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The FLIGBY story

Bob Turul, the owner is inviting you to become the new General Manager (GM) of the Turul Winery. Your 8 months long virtual contract starts on March 1st, 2010 and ends on October 30th, 2010.
If you agree, the future of Turul Winery will be in your hands!
Your challenge: Can you turn Turul Winery into a successful business by applying globally famous Prof. Csikszentmihaly’s Flow-promoting approach to leadership?
It’s not going to be easy! You have to deal with difficult people, low morale and many conflicts.

The Aim of the Game

FLIGBY is a leadership development game, thus your main goal is to make the right managerial decisions. Your aim is to achieve the best possible result as the leader of the Californian Turul Winery. If you do your job well and you make decisions strengthening the operation of the organization, at the end of the game the Winery will stand a chance of winning the “Spirit of the Wine Award”, a sign of international recognition.

Your decisions made during the 23 scenes (about 150 decisions) of the game are summarized and analyzed by a complex algorithm. Your leadership involvement has to facilitate the Flow state of your colleagues and ensure a well-functioning corporate atmosphere. It also has to be effective from the aspect of profitability, and environmental sustainability, so the Winery can win the award at the end of the game.

How to access FLIGBY?

Only registered users can play the Game. Registration can be done on the basis of email invitation received from support@aleasgroup.com. Clicking on the link you find in the invitation email you can start registration.

Your username will be the email address to which you received the registration email. It can’t be modified. From this time you can log in to the simulation with this username and a password chosen by you. The registration process finishes by accepting the Terms and Conditions. After registration you can reach the simulation any time on the website www.fligby.com clicking on the „Sign In” icon (arrow in the upper right corner) or at https://metrix.fligby.com. In case you forgot your password, you can easily reset it by using the password recovery function: https://metrix.fligby.com/password-recovery . The game always continues from where you stopped last time.

FLIGBY requires an adequate internet connection to access its internet-based features, to authenticate your account and to perform gaming and learning functions.

FLIGBY’s Metrix

Logging in we come to the DASHBOARD in FLIGBY’s Metrix system. This is where the user can follow the progress within the Simulation.

PLAY GAME – To start playing click on the play button in the top left-hand corner or onto the actual scene.

MY GROUP – This area contains the group’s name, the name of the Host(s)/professor(s), and also the progress of each group mate.

MY RESULTS – After every time the user finishes the whole Simulation, an individual report appears here in a comparable format. In case it’s enabled, a comprehensive pdf report can be downloaded on the first full gameplay. (get sample report)

– You can access the tooltips by clicking on the lightbulb icon in the top right-hand corner of a given area.

Main User Interface

We designed FLIGBY to make it easy to find your way around. Lots of solutions can be familiar to you from the world of videogames. 

This interface is dominated by the video window. Events happen here: the story videos are played here and the decision options are also presented here.

On the top of the Main User Interface the following functions can be found:

  • Full Screen Button – Full screen mode is worthwhile for a more complete game experience, especially if played on an iPad or tablet.
  • Flow Trophies – If one of your virtual colleagues gets to Flow-state during the game, you will win a Flow Trophy. Collect as many as you can.
  • KPIs that are influenced by player’s decisions: Corporate Atmosphere, Profitability and Sustainability.

On the right side of the Main User Interface the following functions can be found:

  • Report a problem – technical problems can be reported here
  • Media Library – With this button you can open the Media Library for a quick reference at any time making the game stop automatically. Thus you have plenty of time to become absorbed in the different multimedia references and readings. When you return to the simulation the game continues where you stopped previously.
  • Map of the Turul Winery – You can access and have a virtual tour in the Turul Winery and its premises at any time.
  • Direct access to www.turulwinery.com and to www.spiritofthewine.com
  • Restart/Replaying option – you can use this button to restart FLIGBY up till the end of scene 11. You can choose from restarting a certain scene, episode, or from the beginning of the Simulation.
  • My computer – The content of your computer is dynamically changing. You can read about its operation in more detail in the 3.4. section;
  • Help – The content of this given page is available through the help button

On the bottom of the Main User Interface the following functions can be found:

  • Progress within the simulation: the green circle shows the actual scene within a given episode.
  • Virtual date and time in the Story is presented in green above the scene/episode progress bar. The story lasts from 1st of March to 30th of October (8 virtual months).

In the middle of the Main User Interface the following functions can be found:

  • Flow-Map – Prof. Csikszentmihalyi calls it “map of everyday experiences” (Csikszentmihalyi: Good Business, chapter 4.).
  • Play Button – In the middle of the Flow-Map. Click on this button to start playing.
  • Quick Links to Personal Profiles and “Flow/State of Mind Status” – Personal Profiles are available by clicking on a virtual character’s name (this field is dynamically changing and filling up); a virtual character’s movement on the Flow-Map is available by clicking on the “mental state” next to a given name.
  • Magic FLIGBY Button – Mr. Fligby’s task is to help your managerial work as a mentor/guide. If he has an opinion on the events, this button will be flashing. Click on it to see the video.
  • Subtitle Field – To make things easier, all videos are subtitled.

