Games and Project Management

I have been reading a great book called Game Frame by a young author named Aaron Dignan. Aaron has been a game enthusiast from very early on and his brilliant mind latched on to the fact that real life is not that different from games. After all, all the really effective learning we ever did was while playing games, whether as babies learning to walk, with our parents rewarding us in the form of encouraging praise, as young kids when we learned to share responsibilities in groups of friends, or as grown ups when we learned to channel our energy in sports. So, when we think about  it, it seems to be counter-intuitive how games are viewed by most of us (and our bosses) as almost akin to wasting time and effort when we should be "working".

If you look around yourself carefully you can see how various aspects of your project can be leveraged to take the form of little games that will make it more interesting for your team members as they go about their daily activities. People like to play games because they are fun - use the same techniques at work so that your team members rediscover the fun and joy of performing. Here are a few ways that, I think, you might apply game techniques to your project (some came from the book, some are my own):

• Targets. Human beings are conditioned to go after targets. So, set up a bi-weekly or monthly target (a certain amount of production, a certain number of documents, etc.) and award points based on results. The one who gets the most points in a certain period gets to win a prize.
• Competition. Set up a healthy competition between team members with similar responsibilities. 
• Chance. Most people hate meetings. Include a surprise (snack, small gifts, awards, etc.) at the beginning or at the end of random meetings. You cannot do this on a regular, scheduled basis because the surprises then become something expected and loose their charm.
• Time Pressure. The first one in the door in the morning or the last one out gets to do a fun thing, like exploding a bubble on a bubble calendar.
• Scarcity. Introduce limited number of "time off" tickets that team members may use or trade.
• Puzzles. Break up a picture from the project into a jigsaw and e-mail each member of the team a part of the complete set. Ask them to put the set together into the complete picture. May be use two pictures and create a competition between two teams. May be e-mail the pieces in random bursts to random team members so that a bit of surprise is thrown into the mix.
• Novelty. Try changing the seating plan in the office in a random way every few months. This will introduce new dynamic in the team. Maybe mix up people without regards to seniority. Find the most adequate time frame for doing this!
• Levels. Introduce titles like Apprentice, Maestro and The Grand Poobah of accounting as a person's skill level goes up by dint of practice. Each skill level must be measurable so that people "earn" them as they advance.

There are, according to the book, numerous other aspects of game play that you might like to include in your repertoire to make work a lot more interesting for your team. Let me know what you come up with for each of them. May be I'll write another post on some more ideas I have for these points.

• Social Pressure.
• Teamwork.
• Currency.
• Renewal.
• Forced Decision.
• Data.
• Progress.
• Points.
• Sensation.
• Recognition.
• Status.

While you are thinking about these points, go, get the book from your local library and read through it - I bet you'll be inspired to think up even more applications for your project.