Fortune.com— I’m reading this drivel thinking that it must be a belated April Fool’s column, but apparently not. It’s a Fortune Mag piece about how businesses are using the kids game, Rock, Paper Scissors, to actually make decisions. Arrrrrgghhhh!

Personally I ‘d take the magic 8-ball!

RPS’s value as a tiebreaking tool for deciding everyday matters is less well recognized in the U.S. than in Asia, but at least one domestic company is using it. ThoughtWorks Inc., a Chicago-based IT services company with offices around the world, says RPS gives its 700 or so employees an easily translatable way to break ties and make decisions. The company’s U.S. people-support director, John Hundreiser, says the most expensive round of RPS he ever lost was over who would pay the dinner bill for 22 people at a restaurant in Bangalore that didn’t accept credit cards.

If the World RPS Society’s brothers Walker have anything to do with it, this side of the planet just might catch up to the East. Their mission began ten years ago on a cold night at the Walker family’s cottage in Canada, when Douglas and Graham, after a few drinks, played a best-of-13 match of RPS to decide who would go outside to get more wood for the fire. After the match was over (Douglas lost), they discussed their strategies and the patterns they observed in each other’s play and quickly realized that there was a lot more to playing RPS than random chance.

found by H. M.

related links
RPS Strategy Page
Championships