On running a DnD Campaign as an Enablement Event

We work with a team of great people, whose job usually starts once a contract is signed and a project to implement some solution begins. But before this point is reached a lot of prep work has to be done. Meeting the potential client and understanding their problem, coming up with a proper solution, estimating what it would cost to implement the solution and finally presenting the offer to the client. Each of those steps itself could be subject to a blog post as they are all interesting and have many aspects to them. Recently we were tasked to organize a workshop for our team to enable more of them to do this pre-project work as well. Note, our aim was not to turn them into sales people, but to enable them to support the sales process. To make it an educational and fun event we decided to do a role playing game, and since the feedback was very positive, we now feel like blogging about the experience. 

Automation consultants engaged in a DnD campaign by ChatGPT.

The idea was to divide the participants into groups of 3 people each, we and the other organizers took the role of a logistics company in need of some automation. The exact scenario was based on a real customer project, i.e. we pretended to have that project and wanted participants to figure it out. We also played our roles as if we were not involved in IT ourselves as in we describe the problem from a users perspective unaware of what aspects are important for the automation. The participants took the role of consultants, who,  through conversation, had to figure out what the pain point was and what the relevant aspects are. After that encounter every group was given some time to discuss what their solution was going to be and to prepare a presentation to pitch that solution. A ppt template was given beforehand.

Automation consultants engaged in a DnD campaign by midjourney

The final pitch was done with all groups together, i.e. every group got to see the other groups pitch as well. Since every group had been encountered with the same problem, it was intriguing to see what different solutions they came up with. And most interesting, the difference in cost estimates! Part of the pitch was to estimate the effort and therefore the cost as well. From our perspective the difference in project experience is what has the largest effect on effort estimation. 

The workshop was well received and we are looking forward to doing it again and exploring more ways to include role playing aspects into it. Since participants left the workshop with relevant ppt templates and cost estimation methods, they do now have everything they need to aid in sales processes as well.