Photos: Game over for boring business training
When gaming and business collide
Forget storming Martian bases or battling advancing armies, the latest challenge for gamers is mastering the frenetic world of business process management (BPM).
INNOV8 2.0 is an online game that has players fighting to avoid a grilling from the IT director rather than death at the hands of an end-of-level boss.
The player plays a business consultant who is tasked with reversing the fortunes of ailing corporation After Inc.
Their goal is to turn around After Inc's customer call centre, and to improve its fleet traffic and supply chain management, as seen in the picture here.
Potential players can see a video of INNOV8 in action here.
Photo credit: IBM
The core game sees the player attempt to run a call centre. The player learns the way the business works by talking to key members of staff, from the sales manager to the IT director.
Photo credit: IBM
Scripted conversations with staff members give the player tips on how to get the best out of the business, pictured above.
Players then have to tell the virtual execs how they would run the company, answering questions on issues such as the ratio of high-cost to low-cost workers in the call centre and how many calls from customers are routed through it.
If players make a bad judgement then they will be pulled up by the virtual execs, who will give them feedback to try and steer them back on the correct path.
Photo credit: IBM
The third stage sees the player charged with making the actual decisions on how to run the call centre and to respond to the changing conditions of the market.
The player is then ranked on how well they met key performance indicators, such as the level of customer satisfaction and how long each person is kept waiting before their call is answered.
Good performance is rewarded with exploding fireworks, while failure will see the avatar on the street, holding a sign saying "Will BPM for food".
The game takes less than 45 minutes to complete and players are then able to start the game again to make different choices and see if they can get better results.
Photo credit: IBM
The online version of the game posts the player's score on the web, allowing trainees to compare their business skills.
Kevin Farrar, skills leader for IBM UK and Ireland - which funded the game - said: "Basically it is about tweaking business models and seeing what the impact of those decisions are.
"After the game has been completed it provides links to case studies where successful versions of those business models have been used elsewhere."
Photo credit: IBM
The online game, with the additional traffic management feature seen here, launched this year.
An earlier version of INNOV8 has been offered to universities since 2007. Today, the game is being used to teach business students in about 1,000 different universities worldwide.
At Manchester Business School, INNOV8 is used to show the link between IT and BPM.
Linda Macaulay, professor of information system design at Manchester Business School, said: "It links theory to practice, traditionally if you were teaching BPM you would use boxes and graphs.
"Now we have a simulation of the real world and it brings the whole process to life.
"It is like taking a whole class on a work placement - they can see that BPM is not just about process but also handling people and emerging situations."
Photo credit: IBM
About 150 students at Manchester Business School have used the game so far and Macaulay said that the feedback from students had been "very positive".
Macaulay would like to see educational games play a bigger role in university-level teaching.
"I would hope that these simulations would make up more of the syllabus in future because it offers such a rich experience," she said.
Photo credit: IBM