{"id":1385,"date":"2010-06-30T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-30T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1385"},"modified":"2010-06-11T15:19:28","modified_gmt":"2010-06-11T23:19:28","slug":"lessons-learned-from-gaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1385","title":{"rendered":"Lessons Learned From Gaming"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Ok, I\u2019ll admit that I\u2019ve been playing this on-line game.\u00a0 It\u2019s a MMORPG (I can\u2019t believe I remembered that whole thing) and I play a priest in a guild of mages, fighters, archers, etc.\u00a0 What I find entertaining about it is not the game-play, but the collaboration that is necessary to make the game work.\u00a0 Ok, so I haven’t actually played in 6 months, but here’s the basic story: Within the game, there are what are called \u201cbosses\u201d or really crazily hard to kill monsters.\u00a0 One of these we have killed a total of 4 times, the only times that this particular boss has been killed.\u00a0 It took about 50 people close to 5 hours just to take down this boss.\u00a0 To do this, there is a single guy who stands in front of the boss and hacks away at it for the entire time.\u00a0 My wife finds this totally implausible since he should die in about 4 seconds, but he\u2019s backed up by about 25 priests who heal nonstop for literally the whole 5 hours.Then you have a set of archers who are shooting arrows at this thing for the whole 5 hours, and then the fighters who are running in every few minutes to hack away and then running back out so they don\u2019t die.\u00a0 Then there are even the \u201cjunior\u201d members of the guild who are allowed (even forced) to sit around and watch how the whole thing is orchestrated so they can learn for future generations. \u00a0(for the record, I refuse to participate in anything that takes more than 15 minutes)<\/p>\n

The total amount of cooperation and coordination that it takes in this game and games I have seen on TV is absolutely amazing.\u00a0 If only the same level of coordination occurred in project teams.\u00a0 We don\u2019t always assemble the right people, the right skills, and we don\u2019t collaborate and communicate in a way that is sustainable for the entire project.<\/p>\n

First of all, not only do we need the right people on the team, but we also need diversity from the organization.\u00a0 Skills are important because at the end of the day we need to execute projects and the skills, experience and knowledge is absolutely critical.\u00a0 But at the same time, pulling resources from different parts of the organization is the beginning of change management.\u00a0 If you pull together the right team, not only are you going to execute well, but you\u2019ll begin the adoption process.\u00a0 There is a significant difference between choosing the right representatives from around the business and getting people for political reasons.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen too many project teams who have individuals that don\u2019t really add any value and can\u2019t participate in a change capacity, but they are there only because someone thinks they \u201cshould be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, Put people in for whom the project is a stretch goal.\u00a0 If you get people who are excited, willing to learn, and have a solid background, you\u2019ll be training your next generation of project team members and expanding your pool of useful people for the future.\u00a0 All employees ask for (generally) is the opportunity to grow, but we often give cool projects exclusively to the time tested veterans.\u00a0 it\u2019s ok to plug a few more junior associates into a project so long as they get the necessary guidance.<\/p>\n

Third, maintain open communication.\u00a0 In this game I play, we can chat in the game, and we often also log into voice chats so people can shout out commands (like \u201cwake up!\u201d) or requests (like \u201cheal me\u201d).\u00a0 Most of it is fairly entertaining because it is after all a game.\u00a0 But sometimes you need to execute commands and the team can\u2019t be afraid to ask or receive instructions.\u00a0 \u201cCollegial\u201d is nice, but many projects are too political and members from different factions can\u2019t express themselves.\u00a0 The result is that unspoken works become nuances that are missed by the audience.\u00a0 This is sometimes hard to avoid, but you tend to miss actions or even milestones when you just can\u2019t communicate.<\/p>\n

It amazes me how a group of 20-somethings can plan and collaborate not only over a 5 hour period, but continuously over months and months performing activities that requires skill, role alignment and considerable governance.\u00a0 It is equally surprising that they have no idea they are doing it.\u00a0 But this is the next generation of employees, and they do have skills if they can be translated from a fictional activity to a real workplace one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ok, I\u2019ll admit that I\u2019ve been playing this on-line game.\u00a0 It\u2019s a MMORPG (I can\u2019t believe I remembered that whole thing) and I play a priest in a guild of mages, fighters, archers, etc.\u00a0 What I find entertaining about it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,45,28,47],"tags":[455,175,156,176],"class_list":["post-1385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-change-management","category-collaboration","category-communications","category-governance","tag-collaboration","tag-cooperation","tag-gaming","tag-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1385"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1386,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1385\/revisions\/1386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}