Serious gaming? Serious business, Serious RESULTS!
The itSMF in the Netherlands organized a ‘café’ on 4th June. The theme was the ‘People factor – Attitude, Behavior, Culture’. As Jose Stijntjes, Director itSMF Netherlands explained at the start of the session, Processes and Technology are important but ultimately it all comes down to the people and their behavior. GamingWorks and Simagine, two competitors in the ITSM business simulation market sponsored the session and used a new jointly developed game ‘HumanIT’ to help facilitate dialogue and gain insight into the currently perceived success and fail factors for transforming IT organizations.
At the start of the session 10% thought business simulations or games were ‘NEED-to-have’, the rest considered them as ‘NICE-to-have’. Paul Wilkinson of GamingWorks presented trends in IT showing that many IT organizations are faced with a need to transform their ITSM capabilities. However current approaches to ITSM training, certification and ‘implementation’ are not delivering the necessary value or developing the required capabilities. Current capabilities and approaches are posing a significant business risk. New interventions are required. This is where business simulations can play a vital role.
One objective of the session was to demonstrate how experiential learning instruments, such as business games, can be used as effective learning and organizational development tools, helping organizations create buy-in, overcome resistance, translate theory into practice and change attitude and behavior. (See the results of the GamingWorks global survey into the benefits and value of simulations). Maarten Versteegh from Simagine facilitated the HumanIT teams and conducted a demonstration of ease-IT, a business simulation game.
Another objective of the session was to demonstrate how organizations, in these financially challenged times, can improve the Return On Value of their training investments. Paul Wilkinson of GamingWorks showed how the 8-field model can be used to scope and manage training interventions resulting in demonstrable and sustainable improvements, and also revealed a shocking finding from their surveys – Only 3% of organizations actually measure the impact and value from a training investment. Most, it would appear ‘Hope’ that new behavior and value will suddenly appear.
HumanIT
HumanIT is a game in which delegates working in teams of 5 or 6 select and answer a series of question cards. These question cards are based upon the world-wide findings from the GamingWorks ABC of ICT (Attitude, Behavior, Culture) surveys, and are clustered around People, Process, Product and Performance. The game dynamics and game engine are based upon the Simagine game ‘A Heart Effort’. The questions are used to facilitate a dialogue focusing around ‘desirable’ and ‘undesirable’ behavior impacting the IT organization. At the end of the session findings are captured and can be used as input to a Service improvement program.
During the itSMF café teams spent 20 minutes experiencing HumanIT. At the end of the 20 minutes two questions were posed:
Question 1: What examples of ‘Undesirable behavior’ did we recognize. Undesirable behavior that we, as an organization must stop doing if we want to be successful?
Question 2: What examples of ‘desirable behavior’ did we recognize. Desirable behavior that we, as an organization must adopt or reinforce if we want to be successful?
Although it was a short taster of the impact of a game, these were the results of the sessions:
Recognized ‘Undesirable behavior’ impacting ITSM success:
People
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Process
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Product
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Performance
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How do these results compare to the global findings of attitude, behavior and culture worst practices (based upon >3000 organizations)?.
The global Top 10 issues perceived from the customer perspective:
- No understanding of business impact and priority
- Everything has the highest priority according to the users
- Not my responsibility
- Throwing ITSM solutions over the wall and ‘Hoping’ people will follow them
- Too little business involvement
- IT is too internally focused
- Plan, Do, Stop….no real continual improvement focus
- Process managers without authority
- No management commitment
- It thinks it doesn’t need to understand the business to make a business case
The results clearly show that many are still struggling with examples of ‘undesirable behavior’. Behavior that poses a significant business risk. One of the top 5 concerns of CIOs when interviewed was ‘Leadership development’. Leaders and middle managers need to develop skills and capabilities to turn around and address this type of behavior. The second question posed at the end of the HumanIT session was to identify ‘desirable behavior’ that managers need to display or stimulate.
Recognized ‘Desirable behavior’ that helps ensure success:
People
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Process
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Product
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Performance
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For more than 10 years we have been presenting the ABC of ICT People related issues. The same issues are consistently chosen year after year. One of the top chosen cards is ‘Not my responsibility’. The question is, will delegates now take responsibility for addressing the recognized ‘Undesirable behavior’ or will we be back again in 10 years time giving the same session?