Workshop at Howest Idea & Innovation Management
Students immersed in process optimisation
The second-year students of Howest Idea & Innovation Management started their fourth semester in early February with a workshop from Evolynx.
With our Office Game, we immersed them in the world of process thinking, collaboration and continuous improvement.
An exceptional application for students
The Office Game is a simulation game that we usually run in corporate settings. It provides an accessible and practical foundation to help organisations grow towards a more process-oriented way of working.
This time, as an exception, we guided a group of second-year students. That made the workshop particularly interesting for us too: would students experience the exercise differently than employees who are already familiar with an office or corporate environment?
The unfamiliar context turned out to be no obstacle. The students picked up the assignment quickly and got actively to work on the various process challenges.
Learning by experiencing
The Office Game makes process thinking tangible. Participants experience first-hand where handovers go wrong, where waiting times arise and where collaboration can improve.
From uncertainty to concentration
In the first round of the game, we noticed some uncertainty. That's understandable: the students were getting to know a fictional organisation, unfamiliar roles and a process they had to bring to a successful conclusion together. As the workshop progressed, that uncertainty turned into insight and focus.
In the final round, we mainly saw deep concentration and a much better understanding of how individual tasks connect to the result of the process as a whole. That made the workshop a rewarding and enjoyable experience for both the students and us.
You don't learn process thinking from a book alone
By running a process themselves, experiencing bottlenecks and testing improvements, participants understand much faster why process structure makes the difference.
What participants take away from the Office Game
- Insight into how individual tasks connect to the end-to-end process.
- Awareness of handovers, waiting times and inefficiencies.
- Experience with process improvement and cross-role collaboration.
- A shared foundation for further conversations about processes.