From Outbreak to Insight: Adapting Pandemic as an Experiential Learning Tool for Team Development

Pandemic Overview

Designed for two to four players, the objective of Pandemic is to work as a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) team to develop cures for four diseases ravaging humanity. Teams spend approximately 45 minutes to work toward the objective while effectively managing their limited resources, the increasing rate of infection, and the effects of disease contagion (Leacock, 2008). Although the team’s objective is clear, managing these other challenges can temporarily become a greater priority to ensure success. These competing demands for the team’s resources and attention are a direct reflection of the task-related obstacles in teamwork; the path to success is riddled with barriers that need to be managed well and cleared. For detailed information about Pandemic, see Appendix B and van Esch and Wiggen (2020).

Each player adopts a unique team role with specialized abilities and has autonomy over the decisions they make during their turn. However, they must communicate with their team to leverage their role-based abilities, optimize their resources, and manage competing demands effectively. Moreover, the decisions made during one player’s turn will affect gameplay during another player’s turn. Thus, players experience the realities of interpersonal challenges related to teamwork—voicing ideas and concerns, managing conflict, sharing in decision-making, and building cohesion.

Enhancing Pandemic for Instructional Use

This activity introduces three game enhancements to target learning objectives. First, rather than randomly selecting roles, teams use four specific roles—Medic, Scientist, Researcher, and Operations Expert—chosen for their complementary functions (see Table 2). Second, an adapted Dispatcher role accommodates a fifth player and increases role diversity. Third, individual role handouts replace the rulebook, providing general gameplay rules while restricting role-specific information to respective handouts (see Appendix C).

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Table 2.

Pandemic Activity Role Descriptions.

Role	Unique Role Contribution	Special Abilities
Medic	Facilitates effective disease treatment	• Removes all disease cubes of the same color for one action • Presence in a city removes all disease cubes of a cured disease; no actions are required
Scientist	Expedites the development of cures	• Requires only four city cards of the same color to develop the cure for a disease
Researcher	Increases knowledge-sharing efficiency for cure development	• Does not need to be in the city written on the city card to Share Knowledge with another player during his/her turn • If in the same city as the Researcher on their turn, other players may take from the Researcher any city card for an action
Operations expert	Conserves resources while efficiently building research stations for travel and cure development	• May build a research station in his/her current city as an action without discarding a city card • Once per turn, move from a city with a research station to any other city as an action without discarding a city card
Dispatcher	Strategically positions players on the game board	The Dispatcher does not have a pawn on the game board and instead moves other players’ pawns in one of two ways: • Drive/Ferry any one player’s pawn up to four connected cities away OR • Move any one player’s pawn to a city in which another pawn is present

Note. Role descriptions are summarized from the Pandemic rulebook (Leacock, 2008). The Dispatcher role’s special abilities reflect a modification from the original role’s design.

These enhancements augment role diversity and introduce controlled uncertainty. Compartmentalizing role-specific information while sharing general rules simulates cross-functional collaboration challenges and communication management. This structure creates an experiential learning environment in which team members must clarify roles and resolve conflicts over strategies (Forming and Storming) before coordinated action and strategic thinking can emerge from their understanding of their collective capabilities (Norming and Performing). Consequently, the online version of Pandemic is not suitable for this activity due to its fixed role assignments and automated rules.

Logistics and Materials

This face-to-face activity requires a minimum of 75 minutes, and one Pandemic board game and one set of role handouts per team are needed. The activity is ideal for classes of 25 to 40 students divided into five-person teams but can be adapted for classes with 10 to 60 students. In addition, courses with enrollments not divisible by five can omit the Operations Expert role. See Appendix D for modification details.

This activity is best conducted after teams’ instructional content has been delivered (i.e., Tuckman’s model, team effectiveness, processes, etc.) to provide students with context for the exercise. The instructor should also play the game themselves at least once before conducting this activity to familiarize themselves with game mechanics.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Appendix D provides a detailed protocol for preparation, setup, gameplay, and frequently asked questions.