Media Library

There is a continuously available Media Library connected to the simulation with more than a hundred items. The purpose of this is to show the scientific and business background of Flow with the help of multimedia contents.

Main features are:

  • Description of Flow, extracts of Csikszentmihalyi’s books;
  • Readings about Leadership and Management;
  • Basics of viniculture and the description of the Californian wine-growing area;
  • Csikszentmihalyi’s Home Lab (the Professor’s personal video blog for decision-makers);
  • The contents related to the plot of the game (e.g. the personal profiles of the characters, the detailed map of the Winery).

When you enter the Media Library the game automatically stops. This enables you to look for practical help in the readings for any single decision. By quitting the Media Library the game restarts.

When you return to the simulation the game continues where you stopped previously.

The elements of the Media Library can be classified on the basis of two aspects:

  1. On the basis of content:
    1. Management / Leadership content;
    2. Flow-related content;
    3. Viniculture-related content;
    4. Textual content;
    5. Video content.
  1. On the basis of format:
    1. Textual content;
    2. Video content.

The contents related to the current Scene of the simulation is shown in the default Media Library and also available directly from the Dashboard. Of course, there are other ways you can find the content you are particularly interested in:

  • FLIGBY Search Engine – It enables you to search exact phrases, suggesting relevant keywords;
  • In the default you can filter the search results simply with the help of built-in filters.

Flow Map and KPIs

One of the aims of the game is that your managerial decisions make your colleagues experience Flow-state, and as a result the business performance of the Turul Winery improves. The Flow-Map and the KPIs show the effects of your decisions made during the game, therefore it is the most important feedback interface of the game.

The central element is the Flow-Map, where you can continuously follow the characters’ current Flow-state.

The theoretical base of the Flow-Map was created by Professor Csikszentmihályi. He and his colleagues have conducted several studies since the 1970s using a special experience sampling method. Flow-Map illustrates the result of the distribution of moods and emotion levels during certain activities throughout the day.

The center is an average emotional state during the week; a balance of skills and challenges. As it is well-expected, in the field of optimal experience both skills and challenges are a bit higher than average.

The top-right parts (Control and Arousal) are the closest to the Flow channel: a little increase of challenges or skills respectively will help to get to the optimal experience. The bottom-left corner, on the other hand, remains very far away from that optimum. Anxiety holds the most obstacles: all too often the gap between skills and high challenges seems impossible to leap across.

It seems clear that reaching flow state is an advantageous achievement for your own good. However, it is impossible to be in Flow all the time.

Corporate Atmosphere

It shows the average mood within the organization or with other words, it is a good representation of the change within the company culture.

Profitability

It shows how a player’s decision impacts Turul Winery’s revenue generating ability.

Sustainability

Each time you make an important decision that also helps to protect the environment (since “good business” practices include sustainability) you move closer to obtaining the Sustainability Badge. Winning it is a good indicator that you make sure that Turul’s products and production processes are environmentally sustainable and fit harmoniusly with the local community.

Flow Trophies

When a character gets into Flow-state as a consequence of your decisions, on the top of the Main User Interface the number of Flow-Trophies changes. The number of Trophies can be continuously seen from the moment you won them until the end of the game, even if a particular colleague happens to lose the Flow-state in the meantime. Flow is a dynamically changing state, and in this regard the characters of the game are realistic: they won’t stay in Flow-state forever.

If you restart the game, of course, you will lose all the Flow-Trophies you have won before the restart along with all the values and results obtained so far.

Spirit of the Wine Award

The whole game can be evaluated on the basis of a single aspect: can you win the “Spirit of the Wine Award” and subsequently gain the international professional recognition for the management of Turul Winery? To win the award you have to make appropriate decisions regarding your colleagues’ motivation, the organization of teamwork, and the business as well. The player’s decisions are summarized by a complex algorithm taking into consideration the characters’ Flow-states, the values of the Corporate Athmosphere and also of the Profitability and Sustainability Index. Making some mistakes won’t result in losing the award, but to win the recognition you have to give a self-consistent and quality managerial performance.

The player’s performance at Game’s end is judged on the basis of his or her successfully balancing three things: Flow, profit and the environment (sustainability). We call it FLIGBY’s triple scorecard and this concept is the basis of winning the “Spirit of the Wine Award”.

Personal recommendations of Mr. Fligby

In certain situations Mr. Fligby, the virtual mentor and guide of the simulation gives advice, holding back no punches. As the player’s personal consultant, he helps the interpretation and resolution of complex conflicts.