From The Grasshopper, by Bernard Suits:
When you play a board game, or a game of baseball, you’re playing a closed game. There is a defined end, and a defined set of means to reach it.
When you play pretend, or when you build a career in baseball, you’re playing an open game. The objective is to keep playing, to make it more interesting. While some means are proscribed (don’t deny what the other player added, no steroids), it helps to bring in new people or tools.
Software projects are run as closed games. The objective is to end on time and on budget, using business-approved resources.
Software products are open games. The objective is to keep being useful in a changing world. We can bring in new tools, and new people, and there is no “done.”
When we play open games, we play for the future. Outcomes. We care about the people who come after us. Closed games (such as annual performance goals) lead to crunch time, when all we care about is checking boxes whether it does any real good or not.
Closed games can be zero-sum. You win, I lose. In an open game, for me to win, you have to win too.
Every business is an open game. Life is an open game. Can we keep the closed games to the dining room table and sports, please?