A highly efficient tool based on cognitive psychology principles, which serves as a multiplier of internal consultants and presents itself as a means of professional training and qualification with surprising, measurable outcomes.

1. Kugu Training
TM

2. 1. Introduction
4. The Company
2. Case Studie
3. Our Approach
A highly efficient tool based
on cognitive psychology
principles, which serves
as a multiplier of internal
consultants and presents
itself as a means of
professional training and
qualification with surprising,
measurable outcomes.
Organizational Strategy Game
All rights reserved

3. 1
Introduction
It is not just game
mechanic, but a
unique and powerfully
engaging learning
experience.
Group dynamics, lectures, seminars, and webinars
are some of the most common approaches taken
by companies to train their employees. With so
much diversity amongst employees, it comes as
no surprise that we have many types of learners
in the room—a complicated mix of abilities,
motivations, interests, and backgrounds.
While John sits in the back of the
room feeling lost and confused, Kevin
is unchallenged and bored; John may
learn best with a hands-on experiment,
while Kevin does not find the traditional-
style lecture stimulating.
Experts tend to assume that because they
possess valuable information, they will be able
to effectively share that information with others.
However, companies have invested large amounts
of money in an attempt to continually train
employees in various contexts, but usually see
relatively little return for this investment. That is
because the conventional approach to employee
training has serious limitations:
• Too much time spent resulting in too few
results.
• Difficulty in creating real and practical
situations employees experience in their
particular environment.
• Traditional training tends to focus heavily on
facts, definitions and isolated events, leaving
little time to create links between ideas and
reflect on how events can affect a larger
system.
After studying the overlap between game design
and behavioral change, we developed a new
approach to employee training. The result is the
Kugu Training™
The Kugu Training™ is not just a game, but
a unique and emerging multi-disciplinary
approach to training employees. It is the result
of a collaborative development effort by game
designers, psychologists, educators and
researchers to produce innovative and powerfully
engaging learning experiences. We believe that
understanding this novel approach will help your
company achieve better results by getting more
out of your employees and their work.
We invite you to learn more about the Kugu
Training™ approach.
Kugu Training
TM

4. From Passive Learning to
Experimental Learning
An ever increasingly competitive world demands
that management educators strive to provide the
most productive experience for their students in
order to prepare them for their career challenges.
To achieve this objective, they operate under a
paradigm in which they seek to impart knowledge
to students in a form of information transfer. In
this approach to teaching, students passively
receive information from the professor and
internalize it through some form of memorization.
This process is a form of passive learning.
Passive learning is prevalent in the traditional
teaching approach. In traditional classes,
educators deliver lectures for the majority of the
class, thus enabling educators to present a large
amount of material in a relatively brief amount of
time. However, this results in little opportunity for
student input through discussions or experiential
exercises. Although the traditional lecture method
is still predominant, some studies have shown
that students fail to retain as much material, after
the class has been completed, in comparison to
classes taught using an active learning approach.
Experiential learning is a term used to describe
instruction models which actively engage learners
and empowers them to be more responsible for
their own learning. Experiential learning creates a
learning environment in which students engage
in “doing things and thinking about what they are
doing” while engaged in some problem-solving
activity. Experiential learning approaches tend to
provide the following benefits:
Another drawback to the traditional teaching
approach appears to be a lack of student
attention, which many educators have observed
in their own classes. Educators conjecture that
many students are not actively engaged in most
traditional lecture classes. It is common for some
students to drift off to sleep, for others to talk
among themselves, and for some students to play
games or send messages on their laptops during
class. To counter these behaviors, we turned to
active methods of teaching.
• Students are more involved than in passive
learning contexts
• Students are engaged in achieving a/the goal
• Increased student motivation
• Students may engage in higher-order thinking,
such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
In many workplace contexts, real learning
takes place amongst employees via experience
performing the tasks and responsibilities that are
expected of them. That is why the Kugu Training™
is designed to create an experiential learning
environment and allow instructors and trainees
to benefit from all of the advantages of such a
learning environment.

