Xing previously YOMP

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• Xing (previously YOMP)
• business planning skills development game

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Aims

• To enable learners to
• understand the main steps in business creation
  and development
• develop communication, collaborative
  decision-making skills
• illustrate team creativity
• develop skeleton of simple business plan
• illustrate the kind of activities you might be
  exposed to in an assessment centre

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Learning Outcomes

• Learners should develop a knowledge and awareness
  of
• Business terminology
• Business process
• Project planning
• Team working
• Collaborative problem solving
• Priority setting
• Valuation and equity allocation
• General enterprise and commercial awareness
• Typical Assessment Centre activities

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denotes where money comes into the business
Example of a Xing pictorial business plan
produced by the end of the game
Objective timescale
Timeline/duration/priority for actions
Idea
- denotes where money goes out of the business
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Idea Definition Goal Setting

• In teams
• Agree on nature of idea and summarise by
  writing on board in Idea box
• Establish an agreed goal with timeline and write
  on planning board (try not to procrastinate or
  spend too much time looking at strategy at this
  stage)
• Highlight the development of your goal and
  write in Goal box To sell 5 million products
  within 3 years or Establish and sell company
  for 2 million Euros in 18 months etc.

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Using the Cards

• There are 5 sets of cards
• Orange marketing Blue People Green
  Finance Yellow Actions Brown - Strategy
• All cards must face down (no peeping!)
• Take turns in picking up cards
• Cards must be taken in rotation i.e. do not do
  all orange cards together
• The card chooser then reads the definition from
  the glossary handbook to the rest of the group
• Each card will generate discussion
• Try not to spend too long on each card, may be
  3-4 minutes per card (may be longer at the start)

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Using the Cards

• Team needs to agree on relevance and appropriate
  action and timeframe before placing on board
• Cards can be moved around at any time
• Card chooser chooses to keep or discard the
  card if there isnt a team consensus
• Irrelevant cards cannot be returned once
  discarded (if needed, these can be used in
  final presentation to explain what why a card or
  action wasnt used or followed)
• A range of unexpected events either generic or
  specific to the company scenario may be
  introduced by the facilitators!

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Presentations

• Identify themes in your plan and where money goes
  in and out of the business (write and -
  symbols either on board or on post-it notes)
• Each team must present their strategy back to the
  other groups
• Focus should be on clusters of cards (i.e.
  themes rather than on individual cards)
• Should be done in VC Elevator Pitch style i.e.
  lasting no more than 2 mins!
• Focus on the strategy not the idea. The team
  should be answering the question are we a team
  capable of running this business?

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Summing Up

• Self- and peer-assessment exercise (see course
  brochure/handbook)
• What were your experiences overall?
• What has been learned?
• How would you improve your own personal
  effectiveness next time?
• How could you help improve the personal
  effectiveness of others and the team?
• How are you going to use this within Personal
  Development Plans?

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• Also available in Chinese (Mandarin, French,
  Spanish, Polish and Russian)
• The Working Knowledge Group www.twkg.net