Business Simulation Game for Teams: What It Is and How It Works
A team decides with finite resources and conflicting goals and sees the cost in numbers within minutes. Life Capital plays about forty years of life in five hours, five to eight people a table.
What is a business simulation game for a team?
A business simulation game is a facilitated exercise in which a team makes decisions inside a model with limited resources and sees the consequences within the same session. Life Capital is an in-person board simulation of about forty years of life: five hours, five to eight players a table, a Trainer and a Banker, and a debrief built from each player’s own ledger.
For a company it runs as a team session for 6–18 people at your premises, priced to your task.
| Format | What the group does | What stays afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| Team-building activity | a shared challenge or outing, built around time together | a shared experience; what changes at work depends on the activity |
| Classroom training | a trainer explains a model or a skill; exercises practise it | notes, the model and the exercises |
| Business simulation (Life Capital) | decisions with finite resources and conflicting goals, consequences in numbers within minutes, a debrief from the ledgers | each player’s ledger; for a team, written decision principles, a role map and 5–7 improvements |
The three are different tools. A simulation fits when the question is how a team decides, shares resources and talks under pressure. The corporate session in full →
- 1 →DecideInvest, sell, spend, borrow or wait, with the budget the Legend gave you.
- 2 →ConsequenceA card, a market move or a job loss lands on the plan.
- 3 →LedgerThe player writes the move and its cost in their own ledger.
- 4 →TableFinite resources and conflicting goals start the negotiation.
- 5 →DebriefThe Trainer and the table name what worked, from the ledgers.
How a Life Capital session plays: four moves
01 · Starting conditions
Every player draws a Player Legend face down: a profession and a starting budget. You start from what you drew, the way it is in life.
02 · Your goal
You name your own Dream and learn the rules for reaching it. From here on, every decision is measured against that goal.
03 · The moves
Each move lands you on a sector of the board: invest, sell, spend, give to charity, take a job loss, take a wage or a windfall, have children, absorb whatever the cards bring. Some cards ask you for a decision, others you simply carry out. You write every move into your own ledger; the Banker pays out and collects the money.
04 · Financial freedom
The simulation ends at the notional age of 65. You win by entering the circle of financial freedom and acquiring the Dream you named at the start. Some players never get there, and the debrief starts from exactly that.
You can make a mistake here and see it in numbers within minutes: a safe place to be wrong, with the cost of being wrong made visible.
The last half hour: from the board to the team’s own notes
In a team session the retrospective is where the simulation turns into work material. Roles are named out loud, the points where communication broke are located on the board, and the group writes its improvements down. The team leaves with agreed decision principles, a role map with the “red zones” of communication, and 5–7 process improvements, each with an owner.
Who plays it
- Companies and HR: a 5-hour team session for 6–18 participants at your premises. Team building in Ottawa →
- Adults: a 5-hour session for a group of 8–16, an audit of your own resources and life strategy. Programs →
- Teenagers from 14: budgeting, credit, saving and risk at a real table. Finance class for teens →
- Schools: a club across the school year, with full 5-hour simulations. For schools →
Where the simulation comes from
A team of authors created Life Capital («Життєвий капітал») in Kharkiv in 2017; the rights holder of the methodology is the NGO Business Club Partner, Kharkiv. In Canada it is run by LIFECAPITAL GLOBAL INC. from Carleton Place, Ontario, in English and Ukrainian.
Figures in Canadian dollars. Ask about a team session →
No reply after two business days means the message did not reach us. Write to info@lifecapital.ca or call +1 613 621 1261.
Questions about business simulation games
What is a business simulation game?
A facilitated exercise in which a group makes decisions inside a model with limited resources and competing goals and sees the consequences within the same session. Life Capital is a board simulation of about forty years of life, played in person in five hours by tables of five to eight.
How is a business simulation different from team building?
A team-building activity is built around the group’s time together. A simulation puts the team in front of decisions with a cost: every move is written in a ledger, the consequences show in numbers within minutes, and the debrief turns what happened into the team’s own decision principles and improvements.
Is Life Capital a real-life simulation game?
Yes. Each player starts from a Player Legend drawn face down, a profession and a starting budget, and lives through earning, spending, investing, losing a job, having children and taking risks, to a notional age of 65. It is played at a real table with paper ledgers, cards and play money.
How long does it take, and how many people play?
Five hours: a 30-minute briefing, a 2-hour first half, a break, a second half of 1 hour 45 minutes and a 30-minute debrief. Five to eight players sit at a table; a corporate team session takes 6–18 participants.
Do players need business or finance knowledge?
Participants come as they are. The Trainer opens the session with a briefing, every player learns the rules for reaching their own goal, and the Banker handles the money.
Can the simulation be played online?
Life Capital runs in person only: the board, the cards and the play money are on a real table, and each player keeps a paper ledger.
Who runs a Life Capital session?
A certified Trainer facilitates the whole session, from the briefing to the debrief, and a Banker pays out and collects the money. Only players can train as Trainers, through the Life Capital Trainer School.
What does a business simulation for a team cost?
A scenario-based corporate session is priced individually, depending on the task, the group size and the metrics to re-check. For reference, open sessions from 1 November 2026 are CAD 200 a seat, CAD 150 each for a pair and CAD 1,000 for a whole table.