It is Tuesday after lunch. You have 45 minutes, five people and a copy of Hanabi, a card game where players can see everyone's cards except their own. Half an hour from now they will have played a good game. Will anyone have practised listening?
Probably not, unless you planned for it. A game teaches a thinking skill only when you name the skill before play and debrief it after. Leave either out and you ran a game night.
Game nights are good. They are just not training.
Skills tend to stay where you learnt them
Start with the bad news, because it is the strongest case against learning strategy through games.
For decades, people hoped that chess would make children better at maths, that music lessons would raise IQ and that brain-training apps would sharpen everything. Giovanni Sala and Fernand Gobet pooled the studies. When the studies were well controlled, the benefit to unrelated skills was close to zero.1 2 Chess players got better at chess. Psychologists call the hoped-for spillover far transfer, and it rarely happens on its own.
So a team that plays Diplomacy every Friday will get good at Diplomacy. Whether they get better at building alliances at work depends on what happens after the game.
Two education researchers, David Perkins and Gavriel Salomon, named what teachers can do about it.3 They called it bridging: the teacher asks the learner to say out loud what they did, what principle sat under it, and where else it would apply. The player does the connecting, in their own words. A teacher explaining the lesson does not count.
The game is the practice. The debrief is the bridge.
The debrief is short, so do not cut it
Debriefs have good evidence behind them. Scott Tannenbaum and Christopher Cerasoli pooled 46 studies of teams and individuals, from surgical teams to soldiers in training. People who debriefed after a task did about 25% better at it next time than people who did not.4
That is evidence that a debrief makes people better at the work they talked about. It is not proof that a skill from a board game shows up at work. That is the job of the bridging question: the debrief has to point at a real decision, not just the game.
Shortlist, the Long Game Project tool that matches board games to the skills they practise, writes every lesson plan in the same five parts: an introduction, the rules, the game, the debrief, and a wrap-up for packing away and previewing next week. Most of the time goes to the game.
5 min of a 45-minute session go to the debrief. The game takes about 24.
Introduction
- Connect today's session to the wider arc.
- Surface the focus skill in plain language.
- Lay out materials, set group norms.
Rules
- Explain the win condition first, mechanics second.
- Demonstrate one full turn.
- Check for understanding before play.
Game
- Players play. The teacher moves between tables.
- Prompt one decision out loud per learner.
- Optional: pause halfway for a strategy check-in.
Debrief
- Run the debrief prompt for the focus skill.
- Capture one thing each learner would do differently.
- Connect today's move to a real-world parallel.
Wrap-up
- Pack up materials.
- Summarise the move learners practised.
- Preview next session's skill and game.
Source: Shortlist course plan, May 2026 · a plan, not a measured course · share of time per phase, from the Shortlist lesson plan template
Five minutes. It is the cheapest part of the session to run and the easiest to cut when the game runs long. Cut the wrap-up instead. Next week's preview can go in an email.
A good debrief question asks about a decision, not about the score. After Quacks of Quedlinburg, a game about drawing ingredients from a bag until you stop or bust: "When did you stop, and was the signal real or just comforting?" After Diplomacy: "When did the alliance stop serving you? Did you leave first, or get left?" Each one asks the player to name a decision and judge it. Add "Where have you made that call at work?" and you have the bridge.
Every skill has a move behind it
To pick a game for a skill, work backwards from what the brain has to do.
Take active listening. The move behind it is reading a partial signal, where what someone cannot say is often the answer. A game that forces that move has a rule that limits what players can tell each other. In Hanabi you hold your cards facing out. The only way to learn what you hold is to read the clues your partners choose to give. The debrief then asks about the gaps: what did they mean that they did not say, and when did you assume too much?
So the chain runs: the skill, the move behind it, a game mechanic (the rule that shapes play, such as limited talking or pushing your luck) that makes the brain repeat that move with feedback, then a game built on that mechanic. If you cannot name the move, you cannot pick the game.
Every skill has a move behind it, and a game rule that makes you repeat the move.
The skill
Active Listening · Social
The move behind it
Read a partial signal. What someone cannot say is often the answer.
The mechanic that drills the move
Communication Limits · Cooperative Game
Games that use it
Hanabi · The Crew · The Mind · free: Hanab Live
The debrief question
What did your partner mean that they did not say? When did you assume too much?
Source: Shortlist course plan, May 2026 · a plan, not a measured course · 14 skills mapped
Twelve weeks, in the order a decision unfolds
The plan below runs one skill a week for twelve weeks, in six two-week modules: seeing the field, planning under uncertainty, reading the room, managing your resources, running the plan and adapting when it breaks. That is roughly the order a real decision unfolds in. You have to see the situation before you can plan, and you have to plan before you can adapt.
Every week has a suggested game and a free option, so cost does not stop anyone. The suggested games are good, but they are not cheap, and twelve of them add up. The free options run in a browser or need only a pack of cards, dice or pen and paper. Most link to their rules on Wikipedia. Figure 3 shows which of Shortlist's 75 skills the plan practises, and Figure 4 is the plan itself.
54 of the 75 skills come up somewhere on the course or its bonus modules.
Cognitive
Analytical Thinking
Strategic Thinking
Information Processing
Social
Communication
Interpersonal
Social Strategy
Executive
Resource Management
Self-Management
Task Management
Operational
Process Management
Technical Skills
Implementation
Creative
Innovation
Adaptability
Experimentation
Source: Shortlist course plan, May 2026 · a plan, not a measured course · skills from the Shortlist taxonomy
Six two-week modules, in the order a decision unfolds: see, plan, read the room, resource, run, adapt.
Seeing the field
See the pattern, the structure and the signal before you move a piece.
