Gamification can help at sevaral phases in the Problem Solving process
We all know the benefits of gamification: it promotes disinhibition, reduces prejudice, encourages cross-disciplinary teamwork and co-creation, helps groups with very different profiles to speak the same language and achieves a level of engagement that drives participants to go one step further. These benefits are particularly important when it comes to ensuring success in creative thinking and innovation: it not only fosters team building but also helps improve output. When people play, they forget to be rational or politically correct, they forget about hierarchy, they simply want to go further because it can earn them points… Competitiveness adds up! This way, we achieve more disruptive ideas on any challenge.
The benefit of using Gamification is even more relevant when working online: co-creation is not easy on Teams/Zoom where it is difficult to involve people, retain their attention and motivate them. Serious Games achieve this goal: instead of sending what’s apps or answering emails while looking at the meeting, they stay motivated and focused as they want to win! And the games provide a structure and methodology to online workshops ensuring better outputs: it is not only fun but giving more disruptive solutions to problems.
At what stage in an innovation process can you bring in gamification?
To start an innovation project. Gamification can be used to kick off a project by identifying, defining, and agreeing on challenges. It also helps players find new avenues to explore.
Reframing the problem is from my experience a key success factor to find innovative solutions to a challenge. Binnakle Mission 0 is a digital game that helps to achieve it.
To optimise ideation sessions. The benefits listed above are essential for boosting creativity. You can find different sets of idea generation cards, like IDEO Method Cards, or a game like Binnakle Bik Ideas, using more than 40 creative tools to optimize brainstorm.
To improve Design Thinking / Problem Solving projects. You can integrate serious games at each phase of a Design Thinking process, for example to stat a phase. It will not only make it more exciting, especially online where managing these projects is a big challenge but will deliver more disruptive outputs.
To optimise co-creation. Playing is a tool that lets you eliminate hierarchies and foster collaboration between very different profiles. Serious games use the universal language of playing and methodologies that allow people with very different profiles to collaborate and understand each other.
To improve innovation hackathons/events. Nothing motivates members of a group more than getting them to play with a shared challenge. And if they are competing, the results will be even better. A serious game can generate the balance you need between motivation and practical results.
For an innovative training format. People are tired of classic training formats. Including a serious game for innovation to train people on creativity and innovation makes them more motivated to learn the methodology and helps them better assimilate the concepts involved.
At Binnakle, we use our serious games as a thread in innovation training programs: we start each step of the problem solving process playing a specific serious game so that participants can experience attitudes and tools. And after the game we focus on the key learnings and make a wrap up of the tools seen while playing to make it easy to reproduce in the daily business of participants.
To identify profiles for innovation projects. When someone is playing, they lose all pretence. People let themselves go and show you their real profile, which may be hidden in a formal meeting. Serious games for innovation can help you identify the most ground-breaking profiles, empathy and leadership skills, strategic thinking and more. That way, you can put each person in the right role in the innovation process.
In short, serious game based on innovation methodologies can be an extremely useful tools at different phrases of implementing innovation and problem solving in a company.
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