5. Structuring the
Idea
Our tool can be used to train employees in a wide
range of contexts and simulates the very same
scenarios a trainee will see in real life. It can be
used to train employees for customer facing roles
as well as how to handle work interactions that
might take place internally within a company or
organization.
The ability to repeat any procedure or
scenario as many times as necessary
until the trainee succeeds is another
advantage which results in the
reinforcement of desired practices and
behaviors.
The usual training methodology of a conventional,
passive learning training program followed by
direct contact of the trainee with real customers
looks completely different from what we have
shown so far. Most importantly, conventional
employee training programs do not provide
trainees with the opportunity to practice what
they learn. Trainees not having an opportunity to
practice what they learn can result in unnecessary
customer loss and/or slower than necessary
trainee development that could be avoided by
using the Kugu Training™.
We named the tool we have developed the
Kugu Training™. Its working principle comes
from the area of Behavioral Psychology where
we learn that any behavior is influence by the
consequences of that behavior. In the context of
Kugu Training™, these consequences are defined
to closely mimic reality, without the risk of real
losses. They are voiced by the guide and take
place in two ways:
1. When the trainee rolls the dice, the result
of which determines a corresponding
“consequence”. Obviously, in managing the
resulting situation the trainee will face must
abide by the professional rules defined at his
job.
2. The game moderator provides instant feedback
regarding the behavior adopted by the trainee
on the possible critical situations that could
arise.
Behavior and consequences producing learning.
The cards and the dice produce a great range of
situations. The game moderator’s creativity is
paired with the countless possible combinations
of the elements represented in the cards drawn
from the different card piles, making each
training session using the Kugu Training™ unique
and significant. The benefits include, but are
not limited to, improved service technique, the
development of essential competencies and
communication skills as well as greater customer
satisfaction.

6. Costumized to your
specific needs
Kugu Training™ is tailored to the specific needs
of the individual(s). Every learner approaches
a learning situation with a unique knowledge
level and a particular set of dispositions.
Optimal learning takes place when instruction
targets an individual’s insights, personal
feelings and experiences.
Optimal training
Results
Kugu Training™provides learners with
immediate feedback. Because learning
expands what a person knows and
understands, a learner working with new
material will likely encounter some confusion
and uncertainty. Optimal training results take
place if trainees are able to seek immediate
clarification when he or she encounters
problems.
Encourages
problem-solving
Kugu Training™ situation is constructive. It
allows trainees to explore the learning context,
encourages problem-solving activity and
helps trainees develop a more comprehensive
understanding of the nature of the challenges
they will face in their environment and how
they can overcome those challenges.
Creates long-term
memory
Kugu Training™ builds enduring understanding
of conceptual structures. Our approach
ensures that concepts and procedures are
committed to long-term memory and are
available long after the completion of the
training to successfully assess and manage
new, yet related, real-world challenges.
Motivates learders
to continue learning
Kugu Training™ naturally motivates learners
to continue learning far beyond any
externally imposed requirement. If a trainee
is engaged in what he or she perceives to
be a meaningful and rewarding activity, the
trainee will devote more time and effort than
is prescribed in a course—just look at the
willingness of the gaming generation to play
videogames for thousands of hours!
The Five Pillars of
Kugu Training™

7. 2
Case Studie
"The level and nature
of participation was
simply exceptional.
The time flew by! Kugu
Training always shown
concrete examples,
and we could reach
excellent results."
Abraham Shapiro
To begin with, the aspiring waiter would receive a
basic informative training about the step-by-step
service performed in the restaurant. Only then
is the new waiter invited to take part in a service
experience simulated by a customized Kugu
Training™ specifically designed for this work
context.
For the sake of this article, we will focus on a
specific aspect of waiting tables, going over the
order. In this step, the waiter must repeat, out
loud, the customer’s choice of beverages and
food items so as to check the order and avoid
mistakes.
In this scenario, the participants are:
• A guide, which can be the headwaiter, the
manager or someone who, knowing the service
well enough, has been trained on the principles
that rule the game as well how to properly
moderate the game.
• The aspiring waiter.
• Another person, who will play the role of the
customer.
• reflect on how events can affect a larger
system.
The three sit at a table with three piles of cards
and a ten-faced numbered dice.
In the first pile of cards there are descriptions
of various possible settings at the restaurant
(e.g. a busy Sunday lunch, an evening of wine
and special cuisine, etc.). The trainee draws a
card that will set the scenario in this particular
simulation.
The “customer” draws a card from the second
pile of cards, which contains different possible
customer profiles (e.g. a teenager, an elderly man
in suit and tie, a well-dressed woman and her
daughter, an executive, etc.) The content of the
card is read out loud so that everyone knows what
the “customer” “looks” like.
The “customer” then draws a card from the third
pile, which determines the personality traits of the
“customer” (e.g. demanding, ill-tempered, friendly,
methodical, intolerant, etc.). Only the “customer”
and the game moderator will see this card.
Once the cards have been drawn, the game
moderator describes the scenario. The scenario
description must be a detailed one, addressing
the nature of the environment in the restaurant
and the profile of the “customer” that has just
arrived.

