Board game pedagogy introduced by IIM Udaipur. Professors say students and corporates gave exceptional reviews

A new course is added to the courses provided by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Udaipur. To strengthen its MBA programme, the IIM has started a course, Management Games, which promotes decision-making through the application of management theories to actual situations, as stated in a report by the IANS.

A report in IANS states this course is curated carefully where students first play a board game followed by debriefing sessions where the faculty connects these games to the domain of management. This academic year, the course will be incorporated as a full 30-hour course which is a part of the MBA programme. Students would be learning through this distinctive pedagogy to enhance their engagement and retention levels.

Prof Shobhit Aggarwal, who teaches Management Games, said, "I believe that gamification of management education would revolutionise the way we think about learning." Further, she added, "The board-game-based pedagogy already has acceptance in the corporate world and the reviews received from both corporates and students alike are exceptionally good."

"I am confident that this experiential learning pedagogy is the future of high-impact management education in business school courses and also in corporate training requirements," she assures.

Speaking about the evolving pedagogy, the Director of IIM Udaipur, Prof Janat Shah said, "This course will equip students with advanced education that will enable them to manage real-world situations in their chosen field." He said, "It will also help students enhance their problem-solving abilities. We're expanding theoretical learning in the classroom to better grasp real-world difficulties during industrial applications. There can be no better way of teaching than imparting practical knowledge of making management decisions."

Giving more details about the functioning of the course, Shah said, "In this unique method, students play a board game, followed by a concept session that relates their experiences in the game to specific management concepts that they learnt during MBA."

Additionally, this programme was run at IIM Udaipur as a 15-hour course in the academic year 2021-22 and received excellent student reviews. Hence, this year onwards, it will extend to a full 30-hours course, he added. Key concepts included in games? Shah said, "Integrative negotiation, critical thinking, collaboration and efficient resource utilisation. More management concepts will be added to it eventually."