Overview
How work is designed and implemented within organizations affects employees’ motivation, job satisfaction, creativity, self-confidence, and physical and mental wellbeing. The SMART Work Design Game is a card game that helps participants experience how good and poor work design factors lead to good and poor team effectiveness and high or low job satisfaction. The game is supported with an app that makes session facilitation straightforward. It helps facilitators organize groups, distribute instructions digitally, collect post-survey responses, and immediately review survey results.
The game builds on the substantial research led by Prof. Sharon Parker at Deakin University’s Centre for Transformative Work Design, including her 2024 article, The SMART model of work design (Parker and Knight, 2024). This model explains how job satisfaction improves when work is designed to be SMART: stimulating, allow mastery, autonomous, relational and tolerable.
The game is suitable for:
- University academics teaching human resource management (HRM) courses, including employee engagement and workplace wellness courses
- Corporate trainers providing organizational change, collaboration, and leadership development training
- HR professionals working to improve work design and increase employee satisfaction within their organizations
- HR consultants analyzing organizational culture, workplace practices, and change management
Session Plan
A SMART Work Design Game session lasts approximately 1-1.5 hours depending on the number of groups. Each group of 4-5 participants uses a standard deck of cards to complete two work design scenarios with low and high levels of the five SMART work factors (stimulating, mastery, autonomy, relational, and tolerable). A standard session is organized as follows:
- Introduction (5-10 minutes). Participants are moved into groups of 4-5 people around tables. They are provided with a common scenario and each group is given 32 numbered cards from a standard deck of cards. Groups can either be chosen manually or randomly assigned digitally with the SMART Work Design Game app.
- Scenario 1: Low-SMART (15 minutes). Facilitators distribute the instructions digitally with the app or on paper. Each participant receives different instructions, which they independently review before playing the game.
- Scenario 1: Review and Debrief (7-15 minutes). Participants complete a short survey in the app or on paper to score their Scenario 1 experiences. After completing the survey, they discuss their Scenario 1 experience within their groups.
- Scenario 2: High-SMART (15 minutes). As in Scenario 1, facilitators distribute the instructions digitally with the app or on paper. In this scenario, participants collectively review and discuss their shared instructions before playing the game.
- Scenario 2: Review and Debrief (7-15 minutes). Participants complete a short survey in the app or on paper to score their Scenario 2 experiences. After completing the survey, they discuss their Scenario 2 experience within their groups.
- Plenary Debrief (10-20 minutes). Participants share their perspectives on their experiences during the two scenarios. If the app has been used, the facilitator shares the results and uses these to prompt further discussion. The facilitator concludes the session by providing an overview of the SMART work characteristics and how they appeared in the game.
Learning Outcomes
- Familiarity with the five SMART work design factors and their perceived work characteristics.
- Deeper understanding of the relationship between the SMART work design factors and (1) work outcomes and (2) job satisfaction.
Facilitating the SMART Work Design Game
The SMART Work Design Game will be available to play in early 2026. If you are an educator or corporate trainer who would like to be notified when the game is released, please get in touch.