8. The trainee starts his service drill, welcoming the
“customer” who, in turn, simulates his entrance
into the restaurant keeping in mind the personality
he supposed to adopt based on the personality
card that was drawn. We get to the moment
where the “customer” is ready to order. For the
sake of illustration, let’s imagine the trainee gives
the appropriate visual attention to the “customer”;
however, he forgets to go over the order. The
waiter in training forwards his notes to the kitchen
just as he heard them.
When the dishes are ready, he brings them to the
“customer”, but at this point the guide intervenes,
informing the waiter in training that he forgot to
go over the order before taking the order back
to the kitchen and that this has “consequences”.
These “consequences” are then determined by the
trainee rolling the ten-faced dice.
The way the dice works is simple. If the number
is “low”, say between 1 and 3, this will result
in the waiter’s mistake having very negative
consequences. Between 4 and 7, the guide
might impose a mild consequence of his own
choice. Between 8 and 10, it means that, despite
not having gone over the order orally, there are
no significant consequences. In this way, we
introduce an element of randomness to the game!
For the sake of illustrating what these
“consequences” might be, let’s imagine the
trainee rolled a 2. This corresponds to the waiter’s
mistake resulting in a very negative consequence:
the waiter misheard the order, wrote it down
incorrectly and the kitchen prepared the wrong
food. The trainee will now have to attempt to
resolve this issue as if he or she were dealing
with a real customer in real time. Similarly, the
“customer” will relate and react to the trainee in
accordance with the personality card he drew in
the beginning.
The game moderator can now analyze the
approach taken by the waiter in training and
provide feedback. This also provides the game
moderator the option of giving the trainee an
opportunity to propose alternative solutions to
dealing with the “customer”, if the moderator
feels it would be worthwhile. This dynamic can
continue until the waiter does the right thing in
handling the situation.
In this context, the game lasts until the end of the
service—including coffee, the check, the customer
leaving—with the potential for issues similar to the
one described above to arise. The objective of the
game for the trainee is to make sure the customer
has a positive dining experience.
At the end of the session, the game moderator will
write his/her notes in the trainee’s Assessment
Card. As notes from multiple training sessions are
accumulated, these notes can be used to build
a performance profile for the trainee—strengths
and weaknesses, successes and failures, etc. This
enables trainers to identify areas to focus on in
future training sessions.
Kugu Training
TM
Kugu Training
TM
Restaurant Waiter

9. 3
Our Approach
It is not just game
mechanic, but a
unique and powerfully
engaging learning
experience.
Knowing
“Framing the right problem is the only
way to create the right solution.”
Knowing: This Kugu Training development starts
bringing clarity and focus to the organizational
challenge. It is our chance to define the change
we want to achieve, based on what we will
observer about the way people do things and why
they do it, their physical and emotional needs, how
they think about their daily functions, and what is
meaningful to them about the organization and its
context.
This is a critical stage to the Kugu Training
development, here we’ll define the Training
Standpoint (TS): the explicit expression of the
problem we are striving to address. This stage
can be realized remotely, however it is highly
recommended to have our team inside the
context.
Observation - View people and their behavior
in the context of their function. We try as
much as possible do observations in relevant
contexts in addition to interviews. Some of the
most powerful realizations come from noticing
disconnection between what someone says and
what he does.
Engage - Sometimes we call this technique
‘interviewing’ but it should really feel more like a
conversation. We prepare some questions, but we
expect to let the conversation deviate from them.
We tend to keep the conversation only loosely
bounded. We want to elicit stories from the people
we talk to, and always ask “Why?” to uncover
deeper meaning.
Watch and Listen - Combine observation and
engagement. We ask someone to show us how
they complete a task. Have them physically go
through the steps, and talk you through why they
are doing what they do. We ask them to vocalize
what’s going through their mind as they perform a
task or interact with an object.

