talents that can be kept as the ultimate conclusion of the DiG experience. Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 20
At this stage, participants are probably reviewing in their own mind how their team progressed through
the 5 simulated years in DiG and where they stand in the final 2025 year. If asked, the instructor can use
the following table to guide his/her answers, although this is only a rough outline to explain what is a
more complex situation.
Steady Charity Greedy Shaky
Number of Medium High Small Small
Customers (100-110M) (>120M) (The 4 parts indicated in this chart are developed in the slide deck and only some specific items will be mentioned here. Under the customer-based innovation umbrella, the three most important points that business executives take away deal with mental barriers, the concept of the innovation funnel, and a deeper understanding of WTP (Willingness To Pay). It is clear from the onset that innovation is an important aspect of the DiG environment, and all teams believe that they have given it full attention. They are equally convinced that they have been very innovative. The reality is that no team ever gets close to having leveraged the full innovation potential in the DiG Leadership Game. This is evidenced by the number of times that teams hit the innovation limits set within DiG. There are indeed limits for the number of discovery initiatives, the number of tests, and the number of new designs that can be performed in any year. Only a few teams occasionally hit some of these limits, while the true innovative spirit would be to test the frontier of feasibilities. The net result is that teams usually discover from 20 to 45 insights over the course of 5 years, while the maximum number achievable is 120. It does not take long for participants to reveal that they “thought” that “it was not possible to do as much”, ie that they had placed without reason their own constraints on innovation, even in a risk-free learning environment. This is akin to corporations which, in response to complaints for the lack of resources to innovate, released major resources for innovative projects, only to discover that requests for such resources are much less frequent than anticipated. One of the resolution often heard by participants following this demonstration is that they will be careful in the future not to be trapped in their own implicit constraints! The second important consideration concerning customer-based innovation is the importance of building an innovation funnel. The tendency is indeed to jump on the first identified innovative opportunity that is “good enough” in terms of the criteria considered such as customer value, cost efficiency, and business potential. One of the lessons from DiG is that the real value of innovation is in creating strategic options allowing leadership to select the most promising ones. This requires an important funnel, with many discovery initiatives generating a large number of insights, a proportion of which are tested, so that only a very few gems can be rolled out in the market. Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 22
Still in the area of customer-based innovation, the third issue of particular interest for strategically oriented participants is the concept of willingness to pay (WTP). It represents the maximum price a customer is ready to pay for a given offer and hence reflects the perceived value of the product for that customer. Increasingly referred to in strategic discussions, WTP is a useful concept to represent various dimensions of customer value. However, it is most often not feasible to measure it for individual customers, except in particular situations (single large customer, exploratory research for new product…). The estimate of WTP typically used thus refers to an average value for a population. This is the approach adopted in DiG. It requires, however, understanding the perspective of individual customers hidden behind this average WTP. This is best illustrated by the graphs in the slide deck contrasting the “theory” and the “reality” of WTP and shown below. The “theory” reflects the implicit belief that all customers have the same WTP. This can lead to a pricing strategy close to WTP and maximizing short term value to the firm, as per the “Greedy” avenue to value creation. The “reality” of WTP is that every customer has a different willingness to pay, due to many factors including disposable income and interest for the product, and WTP is actually not a single number but a distribution of values. A WTP just higher than the price of the product (such as for customer X on the graph) is likely to lead for a purchase by a customer who will be passive or just satisfied. A very high WTP (as for customer Y) is likely to lead to a purchase by a customer who will be enthusiastic for such a good perceived deal and will become engaged. And this graph also clearly shows that a price decision, is also a decision to exclude a number of customers from the market, ie all customers who have a WTP below the selected price as shown by the red area. The learning points on customer-based innovation lead naturally to the two distinct and complementary mindsets that are required for successful value creation in the modern environment: the discovery mindset and the execution mindset. The second one has been promoted actively since the 1980s as the dominant spirit of the effective corporate leader. With evolutions in society (the emergence of generations X, Y / Millennium), the pressures on growth, the development of the internet economy and other global forces, a new emphasis has been placed on leadership talents as indicated by the more frequent appearance of a new vocabulary as shown on the right hand side of the table below. Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 23
The new emphasis on the right hand side does not replace the requirements on the left hand side. Discovery talents have to be developed in addition to, and not in replacement of, execution talents. The DiG Leadership Game has been designed so that both types of talents have to be displayed in order to achieve a high performance. The key for the development of such talents is first in the two different mindsets that they require. Quality execution is based on rigor, focus and alignment. This is achieved through analysis, objectives, plans and the usual management panoply. True discovery is based on a thirst for exploration of the unknown and an aptitude to readily test and try new ideas. The combination of strong execution and the thirst for discovery (or other words used for these two distinctive talents) provides what can be called ambidextrous leadership and is summarized on the slide reproduced below. This is the concluding learning point presented by the instructor in the slide deck. It can lead to rich discussions on the development of modern leaders and can be widely expanded upon if the main topic for which DiG was used concerned the “softer” aspects of leadership, including collaboration, team performance, coaching, or assessment. Presentation of Results by the Instructor Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 24
