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When I was growing up, I loved playing games. Any kind of game, challenge, test, or sport was engaging and fun. Playing as part of a team or taking something on solo, at my own pace, or as part of a chaotic experience. It always brought the best out of me and invigorated me.
At some point in my life, I reduced the number of games I played. Not necessarily by choice, but probably more by the constraints of becoming an adult, having more responsibility, and trying to be mature (and possibly failing!). Reflecting on this, I still have the capacity to enjoy games and could dedicate more time towards them. Occasionally, work and life in general get in the way.
Our Game-Changing Approach
Imagine my absolute joy when I joined the Elemental Projects team and started using games as a legitimate way to learn and develop practical workplace skills. This is the world of gamified simulation, where we create an experience in which to explore ideas, build trust, and understand capability.
Project Management can be a stressful occupation, where you are constantly delivering tasks to defined and restrictive timeframes, budgets, and quality requirements. Due to the unique nature of each project, the tools you use on one may not necessarily be applicable to the next, so a constant state of flux (change) is not uncommon. Our gamified simulations provide an opportunity to test your skills in a safe environment where failure only results in more knowledge being gained, with nothing being lost (perhaps apart from competitive pride, which is manageable!).
The Efficacy of Gamification
There has been plenty of research on the efficacy of gamification. My favourite piece to quote is this:
“On its surface, gamification seems ‘fake’, artificial, or like a shortcut. It’s not. Underneath the surface is the idea of engagement, story, autonomy, and meaning.”
(Karl M. Kapp, 2012, The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-Based Methods and Strategies for Training & Education, John Wiley & Sons)
Learning While Having Fun
The idea that you can learn whilst having fun may initially be difficult to comprehend, and in fairness, there can be situations where gamification will not function as well as other methods.
This is more often the case where there is a significant amount of technical detail that requires intricate explanation. The good news for project managers is that a large portion of our work involves building relationships, sharing information, and uniting teams – concepts that are ideally situated to a gamified simulation, for many reasons:
Simulations enable a layered learning process and support kinaesthetic learning (learning by doing), bridging the gap between theory and workplace application
Gamification of the simulations creates the psychological safety needed to try new things, without consequence if they don’t work
Team-based activities, undertaken face-to-face, support the development of a wide range of soft skills (inclusive of problem-solving, collaboration, and resilience).
The Neuroscience of Learning
Further research by Garris, Ahlers, and Driskell found that knowledge and skills learned while having fun are retained for longer and are more likely to be applied in the workplace
(Games, Motivation, and Learning: a Research and Practice Model in Simulation & Gaming, Vol.33, No.4, 2002, Sage Publications).
The ability to practice your skills with a completely blank slate inside of the simulation can enable your plastic (changeable) neural pathways to create new habits. We can consider this using the analogy of a toboggan – once you’ve done a couple of rides down a snowcapped mountain, you know the route you want to take and can see the tracks left behind from your previous runs. This is how we operate safely in our everyday roles.
When we take part in the simulation, we are given a brand-new landscape (a pristine snowy mountain) with no established tracks on it – and we are encouraged to experiment and try to create original pathways. Some of them may not be suitable, and we capture these as lessons learned. Others may prove to be effective, and we can take that knowledge into our next real working situation and apply them.
In addition to these new ‘cognitive toboggans’, plenty of chemicals are also released whilst having fun (including dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin). These wonderful substances stimulate other areas of the brain (like the parts that are linked to memory), facilitating greater neural connectivity; the basis of deep learning.
I recently (June 2024) had the fortune to attend the Australian Institute of Training & Development (AITD) Annual Conference, at which Dr. Britt Andretta delivered a fantastic keynote speech called ‘Wired to grow – the neuroscience of learning’. Her talk covered many aspects of how the brain learns, including how it can receive information from virtual reality experiences and store it as a real memory. This links to how our simulated experiences hold practical application for the real world – once we have been exposed to a situation, be it in our work or through play, we have the ability to put it away as a memory and reference it when we come across it later.
Another item that Dr Andretta covered was how we need to create environments for people to fail in, and thereby learn through this failure. The safe spaces that the simulations provide are ideal for this activity, providing a platform where failure is not only accepted but also encouraged.
Rethinking Traditional Learning Methods
As I have reflected on how people go through the process of learning, I’ve become more open to the idea that sitting still and listening to someone sharing information may not be the optimum way to do it. It was certainly the way I learned at school (in the 80’s and 90’s), and it worked ok for me, though perhaps not quite so for others.
As we come to understand more about divergent ways of thinking, there is scope for other methods to play their part in learning. At my children’s school, they undertake a wide variety of learning activities, including investigations, driven by the curiosity of each child, rather than everyone trying to achieve the same, specific, pre-determined objective. What a wonderfully open way of encouraging self-driven learning, how empowering!
Beyond Learning: Building Workplace Culture
When it comes to simulations, it’s not just the learning that brings value – it’s also the engagement of people in a collaborative and interactive atmosphere. The simulations do not have to be rolled out purely for the purposes of increasing knowledge – they are also able to commence or reinforce the development of a strong, supportive, and positive workplace culture. They are incredibly effective at fostering teamwork, bringing people together, and uniting them in a fictional cause that produces real-life connections by removing barriers that might otherwise exist (be they actual or perceived).
We also run the simulations to celebrate milestone achievements, end-of-financial years, or project completions. What better way to acknowledge the effort that your team has put into their work than by bringing them all together? Sure, we traditionally might book an area at a bar or restaurant to show our appreciation, but does this resonate for everyone, and reward them equally? Perhaps not. A simulation enables them to have fun in what is still a professional setting, and potentially even to develop skills that they didn’t know were accessible beforehand. Or they might get a chance to interact with someone from another team that they didn’t previously know and find that they can help each other with their work or connect on a social level.
The Spirit of Fun
Underpinning the simulations, apart from the knowledge base and the connections you can make through them, is the spirit of fun. I’m not the only person who has noticed that they have reduced the amount of time we spend playing as we get older – it’s a reasonably natural progression. But what if you could bring back some of that joy, that sense of engagement into your working life? Wouldn’t you want to seize the opportunity to make work more enjoyable? I know I would, and that’s why I consider myself to be incredibly lucky to deliver these as part of my job.
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