Game design has become a valuable skill with increasing demand for games and simulations to address serious issues, hence the term serious games. Games come in many guises. Some are played purely for entertainment and are about the fully immersive experience, others have specific objectives to develop skills, deliver education and improve communication and the ability to work with others. At Elgood our focus is on games and simulations to encourage and support learning, usually in an organisational context. There is a possible expectation that management games should mimic the latest technology, but this isn’t necessary.
These days game design involves virtual realities and online experiences. Often this means that game designers are people who like playing games, rather than people who truly understand what you are trying to achieve.
Focusing on your desired outcome and the learning experience is what’s important. From a delivery perspective, keeping things simple enables the game to be carried out in a variety of environments: warehouses, team meetings, production facilities.
The methodology of Points, Badges and Leaderboards (PBL) is just one solution. At Elgood we are not aligned to one way of thinking. We are passionate about developing people and organisations.
Game Design: The Process
We have designed a 10-step process, which details the game design stages we use when creating new management game or business simulation. Within this we focus on two fundamental things:
- What is your business problem?
- What is the outcome that you want?
What is your business problem?
We will work with you to help you identify the real business problem. This involves working in partnership to try and look at things in a different way. We offer our experience – gained working across many industries and client groups – to ask probing and sometimes unexpected questions.
What is the outcome that you want?
It is important to be clear about the outcome that you are trying to achieve. What is that you want people to do differently? What’s the value to the business? It is important to keep your end goal simple.
Our games are adapted to combat each client’s unique challenge. We work collaboratively and believe our clients must be involved at all stages. Elgood are experts in learning and development, but factual data needs to come from our clients. The internal team are critical in creating something believable that participants will relate to. It also enables the project team to learn about other areas of their business. It’s an additional learning and development experience.
To find out more about the value of management games and business simulation games, read our whitepaper The Value of Using Management Games and Business Simulations.