at workTIPS, TOOLS & INTELLIGENCE

FOR DEVELOPING TALENT

TECHNOLOGY APPLICATION

Game Thinking: From Content to Actions

Zsolt Olah

JANUARY 2020 ISSUE 2001

Game Terms Defined ........................................................................................... 2

Establish Your Foundation .................................................................................. 2

REFRAME2 the Question .....................................................................................6

Deliberate Play ........................................................................................................8

Selecting Game Design Elements ..................................................................9

Beyond Training Courses ..................................................................................10

Start Where You Are .......................................................................................... 13

Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 13

References & Resources .................................................................................... 14

JOB AID

Deliberate Play Questionnaire ....................................................................... 15

TD at Work (ISSN 2373-5570, Electronic ISSN 2373-5589, ISBN 978-1-95049-6-556, Electronic eISBN 978-1-95049-6-563) is published monthly by the Association for Talent Development, 1640 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. TD at Work is available for subscription in print or digitally. The subscription rate for the Monthly All-Access (12 print and digital issues, plus archive access) is $119 (ATD national members) and $159 (nonmembers). The monthly digital subscription rate for 12 issues is $69 (ATD national members) and $99 (nonmembers). Periodicals postage paid at Alexandria, Virginia, and additional entries. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to TD at Work, 1640 King Street Alexandria, VA 22314. Claims for replacement of subscription issues not received must be made within three months of the issue date. Copyright © January 2020 TD at Work and ATD. All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems—without the express written permission of the pub-lisher. For permission requests, please go to www.copyright.com, or contact Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 (telephone: 978.750.8500, fax: 978.646.8600). ATD Press grants permission for the material on pages 15-16 to be reproduced for personal use.

Need a trainer’s lifeline? Visit td.org/TDatWork.

Printed in the United States of America.

For help or inquiries about your subscription, please contact Customer Care at 800.628.2783/703.683.8100 (international).

VOL. 37 • ISSUE 2001 • JANUARY 2020

GAME THINKING: FROM CONTENT TO ACTIONS

technology application

COPYRIGHT © ATD 1Game Thinking: From Content to Actions |

AUTHOR

Zsolt Olah Zsolt Olah is a digital

problem solver working at Kineo as a creative learning

consultant with more than 15 years of experience in L&D.

He’s the author of Engage the WORL&D! and a frequent speaker on engagement and

game thinking for L&D at learning conferences.

Content Manager, Learning Technologies

Justin Brusino

Editor, TD at WorkPatty Gaul

Managing EditorJoy Metcalf

Graphic DesignerShirley E.M. Raybuck

People around the world love games. They are engaging and motivating. For example, a recent Guardian article describes

how gamification within a ride-sharing company motivates drivers to drive more, how feedback encourages them to pay attention to customer satisfaction, and how employees can earn badges by completing special quests.

“ ‘Click here to accept this challenge.’ I tap the screen to accept,”

Guardian author Sarah Mason writes. “Now, whenever I log into driver

mode, a stat meter will appear showing my progress: only 21 more

rides before I hit my first bonus.”

According to Limelight Networks’ 2019 report The State of Online

Gaming, individuals around the world, in various age groups, are play-

ing more games—on average more than seven hours a week. It’s no

wonder, then, that L&D professionals think of games and gamification

as silver bullets for engagement and motivation issues that add fun to

workplace learning.

In today’s world, which the World Economic Forum calls the

“Fourth Industrial Revolution,” continuous learning is one of the key

COPYRIGHT © ATD2 | Game Thinking: From Content to Actions

competitive advantages and top issue on senior leaders’

minds. However, continuous learning does not mean taking

courses. It means the ability to adopt, reskill, and grow.

And just like the cab industry is falling behind Uber

and Lyft, if L&D professionals don’t want to be left with

the question “How did we not see this coming?” we must

use tools such as games and gamification to show value

rather than showcase fun. Showing value starts with

reframing the problem. It means a mindset shift for L&D

professionals—moving from content to actions through

game thinking.

In this issue of TD at Work, I will:

• Examine the definition of games and gamification.

• Provide considerations for building a game-based

learning strategy that is engaging and effective.

• Present case studies of when to use game-based learn-

ing or gamification and when not to.

• Offer tips on how to keep learners—that is, players—in

mind as you build your learning game.

Game Terms Defined

Before you can embark on developing game strategies,

you need to understand the various definitions involved

with games and gamification.

Learning games, game-based learning, and seri-

ous games. These three terms generally mean the

same thing: a game where you learn through gameplay.