Pattern Recognition
See a repeating shape in a busy field. Act on it before anyone else.
GameAzul · Set Collection
FreeSet with Friends
Hypothesis Testing
Guess. Test cheaply. Update. Repeat until nothing surprises you.
GameCluedo · Deduction
Planning under uncertainty
Keep a goal that lasts many turns while the situation keeps changing.
Long-term Planning
Keep a long-game goal in mind while every short move still serves it.
GameWingspan · Engine Building
FreeLichess
Risk Assessment
Choose between a sure reward and a guess. Decide before the next clue lands.
GameQuacks of Quedlinburg · Push Your Luck
FreePig, a dice game
Reading the room
Coalitions, signals and what nobody says. How you move when other people are moving too.
Active Listening
Read a partial signal. What someone cannot say is often the answer.
GameHanabi · Communication Limits
FreeHanab Live
Alliance Building
Build a partnership that you know will end. Pick the right moment to leave.
GameDiplomacy · Alliances
Resourcing yourself
Every yes is a no somewhere else. Budget and attention run out the same way.
Resource Allocation
Split a small budget across many uses. Every yes is a no somewhere else.
GameLords of Waterdeep · Worker Placement
Focus Maintenance
Hold your attention on the right thing while the game pulls at it.
GameGalaxy Trucker · Real-Time
Running the play
A good plan run badly still loses. Run the system you have, not the one you wish you had.
System Operation
Run a known process under pressure. Do not reinvent it every turn.
GamePower Grid · Pick-up and Deliver
Spatial Reasoning
Turn a shape problem into a series of moves. Avoid going back.
GamePatchwork · Tile Placement
FreeTetris
Adapting under fire
Plans break. Replan fast, without freezing and without pushing harder on a dead plan.
Adaptability
Replan when the game shifts. Do not freeze. Do not push harder on a dead plan.
GameRoot · Variable Player Powers
FreeMao, a card game
Decision Making
Choose when you cannot know everything. Fast enough to act, careful enough to mean it.
Game7 Wonders · Action Drafting
FreeLiar's dice
Source: Shortlist course plan, May 2026 · a plan, not a measured course · suggested games cost money · every week has a free option
Some suggested games run long. Diplomacy takes hours, and Power Grid is not much shorter. Play a fixed number of rounds, or split the game over two sessions, and keep the debrief either way. Week 3's free option is chess, the game the transfer studies tested. Played on its own, it makes people better at chess. The debrief question is what points it at planning.
Three four-week bonus modules go deeper on communication, operations and invention.
Three four-week modules go deeper on communication, operations and invention.
The Communicator
Verbal, non-verbal, signal, audience. The four moves you cannot lead, teach or sell without.
Verbal Expression
GameCodenames · Word Association
FreeCodenames online
Non-verbal Communication
GameMysterium · Visual Communication · Storytelling
FreeCharades
Information Sharing
GameJust One · Cooperative · Communication Limits
Presentation Skills
GameWavelength · Cooperative Estimation
FreeJust a Minute, a speaking game
The Operator
Designing a process, running it, and fixing it mid-flight. The work that turns plans into outputs.
Process Design
GameBrass: Birmingham · Network Building · Pick-up and Deliver
Goal Setting
GameTerraforming Mars · Engine Building · Variable Phase Order
Task Sequencing
GameRace for the Galaxy · Action Drafting · Action Queue
FreeTower of Hanoi
Quality Assurance
GameLe Havre · Worker Placement · Production
FreeSudoku
The Innovator
Generate, test, refine, ship. The rhythm of a creative practice that keeps making things.
Idea Generation
GameDixit · Storytelling · Free Association
FreeTelephone Pictionary, pen and paper
Iterative Design
GamePhotosynthesis · Tile Placement · Engine Building
FreeTangram
Strategic Adaptation
GameSpirit Island · Variable Powers · Cooperative
FreeKriegspiel, chess without seeing the other side
Creative Problem Solving
GamePandemic · Cooperative · Hidden Information
FreeThe Crew on Board Game Arena
Source: Shortlist course plan, May 2026 · a plan, not a measured course
We have not measured this course. It is a plan built from what the transfer research says, not a result, and we would like to hear from anyone who runs it.
Three rules for running it
Pick one skill, not five. Find the area you are weakest in and start with the module that covers it. Trying to practise everything at once is how you practise nothing.
Always run the debrief. Five minutes of "What did you try? What did you change your mind about?" gets players to say what they assumed. Skip it and the session was a game night.
Run each session twice if you can. Same game, same group, a week apart. That turns twelve weeks into twenty-four, but the second time players arrive with the first debrief in their heads, and you can see whether their decisions changed.
Next Tuesday, put the Hanabi box on the table and say the skill out loud before anyone shuffles.
The printable course, with all twelve sessions, the lesson plan and the debrief questions, is free on Shortlist. Its diagnostic takes five to ten minutes and shows which module to start with. If you want a game built around your team's real decisions, talk to us.
Footnotes
-
Sala, G. & Gobet, F. (2016). Do the benefits of chess instruction transfer to academic and cognitive skills? A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review 18, 46-57. Link ↩
-
Sala, G. & Gobet, F. (2017). Does far transfer exist? Negative evidence from chess, music, and working memory training. Current Directions in Psychological Science 26(6), 515-520. Link ↩
-
Perkins, D. N. & Salomon, G. (1988). Teaching for transfer. Educational Leadership 46(1), 22-32. Link ↩
-
Tannenbaum, S. I. & Cerasoli, C. P. (2013). Do team and individual debriefs enhance performance? A meta-analysis. Human Factors 55(1), 231-245. Link ↩