15 Fun Management Games for MBA Students

MBA or Master of Business Administration is a degree crafted to enhance the business management skills of students. It continues to be one of the most  popular and pursued courses, all around the world despite the onset of automation and digitalisation, due to the diverse specialisation it offers.

Students toil in special classes and tuitions to crack the entrance examinations for MBA. And once they land a seat in top management colleges, their life gets more challenging.

The curriculum for MBA demands intense and tiring efforts to balance rigorous academics, projects, and real-world case studies.

In the midst of this hard labour, fun management games come as a rescue to MBA students. It adds a stream of spark in their otherwise dull days while still working on their management skills like leadership, problem-solving and ability to work under pressure.

Fun management games for MBA students are a popular method used by top universities to channel students’ creative imagination in a productive way. It allows them a stress-free environment to work on their business management skills, and add a break from back to back classes, live projects and extracurricular activities.

In this article, we will explore the list of top 15 fun management games for MBA students, their significance, benefits, and the skills they sharpen.

Why Management Games Matter for MBA Students

Management games for MBA students serve an effective purpose in the longer run. Most of the time of MBA students is consumed in learning about new principles, attending classes, and working on heavy project works.

Management games for MBA students offer a productive retreat from the daily hustle of the demanding course. It allows them to bridge the distance between academic learning and practical application by providing students a risk-free environment to develop essential skills needed in the real-world.

The role of management games is to enhance skills like decision-making and strategic thinking, problem-solving and leadership. Explore the wide benefits of management games for MBA students.

Benefits of Effective MBA Management Games

• Practical Application of Theory
• Experiential Learning
• Holistic Understanding
• Skill Development
• Engagement and Motivation
• Exposure to Real-World Challenges
• Real-world Preparation

15 Best Management Games for MBA Students

“All work and no play make Jack a dull boy,” The toil and trouble involved in MBA courses is evident. To counter this, most MBA courses have incorporated offline and online management games for MBA students to keep them engaged and motivated.

These games showcase the practical applications of the economics and business theory, which they learn through the course. This process of visualisation helps them grasp the contents of their curriculum effectively.

The top MBA colleges most often go for the innovative online management simulation games like:

1. MBA Crystal Ball Games

The MBA Crystal Ball games are relatively more straightforward and were initially created for the visitors of their website to grasp the resources and tools of MBA.

The simplicity made it appealing to the professors, and these games came to be used in top management colleges in the UK, USA, India, and Singapore.

The MBA Crystal Ball game includes:

(a) Business Strategy Game (BizMAP)

This game gives you a virtual hands-on business experience. In this game, you are to take over an existing business with a team of 4 employees and a million dollars in hand. Complete your contract as you analyse the financial and operational numbers and submit five decisions, which are:

• How many units to produce
• How to price it
• How much to spend on marketing
• How many employees to hire/fire
• How much to invest in product development

Below are steps to play the game:

• Step 1 – Review Financials
• Step 2 – Analyse Business Data for SCM, HR, & Marketing
• Step 3 – Enter & Submit Decisions

(b) Supply Chain Management Game

To help students understand the fundamental challenges involved in business and management, this game allows its users to manage a virtual supply chain.

The prime objective in this game is to attain equilibrium in the supply chain ASAP, using only a single parameter to decide in every cycle, i.e., how many units to turn out.

Below are steps to play the game:

• Step 1 – Review Status
• Step 2 – Enter the Quantity
• Step 3 –Submit Decisions

2. Capsim

Capsim is a sophisticated simulation game that covers basic and advanced business concepts. It offers Capstone and Foundation wherein the students can form groups to engage in healthy and risk-free competition, thus, learning about the interaction between disciplines. It includes:

• Inbox Simulations
• Business Simulations
• Online Assessments

3. Forio

Forio simulations have mainly been developed for students and intermediate and senior managers. It offers a mixture of software tools and ready-to-use simulations that help corporate and education clients design their simulations. It includes:

• Higher Education Simulations
• Corporate Training Simulations
• Public Policy Simulations
• Forecasting Applications
• Data Visualisation
• Online role-based skills training

4. BSG Online

This is ideal for advanced students; usually, the BizMAP is used first to warm the students up. The game requires you to take 100 decisions for each cycle before the advancement of the game. The highlights of this game include the following:

• Global top performers
• Corporate social responsibility award
• Best-strategy invitational

5. Beach Ball Toss

The first day in class or any program could be a bit awkward. The beach ball toss could be a useful ice-breaker game. Write various questions on an inflated beach ball and throw it around the class. Whoever catches it is to answer one of the questions written on it. The ball can have academic or non-academic questions like:

• What hobbies do you enjoy?
• How do you spend your free time?
• Why do you choose to be drug-free?
• Who is a leader you look up to?
• Whom can you ask for advice?

