Serious Games Help Teams Solve Tough Problems, Engage Customers Differently

© 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited1 © 2009 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

TeleconferenceSerious Games Help Teams Solve Tough Problems, Engage Customers Differently

Tom Grant, Ph. D., Senior Analyst

June 29, 2011. Call in at 12:55 a.m. Eastern time

© 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited2

Agenda

Flatland and other problems

Some use cases for app dev teams

Getting started with serious games


Agenda





Welcome to Flatland


Voice of the customer? Really?

Dev teams often think they

understand the customer . . .

Unfortunately, the customer

doesn’t always share that

opinion.


Are we surprised that we don’t understand customers?


But we won’t reason our way out of our problems

•32% succeeded.

•44% were challenged.

•24% failed.

Standish Group CHAOS Summary

2009 report

•Iterative: 71% succeeded.

•Agile: 70% succeeded.

•Traditional: 66% succeeded.

•Ad hoc: 62% succeeded.

Dr. Dobb’s Project Success Survey

•Nearly one-half of the respondents experienced a project failure the year before.

•86% reported losses of as much as 25% of targeted benefits across the portfolio.

KPMG Global IT Project Management

Survey 2005

These arguments make sense, but they

didn’t make requirements the top priority.


“Team dynamics” may become an oxymoron

OVERBEARINGPERSONALITIES

Compartmentalization

Poor morale


TIME TO

CHANGE

THE

RULES


What is a serious game?

Structured

– Rules, but often no winners

Purposeful

– Definite outcome

Time-bound

– By definition, a time-boxed

exercise

Participatory

– Success depends on everyone

participating.

Egalitarian

– Everyone has an equal

opportunity to participate.


Example: Buy a feature

Android app for activity management

Custom pipeline stages

More complex lead-scoring options

More canned reports

Define and manage teams

Easy clean-up of bad or duplicate data

Activity entry via email

Associate teams with prospects

$5,000

$2,000

$3,500

$1,500

$4,750

$2,500

$3,250

$1,250

FEATURE COST

-

$500

-

$300

$2,000

$2,500

-

-

SPENT


Prune the product tree

SALES

REP

SALES

MGRReport API

Teams

Pipelinemgt

Opportunitystates

EmailactivityAndroid


Teams often use serious gaming regularly for:

Ideation.

Requirements collection.

Requirements validation.

Rapid decision-making.

Strategic-level decisions

(portfolio, road map, etc.).

Retrospection.


Why do serious games work?

Our brains are

wired for

intrinsic

motivation.

IF

figure out puzzle

THEN

release pleasure-

creating chemicals

(opioids)



TRADITIONAL CONVERSATION

about projects, requirements,

design, road map

BUSINESS:We need this from you.

IT: I’ll get back to you.

? ? ?

Mysterious

other stakeholders

? ? ?



RICHERCONVERSATION

We really need this thing.

Why? Is it really more important than the other thing?

I think it is, but for different reasons than she does.

We have to make a decision. Who’s for funding this thing?

[Quietly taking notes]



NEW RULES

Who’s playing?

How do we participate?

What’s the objective?

How long do we play?


Executives sponsor serious games


We already use games (well, some of us)

Planning

Poker

Used Buy A Feature to

decide future projects


Serious games are not…

Gamification Goal = provide ongoing motivation

Brainstorming Too unstructured

Simulation Goal = prediction

eLearning Only goal = training

Role-playing Close, but lots more prep needed


Agenda





We might go back to the drawing board when . . .

We don’t know what we don’t know.

We wish that we could make better decisions.

We could work better as a team.



We don’t know what we don’t know

Looking for fresh ideas for support projects

– Have to overcome geographic and organizational

boundaries to find them

Ran “Buy A Feature” online

– Allowed broad participation

– Recorded conversations

– Had high engagement, including after work

– Gave workers outside HQ a sense of real participation



We wish that we could make better decisions

OUR PRODUCT

Now with

more stuff!

Rewriting a decade-old system from scratch

Needed to economize on features included

in the first version

Used a Product Box game to ask

stakeholders what was most important

Some surprises in the results

Communicated the results throughout the

company



We could work better as a team

Mayor City officials

Community


Agenda





Agile and Lean changeSerious games change how

how we workwe make decisions


Your next move with serious games

START WITH THE IMMEDIATE

– Pick the game that addresses your issue.

– Prepare, prepare, prepare.

– Make sure you have enough resources for

the exercise.

– Record the exercise.

– Socialize the results.

– Plan for the next game.

THEN MAKE SERIOUS GAMES AN

ONGOING ACTIVITY

– Requirements

– Planning

– Retrospection

– Ad hoc decision-making


Different needs, different games

Source: April 29, 2011, “App Dev Teams: Consider Playing Around With Serious Games” Forrester report


Build serious game into regular processes

© 2009 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Thank you

Tom Grant+1.650.581.3846

[email protected]

http://blogs.forrester.com/tom_grant

@TomGrantForr

www.forrester.com

Technology

Serious Games Help Teams Solve Tough Problems, Engage Customers Differently