The moment that all participants have been waiting for is this presentation of team results, especially the 2025 earnings which represent the stated objective in order to know “who has won”. If time allows, it is however better to start with the results on a few critical indicators and to build towards the 2025 earnings, in order to make additional points and deepen the learning experience. Instead of showing only the 2025 results, it is also preferable to show the evolution of the selected indicators over the 5 years, ie the whole DiG team experience. This can be done very conveniently and in an interactive mode using the DiG Instructor software as explained in a separate document. A more structured and faster way to present the results is indicated in the slide deck where 9 indicators have been selected in addition to 2025 earnings, organized in 3 categories: Conception Metrics, Execution Metrics, and Key Results. Here is a selection of the graphs that can be presented on 3 indicators: Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 25
These slides are rapidly produced by making a simple copy/paste from the graphs available in the DiG Instructor software onto the provided Instructor Powerpoint templates. These graphs vividly show that, starting from identical situations, the 9 teams in this program have evolved very different strategies. They also show that some teams have decided on a strategy early on, and then have pursued it with minor adjustments, while others made several strategic shifts over the 5 years. The final slide to show is the one everybody was waiting for and contains the evolution of earnings, including the results for 2025 that decide “who has won” according to the preset objective. At this time, the audience usually burst into cheers and enthusiastic discussions that can last for several minutes! If the instructor wants to have a discussion on the evolution of performance, including asking challenging questions on the underlying drivers and the decisions made by various teams, best is to hide the 2025 results and to have this discussion on 2021-2024. This still keep the suspense and can foster a good debate. After the audience has calmed down, the instructor may want to congratulate the winning team, give them a token prize, and ask them to explain the key reasons for their top performance. Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 26
Answering Questions In the conclusion of this final DiG session, the instructor may want to answer a few questions that the participants may have, and this DiG Instructor Guide provides abundant information to answer such questions. The one most frequently asked is however: “How well have we done compared to all teams that have gone through DiG?”. The actual distribution of 2025 Earnings achieved over a population of more than 500 teams is shown in the following graph: The average 2025 Earnings in this distribution is around 900M$, the highest is around 2B$, and the lowest is around 200M$. In summary, 2025 Earnings can be considered good above 1B$, very good above 1.2B$ and exceptional above 1.4B$. Some further questions that participants frequently ask are listed in Appendix 1 with appropriate answers. Appendix 2 also covers a few questions that have been asked by the colleagues who have been using the DiG Leadership Game during the testing phase. This document with these two appendices should help you master the DiG Leadership Game and provide great learning experiences for your clients and students. Have a great time using DiG and enjoy the experience! Jean-Claude Larreche Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 27
Appendix 1: Frequently Asked Questions by Participants How many years should I run the DiG Leadership Game? It is designed to be run for 5 years, from 2021 to 2025. This allows a sufficient long-term perspective to test and adjust strategies, to assess performance, and to provide an effective learning experience. One can obviously stop before reaching the end of 2025 but this will not give a complete exposure to the intended learning experience, and will not allow comparison of the results with the established benchmarks. Why is there a limit in price? Instructor’s may want to tell the participants at the beginning that there are operational constraints that they may discover in the 5 years of simulation. They should explore as much as possible but obviously not everything is possible. The price of the MagicPen cannot increase by more than 20% in one year, to avoid losing too many existing customers, but this information should only be confirmed only to the teams that have discovered it. Do Boosters have an impact on unit cost? No, Boosters do not have an impact on unit cost. In addition to the testing cost, they only have a onetime design cost. Just like for advertising campaigns on traditional or digital media. What is the meaning of Intensity of a discovery initiative? Intensity refers to the depth of a discovery initiative. In the example of customer interviews, “minimum intensity” may involve 20 interviews of 30 minutes each, “average” 50 interviews of 60 minutes each, and “high” 50 interviews of 120 minutes each. What is the meaning of Scope of a discovery initiative? Scope refers to the width of a discovery initiative. In the example of customer interviews, “core” means searching for insights around the core concept of a writing instrument, “wide” may cover insights in occasions close to a writing instrument (mobile phone, recording…), “open” allows the investigators to look for insights in all spheres of interest to a Magic Pen customer including health, sports, leisure… What is the meaning of Cover? Cover indicates the percentage of the population that can find the Magic Pen without special efforts, either in traditional channels or in online stores. What is the maximum number of potential customers? There are potentially 200 million customers. What is the best way to organize ourselves? There is no best way. It is completely up to the team to determine the most appropriate way to perform, and it is part of the learning experience; Confidential – For Certified DiG Instructors only - Do not reproduce Page 28
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