The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine goes online / virtual
This week, we will see an operational version of our team building exercise, The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine. First developed as a board game in 1993 and sold and delivered globally, we have been working with a software development company to bring the same dynamics of play generated in face-to-face game deliveries into a mode that allows for remote players to engage in collaboration, strategic planning and fun as they put together their plan to Mine as Much Gold as We Can!
As more and more companies get back to a more normal operational framework, we will continue to sell and support our board game versions for groups of 3, 4 and 6 tabletops of six players each. We will also continue to sell our Professional Edition which allows for basically unlimited numbers of tabletops.
Lost Dutchman — Virtual is designed to operate with pods of 6 teams, with up to 4 players per team. It will play on the common browser platforms and have extensive communications capabilities for collaboration between the players on a team, between the teams, and between the pod Facilitator and everyone.
For those people who already facilitate the exercise, this online version should be a nice addition to your team building toolkit. Play will be very similar to what you already like and the learning curve for operation will be quick. For those new to the game, you can expect extensive online training and support materials, plus live support from our team (including my son and me).
Jeff Simmerman has been driving this forward. He has applied his online game playing experience over the past two decades to the look and feel of the virtual version. I should also note that he first helped me deliver the game at age 12, so he knows it really well. Jeff fully understands all aspects of play and design and has developed the exercise so that all of our extensive library of debriefing questions still apply. So, if you have a solid debriefing already packaged, you will be pleased to know that you can most likely continue to use that same focus, only without the players needing to be in one room!
We are not quite ready for our network of users to access the exercise, but we are moving fast-forward as best we can. Much of the distribution and execution of the licensing will be through our long-term colleagues at The TEAM Approach. We are also finalizing our agreement with our long-term Japanese associates, WorkHappiness, to bring their Zipangu version (LDGM reset into Japan) of LDV online and to support their use of LDV.
If you have any thoughts or questions, send us an email,
For the FUN of It! —
Scott Simmerman, Ph.D., CPF, CPT — “The Square Wheels Guy”
“Retired” Managing Partner, Performance Management Company — 864–292–8700
1520 S McElhaney Road, Greer SC 29651 USA
Scott@SquareWheels.com
- Tools, games and presentation materials at
<www.performancemanagementcompany.com>
Originally published at Performance Management Company Blog.
