I was reminded of this on Sunday night when I took part in a show game called The Money, brought to Australia by live-performance company Kaleider. It's toured all over the world - from the UK Houses of Parliament to Tianjin's Grand Theatre in China.

I was one of 20 "players" - 11 women and nine men - charged with making a unanimous decision on what to do with $500 in cash sitting on the table before us within an hour. The catch? The decision had to be unanimous and it could all change in an instant, because there was also an audience full of "silent witnesses" who could pay $20 to become players at any time.

This is what happened:

We gathered outside the Utzon Room in the Sydney Opera House just before 6pm. Women dressed like flight attendants - matching dark suits with mini-scarves knotted at the collarbone - solemnly ushered us into the room, laid down a few housekeeping rules and started a timer.

One of my fellow players counted the money and another read the rules. We couldn't give the money to charity, or split it among ourselves. We were challenged that our role was to be "visionary". If we didn't all sign a pro forma agreement within 60 minutes then the money would roll over to the next group of people to decide.

We looked around the table and smiled, wondering how to begin. Soon the ideas started flowing. We discussed unanimously agreeing to abiding by majority rules or playing a game and letting the winner decide but some people felt this would circumvent the rule about unanimity.

One player suggested we fund his friend's project to create Christmas packs for homeless people. Another suggested we help two young children who recently lost their dad to suicide.

We wondered if this would break the rule about not giving to charity. Did that mean a registered charity or any charitable act? We asked the adjudicators to clarify; they said they'd let us know at the end.

Many of us didn't want to risk it. Another idea was a random act of kindness - buying dinner at Bennelong for one of the tourists milling around Circular Quay perhaps.

Some people felt were lacking vision. For a while it seemed we might throw a party and one of the players, a jazz musician, would round up the entertainment. Then a silent witness joined the game and suggested we try to grow it through investment.

Eventually we settled on forming a trust to buy the crypto-currency Bitcoin and then later giving the proceeds to charity once the decision was ours to make. Despite the possibility of a Bitcoin bubble, we were attracted to the idea of "double or nothing" without literally going to the casino. It also had the advantage of being easy to follow through and verify.

The lawyer drafted up the pro forma and we started signing. A young guy joined us from the audience, threw his arms in the air and declared, "I'm part of a trust!"

But then another silent witness joined, with five minutes to go. "I want you to give the money to me to buy a Nintendo Switch and if you don't agree, I'm going to veto everything else." He added that he was frustrated we'd taken an hour to basically defer our decision.

We called his bluff, he wouldn't budge and the game was over. The money would be rolled over to the next game, somewhere in Europe in 2018.

So what did I learn?

First, having a deadline helps. We made our decision after 55 minutes of discussion because we didn't want to lose it. If we'd had another hour, we would have spent more time talking, though possibly with a different outcome. Sometimes the right decision is more important than a quick one, but not always. When the stakes are low, put a time limit on it!

Second, you don't always need someone to chair a meeting. Our group had very little trouble with people talking over each other. That's not always the case - creator Seth Honnor, in an interview with the British Council, says he watched a game in Italy where every single person around the table was talking at once.

Third, don't be too risk averse or "pure". We didn't do ourselves any favours by taking the strictest possible interpretation of "charity".

Apparently in China the players took the opposite approach. "They really pushed at the very edges of the rules, and it was really fun and quite challenging for us to hold it," Honner says.

Fourth, most people want to work well with others ... but there will always be people who want to make trouble. This is why democratic decisions require a majority rather than unanimous agreement.

Fifth, the exercise was a thought-provoking reminder that money is not just money, it's also a tool.

For those who came with the mindset of doing the most amount of good with the money, the outcome was intensely frustrating. At drinks afterwards, we learnt the players in the previous game agreed within 20 minutes to give the money to one of the players to buy Woolworths vouchers and distribute them to homeless people.

But although they were quicker with their decision, I suspect the Nintendo Switch guy was planning his move all along. They just got lucky that he wrecked our game not theirs.

For those, like me, who came to see how a group of people come to a decision, it was a fitting end. Life is like that - you think you've achieved something, then there's a curve ball.

PS: If you're interested in the project to help homeless people, there's a fundraising campaign on Chuffed.

Caitlin Fitzsimmons is the Money editor and a Fairfax columnist. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.