A fun team-building event centred around a practical, experiential simulation
Client: Telecoms
Audience: Cross functional management teams, in-person event
The project
As part of a company-wide transformation initiative, a global telecoms provider launched an End-to-End Customer Experience Programme to strengthen collaboration, alignment, and accountability across its value chain. The organisation had recognised that while individual departments were performing well, customers often experienced fragmented service due to internal silos, disconnected processes, and limited cross-functional communication.
Our client wanted a series of team experiences that would bring together managers from across operations, engineering, sales, and service, in cohorts of around 50 at a time, to see the business through the customer’s eyes – to understand how their roles connected, where breakdowns occurred, and how shared ownership could create a seamless end-to-end experience. They sought a practical, experiential simulation that mirrored the complexity of real collaboration, requiring teams to communicate, adapt, and perform under pressure. The activity needed to be challenging, physical, and memorable – helping participants internalise what it truly means to deliver an integrated E2E customer journey.
Our solution
In partnership with project sponsors, we tailored a team event centred around our Information Exchange Simulation – a dynamic, hands-on experience that recreates the interconnected flow of customer operations.
The simulation was designed to reflect…
In this simulation, teams were tasked with designing and executing a continuous system to move a ball (symbolising the customer experience) through a complex, pathway without interruption. The physical nature of the task required precision, timing, communication, and shared responsibility. Each group controlled a section of the process – reflecting real-world business units – and success depended on how effectively they could coordinate, share information, and align their actions across the full cycle.
As the activity unfolded, participants quickly experienced the challenges of managing dependencies and the impact of working in silos. When one team failed to communicate or adapt, the “customer experience” faltered. Through successive rounds, teams applied feedback, tested new approaches, and gradually developed an integrated mindset – recognising that improvement could only come through effective communication, collaboration, trust, and joint problem-solving.
Facilitators layered additional scenarios into the simulation to mirror real business pressures – unexpected change, shifting priorities, and stakeholder demands – requiring teams to manage meetings effectively, adapt under pressure, and make collective decisions that balanced performance with quality. The experience provided a tangible, shared understanding of how silos and miscommunication directly affect the customer journey, and how integrated working drives success.
The impact
The impact of the simulation was immediate and long-lasting. Managers left the session with a heightened awareness of how their actions, decisions, and communication directly influence the customer experience. The activity created a common language and shared understanding across departments, encouraging participants to think systemically rather than functionally. The learning outcomes were so powerful that the client continues to use the simulation years later as a core component of its E2E Customer Experience Programme. It remains a staple of their leadership and management development across the organisation – consistently improving collaboration, performance, and customer outcomes.
Participants frequently describe the session as eye-opening, fun, and transformative, with many highlighting how it changed the way they lead projects, engage, and connect across teams. The continued success of the programme demonstrates how MDA Training’s experiential approach can create sustainable behavioural change – turning strategic initiatives into lived, memorable experiences that strengthen both people and performance. Feedback from a Regional Director summarised the experience perfectly: “It didn’t feel like team-building – it felt like rediscovering who we are and why we do this.”
Trusted by organisations all over the globe…