Debrief

For classes shorter than 75 minutes, the instructor should assign debrief questions to students in an individual reflection between class meetings and conduct the full activity debrief at the start of the next class. The instructor can facilitate a two-phase debrief discussion starting with 10 minutes in teams reflecting on their team’s development, noting how their understanding of one another’s roles and their communication related to their development. The instructor then initiates a 15-minute class discussion, allowing students to share unique team experiences with their peers. See Table 3 for specific question examples targeting learning objectives.

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Table 3.

Debriefing Question Examples.

Learning objective	Debrief question
Articulate the importance of information sharing and communication to develop a team mental model about resources members bring to the team	In what ways did your understanding of team roles shape your team’s development, strategy, and processes? How did you overcome disagreements about strategy, and how long did it take to begin feeling confident about your ability as a team?
Recognize the value of individual roles and identify the behaviors that facilitate role clarity and effective management of functional diversity (i.e., role diversity)	What assumptions did you initially make about the different roles, and how did you correct them? What value did each role bring to your team, and how did your team leverage them—individually or in combination with other roles—to work toward your goal?
Describe how teams develop according to Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development Model and how the team’s communication and interpersonal processes contribute to effectiveness	What were the indications that your team was in each stage of Tuckman’s model? What stage do you think your team reached and why? How did your team’s understanding of the various roles on the team evolve as your team developed?

Unanimously, teams agree that the Forming stage was characterized by feeling “lost” and “confused” about how to play the game, understanding very little about others’ roles, and being unsure of how their own roles contribute to the team’s success. Many students identify the lack of role clarity as a significant deterrent to their team’s progress. However, despite having little understanding of their teammates’ roles, students also commonly report “ranking” roles based on assumptions and biases they made about each role. They acknowledged that their biased perceptions contributed to the team’s transition into the Storming stage; members were less willing to listen to one another and utilize what they perceived were the “less important” roles—typically the Operations Expert and Dispatcher.

Consistently across teams, the longer it takes to understand the value of each role, the longer the team remains in the Storming stage. Students frequently comment that gameplay is much slower during the Forming and Storming stages, attributing this to ineffective communication. They spend more time correcting misunderstandings, clarifying roles, and resolving conflicts than making progress in the game. It is not uncommon for teams to play only a 1-2 rounds during the first 15 to 20 minutes of the game as they struggle to develop a clear mental model of how each role contributes to the collective effort.

Most teams reach the Norming stage of Tuckman’s model, which students characterize as a series of “aha!” moments that help them “fit the pieces” of their mental model together. They credit the increase in gameplay efficiency during Norming to cohesion, psychological safety, clarity of roles, and trust in their teammates’ ability to operate their roles well. A common observation is that the team’s focus shifts from establishing role clarity to meeting task demands, such as developing a strategy and setting priorities. Teams typically report that they started to experience process gains through better communication, team efficacy, and team identity, highlighting how the team’s interpersonal dynamics facilitate effective task execution.

Typically, only 25% of teams believe they reached the Performing stage, referencing their processes and synergy as justification. Common descriptors of this stage include “getting really into the game,” believing they can win, “playing off one another’s turns,” and strategically combining roles’ abilities to plan several turns ahead. Students also observe that their teams developed gameplay language and focused on sharing observations and information, allowing them to respond to obstacles more effectively, adjust their strategy with agility, and “[fly] through rounds because [they’re] on the same page about the strategy and contingency plans.” Still, even students who do not reach Performing stage meet learning objectives and offer insightful debrief contributions. Because they were unsuccessful, they proactively discuss where things went wrong, how and why they remained “stuck” in an earlier development stage, and how ineffective communication could have been managed more effectively. These students often lament that they failed to take the necessary time and steps early in the game to clarify roles and understand how each member contributes to the game, highlighting the importance of addressing the interpersonal elements of teamwork and diversity of roles sooner rather than later.