6. Back-to-Back Drawing

This game asks for two people to be seated back to back. One is given an image of a shape, while the other receives paper and a pencil. The former is to describe the form to the latter without telling what the structure is. The latter is to draw it based on the description provided. This is a game designed to enhance communication skills. A few things are required to play “Back to Back Drawing” are:

• Pictures ( in a physical or a digital format ) of the things that will be verbally described.
• Some pens and paper for players to draw.

7. The Mixed Picture Puzzle

The chief objective in this game is to get the two teams to collaborate to get their work done. The two teams receive two puzzles with some mixed-up puzzle pieces. Whoever can finish the task first wins.

8. Two Truths and a Lie

Most of us grew up playing this game with our friends and family. First, students must write three sentences- two facts and one lie. Then, when each of them reads aloud the statements, the rest is to guess the lie.

This game helps one develop observational skills, an essential flair in this industry. Some good examples of Two Truths and a Lie include:

• I used to live in Colorado.
• I am left-handed like my dad.
• I only have one cousin.
• I grew up across from a farm.
• My family goes to Disney World every year.

9. The Name Game

This is a partner game wherein one person is to think of a notable person and write his/her name secretly on a post-it.

• Stick the post-it to the partner’s head, and in the first round, he/she is to ask yes/no questions in turns until he/she gets a ‘yes.’
• In the next round, they are to ask one Open or Tell, Explain, Describe (TED) question. One is forbidden to ask closed questions in this round.

This game demonstrates the importance of asking the right questions or looking at a situation from the correct perspective.

10. Paper Planes

Want to find out if your students are up to date with the lessons? The paper planes game is a great way to make learning fun. Here is how to play the game:

• Ask each student to write a question from experience taught the previous day on a piece of paper.
• Divide the class into two teams, asking each to make planes out of those papers.
• Now the groups are to chuck their aircraft at each other.
• The students pick up the airplanes and answer the questions.

11. The I’s Have It

MBA-related jobs require people to be observant and keep silent and listen to what others say. In other words, being self-centered is not the way of this job.

To get students used to this idea, engage them in a game of I’s Have It?

This is an excellent game for developing both inter and intrapersonal communications. Form pairs and ask them to talk to each other about anything and everything in this world and beyond. The only rule that applies is – YOU CANNOT USE THE WORD “I.”

12. Building Towers

Building towers is one of the best games to test the student’s presence of mind, leadership quality, and teamwork capability. Two groups receive bundles of newspapers. Both teams have to make the tallest building in 10 minutes. Whoever builds the highest building wins. This game is a great way to teach how to make the fullest out of minimum resources.

13. The Marshmallow Challenge

Designed by Peter Skillman, The Marshmallow Challenge is a team-building activity popular in corporate workshops used to teach the importance of collaboration, innovation, and rapid prototyping.

In this game, people are divided into equal groups. They are provided with a set of limited resources including spaghetti, tape, string, and one marshmallow.

The game is time bound with each team having 18 minutes. They need to use the provided resources to build the tallest freestanding structure. Their structure should not need any support with a marshmallow placed on top.

14. The Big Picture Challenge

As the name suggests, the game involves a challenge of completing a big picture but with a twist. Each team is given a segment of a big picture which they have to paint in sections.

To complete the picture they need to communicate and coordinate with each other to match their picture’s segments like color, style and alignment.

The Big Picture Challenge is a team-building activity demanding collaboration. It works by enhancing the communication, problem-solving skills and creative planning techniques of the team.

15. Time Squared

Time Squared in one of the most popular time management games for MBA students. In this game, you print three pages with 24 squares for each participant, where each square represents 24 hours in a day.

Now each participant has to fill in their routine tasks aside from work in the first sheet, on the second sheet they need to fill in their non-working time and the third sheet needs to have a summary of both the sheets.

After the information has been filled, the blank squares can be marked as productive time. This will help the participants to assess how they spend their time and what changes they can make to manage it better.

MBA Games for Skill Development

Here is a list of some popular management games for students enrolled in an MBA course to help them gain niche skills:

Final Thoughts

MBA is a highly-esteemed career opportunity in India and abroad. It is the most preferred pathway for students or working professionals to land C-suite jobs, which is why an MBA course is robust and demands rigorous academic prowess.

But these continuous presentations, projects, classes, and constant placement worries can hamper the learning process, and dull the grasp of students on new skills.

That is where fun management games for MBA students work its magic. It works on honing the business management skills of students without taking them away from the core concepts of their course.

Fun management games for MBA students act as a productive retreat from daily hustle, a step out of the classroom but not away from the learning process.

If you’re planning to pursue an MBA that blends learning with real-world experience, choose a program that values practical, engaging, and hands-on approaches to management education. After all, the future of leadership lies not just in studying management but experiencing it.