Games for learning are cool. But that is NOT why you should build them into your courses or communications events. More on that in other blogs. Actually, you may have decided to never incorporate serious games to any of your learning or communication experiences.
But that doesn’t mean it won’t be useful to learn how to design and develop them.
Designing games can help you dissect a business problem quickly. Call it rapid business analysis if you will.
Learning designers, communications experts, business analysts, change managers and other professionals who must grasp issues quickly in our ever-evolving business climate and then quickly communicate that information back to their audience must thoroughly understand the issue. Basically, we are required to understand the problem and simultaneously communicate the information in a consumable format. And it must happen at the speed of business.
As you probably know, it is impossible to successfully realize and communicate a solution to a problem if you cannot completely understand the problem. Therefore, the first step is to comprehend the problem to communicate the problem.
Digging into a business issue, be it a behavior change that you want folks to adopt, or a complex business process you want to help team members comprehend quickly, you need to be able to communicate the problem clearly to begin to decipher solutions to the problem.
That is where creative visualization and game design can be extremely useful in helping you think through these thoughts.
At Step Away, we help you work through this process using your own unique business problem. You will walk through our unique method from beginning to end. You will be able to use this process again and again by yourself or bring it to life during your team collaboration events. It’s a reusable process. Walking through our process and ending up with a usable product at the end of the event is what makes Step Away a unique workshop.
But this isn’t a sales pitch. This is to help you understand what makes Step Away different. And why game design is not only useful but, in fact, necessary.
In short, our method begins with the problem, your business problem. Everyone works together using their own problem. Then, we use objects to help people describe their problem. Using physical objects to help you visualize the problem is the first step in decoding the issue. Next, you use objects to design a solution to your problem. And then verbalize that solution to others. This process helps you begin your journey to decipher even more issues and what a perfect end state might be.
The aha’s begin here. The magic continues as you see the solution to your business problem come to life.