The Play Your Process Method for Business Process-Based Digital Game Design

Serious games have been understood as a useful tool to engage, educate and train individuals in many areas. They are also suitable for the business processes management area where it is expected that business-process-based digital games can bring together players (process actors) to better understand and learn organizational business processes. This paper presents a game design method for the development of serious games which aims to provide business process understanding to players, as well as to allow them to reflect on process challenges and difficulties. The design of serious business process games requires game designers to have business process modeling skills and instructions on how to represent business process elements in the game context. This research was conducted using the Design Science Research Methodology, and addresses the challenge of providing a method for the design of serious business process games. The method receives business process models as input and comprises steps to (i) map business process elements into game design elements, game design and development, and (ii) evaluate games with game designers, process actors, and game players. In order to validate the method, a set of games was built and evaluated with players. The designed games were evaluated as to adequate quality, although fun and entertainment can still be improved, and players´ understanding regarding process increase after games are playe

Teaching employability skills through simulation games

This paper examines the use of a business simulation game to test its effectiveness in promoting the awareness of employability skills in undergraduate students. A mixed approach using an-online survey tool was used to record student perceptions of how their employability skills were developed across ten courses and three faculties. The survey was conducted before the unit started, and on completion. Key emerging themes show that students demonstrated an increased awareness and development of their employability skills. They acquired and developed their skills by learning how to operate a small business start-up using a business simulation game. This research project was limited to one core unit in the curriculum, and the project is university specific. A cross university research project would add further value to the research project. Students are able to articulate the skills they have acquired and developed thus showing elements of self-awareness. An increase in student’s social capital is likely to enhance their career decisions. This paper will be of value to institutions wishing to evaluate the use of serious business simulation games to embed employability skills into the curriculum

Using simulation gaming to validate a mathematical modeling platform for resource allocation in disasters

The extraordinary conditions of a disaster require the mobilisation of all available resources, inducing the rush of humanitarian partners into the affected area This phenomenon called the proliferation of actors, causes serious problems during the disaster response phase including the oversupply, duplicated efforts, lack of planning In an attempt to reduce the partner proliferation problem a framework called PREDIS (PREdictive model for DISaster response partner selection) is put forward to configure the humanitarian network within early hours after disaster strike when the information is scarce To verify this model a simulation game is designed using two sets of real decision makers (experts and non-experts) in the disaster Haiyan scenario The result shows that using the PREDIS framework 100% of the experts could make the same decisions less than six hours comparing to 72 hours Also between 71% and 86% of the times experts and non-experts decide similarly using the PREDIS framewor

Gamification in project management: experiences from business and training

Cada vez se aplican más conceptos de gamificación o ludificación en los más diversos ámbitos desde la salud, la enseñanza, el mundo empresarial, etc. En la misma forma, se pueden aplicar estrategias de gamificación para la Gestión de Proyectos. Este documento refleja la experiencia de aplicar distintos conceptos de gamificación en la práctica como la aplicación de lego serious play en las distintas etapas de la gestión de un proyecto: iniciación, planificación, ejecución y cierre de un proyecto en una empresa de ingeniería. Igualmente se muestra experiencias de aplicación de juegos de tablero en cursos de Gestión de Proyectos.More and more concepts of gamification or ludification are applied in the most diverse areas from health, education, the business world, etc. In the same way, gamification strategies can be applied for Project Management. This document reflects the experience of applying different concepts of gamification in practice such as the application of lego serious play in the different stages of project management: initiation, planning, execution and closing of a project in an engineering company. It also shows experiences of application of board games in courses of Project Management

Changing the way we learn: towards agile learning and co-operation

This paper addresses the need for learning and competence development in industrial organizations. The people that enter professional organizations today are part of a gamer generation that have some or much experience with on-line games. Therefore they are more open to e-learning and in general more open to access anything on-line. At the same time industrial organizations experience a pressure on their ability to train employees faster due to the increase in complexity. We argue that games are not yet mature enough to support this training challenge as stand alone efforts. But games can support the training and competence development in a synchronized setup with other means

Training Competences in Industrial Risk Prevention with Lego® Serious Play®: A Case Study

This paper proposes the use of the Lego® Serious Play® (LSP) methodology as a facilitating tool for the introduction of competences for Industrial Risk Prevention by engineering students from the industrial branch (electrical, electronic, mechanical and technological engineering), presenting the results obtained in the Universities of Cadiz and Seville in the academic years 2017–2019. Current Spanish legislation does not reserve any special legal attribution, nor does it require specific competence in occupational risk prevention for the regulated profession of a technical industrial engineer (Order CIN 351:2009), and only does so in a generic way for that of an industrial engineer (Order CIN 311:2009). However, these universities consider the training in occupational health and safety for these future graduates as an essential objective in order to develop them for their careers in the industry. The approach is based on a series of challenges proposed (risk assessments, safety inspections, accident investigations and fire protection measures, among others), thanks to the use of “gamification” dynamics with Lego® Serious Play®. In order to carry the training out, a set of specific variables (industrial sector, legal and regulatory framework, business organization and production system), and transversal ones (leadership, teamwork, critical thinking and communication), are incorporated. Through group models, it is possible to identify dangerous situations, establish causes, share and discuss alternative proposals and analyze the economic, environmental and organizational impact of the technical solutions studied, as well as take the appropriate decisions, in a creative, stimulating, inclusive and innovative context. In this way, the theoretical knowledge which is acquired is applied to improve safety and health at work and foster the prevention of occupational risks, promoting the commitment, effort, motivation and proactive participation of the student teams.Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities / European Social Fund: Ramón y Cajal contract (RYC-2017-22222