Topics of Interest to the learning Community
Gamification
Gamification is currently a popular design element being incorporated into all forms of learning experiences. If you have any fitness app, you have most likely been inspired to set and meet goals based on the positive feedback you receive. Learning professionals are seeing gamification creep into learning design as way to Improve the participant experience through rewards, scoring and competition. Let’s look at how gamification is best applied in experiential learning environments.
Beginning with the desired outcome in mind, the goal of a well designed training program should be a change in mindset or behavior that results in a positive change in work-related performance. Research shows that the likelihood of application of learning increases with the level of engagement in the learning. This occurs when the participant is motivated or inspired by the learning session. One of the best ways to motivate learning is to make it experiential where there are elements of self-discovery, physical movement and fun. Gamification can be part of that experience, but don’t gamify for gamifications sake. Instead, make it an integral part of the design. Board game simulations do a great job of integrating gamification elements, which include point scoring, competition and rules of play. A board game simulation also sets the context with a case study story that gives the learning purpose and sets the challenge. The participant guide contains the instructions for play and the debrief sessions at the end of each round of simulation allow for feedback, where the connecting of learning dots and re-enforcement learning occurs. There are ways to score points through adjusting key metrics of performance on the simulation board and have the best team on a scoreboard get the reward of winning.
The gamification element is integrated into a board game design in the following ways:
- The board game simulation is structured for small teams of up to five participants who work together.
- Out of the team comes self-discovery and the practice of collaborating across different areas of expertise and experience.
- Across the teams, the dynamic of competition is created.
Since the game is an abstraction of reality, new ways of thinking can be tested and practiced in a safe environment. The story, or purpose, of the exercise is always outcomes-focused on the problem to be solved, and concrete actions that come out of the learning can be applied in the workplace. That outcome is driven both by participants who control their simulation destiny and re-enforced with large-group debriefs where the key messages are drawn out and the critical issues are discussed.
Gamification is a powerful element of a learning experience when used in conjunction with good design principles. Alternatively stated, no amount of gamification can save a badly designed training program. Using a Reeves & Son board game simulation is a way to guarantee that gamification is serving its purpose and is delivering results
Industry Board Simulations
Board game simulation design, development and delivery is a passion of mine, and I’ve had several opportunities to innovate solution design to meet major business challenges. One opportunity was in the talent development space with a global client. Traditionally, a board game simulation is built to convey learning about a business or an industry as it currently exists. Whether the learning purpose is business acumen or people skills, the contextual story that introduces a board game simulation represents a company or industry in its current state. The learning objective is to practice skills and behaviors in a safe, simulated environment such that those skills can be practiced and applied back on the job. But what if the industry is undergoing a major transformation, and the only thing known with certainty is that the near future will be radically different from the recent past? Such was the case in the healthcare industry. Health care legislation had begun to transform the healthcare service sector from a doctor-centric model to a patient-centric model. This was about to have implications for providers, such as hospitals whose processes were designed to enable doctors to save lives through the provision of state-of-the art medicine. Many hospitals had built their brand around the specialized treatments provided by very skilled physicians, a doctor-centric model. Healthcare insurance companies (the payers) were also going to be impacted, due to major legislative incentives to change reimbursement plans and insurance coverage to reduce the cost of healthcare.
Executives in the industry were looking for help to make sense of this new reality, and to advise them on strategies for the future of healthcare. My client realized that they needed to at least develop a point of view to guide their health care stakeholders in the journey forward. They turned to me for help. I helped them to see that simulating the present was not helpful, and that a simulation of the future of healthcare could take many forms. My challenge was to create a forum for open, collaborative and innovative thinking about the future of the healthcare economy. My innovation was to create, within the board game simulation format, a vehicle for that conversation. Participants, working in teams, were given many options, and a limited budget, to serve a hypothetical market that they shaped based on their priorities and strategies. The investment options resembled both traditional actions that historically worked, such as building a new state-of-the art hospital, as well as many future oriented investment options, like creating common electronic health records. Each investment option had outcomes that affected key metrics of the new healthcare economy; patient satisfaction, quality of care, and cost management. Teams were free to experiment in a risk-free environment and test strategies on how the healthcare industry members might evolve, converge and succeed. The core of the innovation was to let the team create their own future from the many options, and not be prescriptive about what that future would look like.
To create this solution, I became a student of the industry, and used many resources to learn the key issues that determine and shape the business, such as government policy, interviews with subject matter experts, and industry research reports. My learning design skills enabled me to grasp the basic drivers of healthcare and then represent them in the board game in a rich, realistic, and relevant way. The project took four months to complete. In the classroom workshop five teams started from an identical starting point in the story of a healthcare provider facing an uncertain future. The board game simulation became the visual representation of their evolving strategy. Poker chips were used to represent a team’s investment and those chips were distributed on the game board. The impact of investments was captured by gauges on the board game surface. In this way, the board game surface became a dynamic scoreboard of the team’s progress and a visual representation of their strategy. To round out the simulation experience, participants were given scenarios of everyday issues in the hospital or at the insurance company which required action. The game was competitive, and fun. Participants and sponsors loved it.
The format of the game board allowed teams to create their own healthcare future. As they role-played being healthcare executives, the conversation opened their minds to new possibilities. From a mindset of traditional industry thinking and reliance on experience, the participants moved to a mindset of new business model constructs, and excitement about the future of healthcare. This in turn gave them a platform to have in-depth conversations with each other, helping contribute to the growth in options for the future direction of healthcare companies. The provision of healthcare is core to the well-being of society. When a key industry needs to transform to better serve its stakeholders, the magnitude of the transformation can seem daunting. By helping leaders experiment with new ways of thinking in order to better serve their healthcare stakeholders, my innovation in experiential learning was a significant contribution to the transition. The client has deployed my solution in dozens of workshops to hundreds of senior leaders and is one of the most well-received learning experiences in the company, as evidenced by participant feedback and results in the field.