Gameplay is the immersive interaction that engages

and motivates players to navigate through meaning-

ful challenges to achieve their goal. The building blocks

of games are game design elements such as points,

feedback, surprise, branching, and a timer. In a well-

designed game, these elements work together seam-

lessly for the gameplay experience. In this issue of TD

at Work, I refer to this approach as game-based learning.

Gamification. This is different from game-based

learning. In Gamification: Toward a Definition, Sebastian

Deterding and co-authors explain that while gamification

can use the same game design elements, the goal of gami-

fication is not learning through gameplay. In fact, often

there is no traditional gameplay involved at all. The goal of

gamification is to motivate people to do something using

the psychological effect behind game design. Gamification

won’t cause people to do what they do not want to do. The

best way to think about it is tackling procrastination and

habit building: nudging people in the right direction.

L&D often refers to gamification as the process of

making learning gamified, which may result in gamifica-

tion or game-based learning at the end. The more game

elements you’re adding to a non-game context (such

as learning), the more it feels and acts like a game. No

wonder there’s still confusion among learning profession-

als about what to call what.

While it is good to understand these definitions, don’t

worry about them. Your target audience is most likely

motivated by gaining knowledge or skills to grow its abil-

ity to perform, not by theoretical definitions behind the

design. It is more important that, as a designer, you move

from the traditional content-centric approach to a more

problem-solving-thinking approach, combining learning

and game design. In this issue of TD at Work, I refer to this

approach as game thinking.

Now that you have a general understanding of those

terms, let’s delve further into putting game thinking

into practice.

Establish Your Foundation

To begin practicing game thinking, you must start by laying

the foundation of design for games and gamification. But

that doesn’t mean you start with technology; rather, it’s

about the mindset of how thinking like a game designer is

different from the traditional learning design approach.

In L&D, we are often tasked with producing training

courses and are even sometimes given the modality and

length of time up front: “We need a 20-minute e-learning

course on compliance. The topic is dry, so let’s gamify it.

By next week.”

Order-taking mostly leads to unrealistic expectations

and boring, ineffective courses packed with content that

is now sugarcoated with “gamification.” At the same time,

saying no to stakeholders is not easy. How, then, should

you respond to the request of gamifying content?

Align Your Focus First, tap into game thinking. Amy Jo Kim, author and

game designer behind Rock Band and The Sims, defines

COPYRIGHT © ATD 3Game Thinking: From Content to Actions |

game thinking for product development as: “the art and

science of engaging customers on a compelling path to

mastery. This approach combines game design, sys-

tems thinking, Agile/Lean [user experience] and design

thinking to help you build deeply engaging experi-

ences and accelerate your path to product/market fit.”

Similarly, L&D professionals need to have this mind-

set to develop gamified learning that lead learners to

develop necessary skills.

As I’ve already discussed, gamification can mean dif-

ferent things to different people. So, rather than delving

headfirst into gamifying content, use the figure below as a

starting point for a discussion with your stakeholders on

what gamifying means to them and what the end product

may look like.

Never begin the design process with content.

Instead, you need to know the target audience members’

goals, their authentic needs and motivation, along with

your available resources for the project. Before you

decide to design and build anything game-related, make

sure you have the right mindset. More important, you

may need to change how your stakeholders think about

gamified learning.

In the figure, as you move to the right, the amount

of game design elements increases, as does the game-

play your users will experience. The further to the

right you go, the more your solution will look like a

game, the more important gameplay will be in the

learning process, and the more complex your design

will be. That means you will likely need additional

resources and expertise.

Think about this figure as a sliding scale rather

than distinct definitions for each solution. A sliding

scale explains why some solutions may be borderline

Game Thinking For L&D

Source: Zsolt Olah (rabbitoreg.com)

BUY THIS ISSUE

For details about ATD membership, visit td.org/members.

TD at Work gives seasoned and new talent development professionals a monthly deep dive into talent development. Each issue addresses a core L&D methodology or model or delves into a cutting-edge topic. You will gain:

• step-by-step processes• practical guidance on how to implement a TD practice or model• job aids, case studies, best practices, and visuals.

TD at Work is available through subscription or individual issue purchase.

Monthly All-Access Digital and Print Subscriptions With Archives Access• Member: $119/year*• List: $159/year*

Monthly All-Access Digital Subscription With Archives Access• Member: $99/year• List: $139/year

Monthly Digital-Only Subscription• Member: $69/year• List: $99/year

*Add $40 if shipping outside of the continental United States.

1913

22-6

2410

Subscribe to TD at Work

Choose your subscription at td.org/td-at-work.