10. Understanding
“It’s not about coming up with the ‘right’
idea; it’s about generating the broadest
range of possibilities.”
Understanding: The understanding stage is also
an endeavor to synthesize our scattered findings
into powerful insights. Those insights will be
highly important in the next stages. Considering
what stood out when talking and observing people
our team try to make the following question:
What patterns emerge when we look at the all the
collected data?
In asking why someone had a certain behavior
or feeling we are making connections from that
person to the larger context. At this stage we
want to sharpen the understanding of the Training
Standpoint:
• Providing focus and framing the problems;
• Formulating mechanics and strategies will
influence the team;
• Develop criteria for evaluating ideas
• Articulating empowerment to team to in the
process decision making.
• Capturing the hearts and minds of people we
met.
In this stage our intention is creating the bridge of
transition from identifying problems to creating
solutions. It is our chance to combine the
understanding we could gather of the problem
space and people with our imagination to
generate solution concepts and the gamification.
Various our process of understanding is traced by
some beliefs we have in Kugu Training:
• Step beyond obvious solutions and thus
increase the innovation potential of your
solution set
• Harness the collective perspectives and
strengths of your teams
• Uncover unexpected areas of exploration
• Create fluency (volume) and flexibility (variety)
in your innovation options
• Get obvious solutions out of your heads, and
drive your team beyond them
Gamification
“Build to think and test to learn.”
The Gamification is the mode of the Kugu process
in which we concentrate on idea generation and
translation to a Ludic Language. Mentally it
represents a process of “going wide” in terms of
concepts and outcomes.

11. prototyping itself can be an ideation technique.
In physically making something you come to
points where decisions need to be made; this
encourages new ideas to come forward.
There are other ideation techniques such as
bodystorming, mindmapping, and sketching. But
one theme throughout all of them is deferring
judgment – that is, separating the generation of
ideas from the evaluation of ideas. In doing so,
you give your imagination and creativity a voice,
while placating your rational side in knowing that
your will get to the examination of merits later.
Unpacking
What you should expect
Users of the Kugu Training™ can expect trainees
to show increasingly better results in performance
assessments over the course of the training
as well as improved ability when placed in an
actual work context. This will take place with the
assurance of fully developing the observance of
rules and the ability to overcome crisis. As the
master Tom Peters has states: “The more we
sweat in peace the less we bleed in war”.
After the expected results have been reached in
the training stage, the game moderator will be
able to proceed with the tutoring of the trainee
Ideation provides both the fuel and also the
source material for building prototypes and
getting innovative solutions into the hands of our
users.
The Gamification stage is about pushing for a
widest possible range of ideas from which we can
select, not simply finding a single, best solution.
The determination of the best solution will be
discovered in this process, and after through user
testing and feedback.
In this stage we draw our conclusions, we
basically process all the things we heard and saw
in order to understand the big picture and grasp
the takeaways of it all. Gamification is a process
of sharing what we find with our multidisciplinary
team and capturing the important parts in a visual
and ludic form.
The process of Gamification has a lot to be
of ideation by combining the conscious and
unconscious mind, and rational thoughts with
imagination of the gamer. For example, in a
brainstorm you leverage the synergy of the
group to reach new ideas by building on others’
ideas. Adding constraints, surrounding yourself
with inspiring related materials, and embracing
misunderstanding all allow you to reach further
than you could by simply thinking about a
problem.
Another ideation technique is building – that is,
using the Kugu Training™ in a more demanding
way, proposing more complex situations
and, thus, producing continuous and lasting
improvement. Eventually, the trainee will be able
to take up the role of game moderator and will
be able to oversee the training of new trainees
as soon as he or she show the qualification to do
so. In this way, the Kugu Training™ can act as a
multiplying agent for training, internal consulting
and as a tool further enabling the pursuit of
excellence within a company or organization.
The Kugu Training™ is an appropriate training tool
for any context involving interaction between two
or more people.
So far, all practical applications of the Kugu
Training™ have resulted in users’ positive surprise
from the speed with which their training goals
were met and the positive change in employees’
perception of training.

12. 4
The Company
"The best way to
predict the future
is create it" - Peter
Drucker Eliana Gurfinkiel Jacob Kutschenko
Board of Directors
Our team is multidisciplinary: every individual brings a different suitcase of
knowledge and experience, and an exhaustive skills toolbox. Yet, Kugu’s
team common denominator lies in applied curiosity and dynamic expertise.
No knowledge is static and each venture features a whole range of factors
and resources in a many-faceted world.