Learning Multidisciplinary Collaboration with Games: From Primary to Secondary Game Mechanics

This chapter describes the design of a game-based learning process for developing communication in public organisations. The game-design presented here emphasises those parts of public organisations that tend to employ multidisciplinary teams for solving wicked problems. As such teams employ members from different, professional backgrounds, the game Public Professional sought to develop new understandings among team members and across professions. The purpose of this game was to facilitate an understanding among team members and across professions, a game-based learning process named Public Professional was designed. Its purpose was to a) provide team members with a shared language for discussing work related problems in regard to communication. To facilitate an understanding on the collaboration across professions, and to provide a space for dialogue about professional cooperation, Public Professional with an emphasis on providing an opportunity for discussing the different professional accounts each profession had for using its particular approaches. On basis of the development of Public Professional, this chapter discusses two layers of learning processes as learning opportunities derived from the game’s core mechanics.