How games can make a better world

Posted on April 10, 2012 by bas

What do we actually know about computer games when looking it how it affects our behaviour, skills and maybe even personality? A lot of people love to play some games during their free time. However playing games too much can lead to becoming addicted to games and gamers developing signs of aggressiveness (when playing aggresive games, like shooters). While this might hold true, there are also positive things about games. In this post I will highlight a recent research about how we can learn from games and how it might affect the skills we use in daily life (especially at work).

A while ago I watched a TED-video in which game designer and researcher Jane McGonigal explains how playing games can make a better world (video below this post). She recognized that nowadays a lot of people (and especially kids and teens) are dedicating a lot of time on playing computer games. It seems that up till today gamers already have spent 5.93 million years playing the online game World of Warcraft! McGonigal mentions in her talk a statistic from a recent study at the Carnegie Mellon University, which indicated that the average young person in a country with a strong gaming culture spent 10,000 hours on gaming at the age of 21. She compares this statistic with the 10,000-hour rule which is described in the book Outliers by Malcolm Galdwell. I haven’t read the book myself yet, but what is interesting is that there seems to be evidence to state that if someone has spent 10,000 hours on doing ‘something’ at the age of 21, he or she will be an expert in it.

Knowing this, McGonigal asked herself the question: “If gamers are dedicating that much time in gaming, than what exactly are gamers getting good at?”. I know from myself that I’m also quite a dedicated gamer and even as an ‘expert’ I couldn’t directly give an answer to this question. It seems though that according to McGonigal’s findings there are four qualities that gamers are developing, these four are:

  1. Urgent optimism
  2. Social fabric
  3. Blissful productivity
  4. Epic meaning

All of these four qualities are developed while playing online games like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars and EVE-Online (also: MMORPG’s [1]). Furthermore in her video McGonigal explains why she thinks these qualities are being developed and how it can help make the world better. For example urgent optimism is developed as an extreme self-motivation to tackle an obstacle with the belief that there is a reasonable hope of success and that it’s always worth trying.

I’ve also been thinking about these qualities and came up with another one that might have some potential. It’s a quality that only gets developed when the gamer is in a position to do so. MMORPG’s are based on the principle of playing in a vast and percistent environment together with a lot of other players around the world. While playing an MMORPG it often happens that you need help from other players to achieve certain ‘quests’ or ‘missions’. This is also how McGonigal explains the development of a social fabric between gamers. What is interesting about this is that to group up for a quest (or create a party, as it’s also called) there is always a leader, someone who creates the party and is responsible for what will happen. He will guide the members through the quest and will outline the approach to achieve the quest goals. As McGonigal mentions, these ‘quests’ are often on the verge of what a gamer can achieve. It’s not impossible, but it’s difficult and any assistance you can get from other gamers is always welcome. Because these quests are on the verge of what gamers are capable of in the game, it can be very important to have an adequate leader who can lead the group to success. What I find interesting about this is that if a gamer has spent a reasonable amount of time being a leader in online games, will this also enhances his or her leadership skills in the real world? Leaders in games like World of Warcraft that need to organize certain ‘raids’ (comparable with very large quests) need to know what they’re doing before they even get assigned as a leader. Raid groups can take up to 40 people and it can last for 3 to 4 hours [2]. Coordinating these people through the dynamic events of the game requires some experience.

To make coordinating a bit easier most groups that go on a quest use some sort of voice-communication. The following video is from the online game EVE-Online and it recorded how people communicate with each other when they are about to accomplish something big.

Eve online tactics and the importance of leadership:

Besides just leading temporary groups, most MMORPG’s also give gamers the opportunity to create ‘clans’. A gamer can join a clan to become member of a much bigger and permanent group. In Guild Wars for example, clans can get up to 100 members. And again, to manage all these members, a leader who can keep the group together is important.

Research about games is still in its infancy and findings like that of McGonigal can be a real eye-opener to show what games can achieve besides just being for our entertainment, and I hope McGonigal will continue her research on this subject. I personally think that games can help people develop certain skills which they also use in their daily life and that we can definitely learn from playing games.

Another interesting fact highlighted by McGonigal:

For children of the United States, 10,080 hours is the exact amount of time you’ll spend from 5th grade to high school graduation, if you have perfect attendance.  So we have an entire parallel track of education going on where young people are learning as much about what it takes to be a good gamer as they’re learning about everything else they learn in school.

People can be quite dedicated to games so I’m looking forward to see what influences this can have on our current and future society (also because I myself have spent a considerable amount of time playing games ;) ).

I’ll end this post with some interesting facts about games:

  • a Titan ship, which can be build in the game EVE-Online, takes approximately eight weeks to build (in real time), not including its primary components which are required for construction. [3]
  • mmorpg.com has currently registered 573 MMORPG’s [4]
  • Besides having a guild which can take up to 100 members, Guild Wars also facilitates alliances. An alliance can take up to 10 guilds. A full alliance with all guilds having 100 members will result in permanent group of 1000 players. [5]
  • The game World of Warcraft has more than 12 million subscribers. [1]
  • The Daedalus Project is a project in which over 35,000 MMORPG players have been surveyed about their behaviour in online games and why they play such games. Very interesting data has been gathered! [6]

Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world:

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmorpg
[2] http://www.wowwiki.com/Raid
[3] http://eve.wikia.com/wiki/Titan
[4] http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/show/all/sCol/rankHype/sOrder/desc
[5] http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Alliance
[6] http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/gateway_motivations.html

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The uncertainty of uncertainty

Posted on November 14, 2011 by bas

Last week I received my first grade at the University of Groningen where I am studying Business Administration. Me and my project group (a team of 6 students) received a 9(!) for delivering a project plan for our classes Project Management. As you might expect we were all very happy to receive this grade, especially since it wasn’t such an easy project.

During our classes Project Management the main subject of discussion was ‘uncertainty’ within projects. For our project we also had to cope with this ‘uncertainty’ so we would experience how it was like in practice. During our presentation session with the professor, in which we presented our plan, he told us that he was confident in the fact that our group would sustain fairly well in an environment with average to high uncertainty. But he also asked us what we would do if a crisis situation – a situation in which no one had the same opinion – occurred. So far all the decisions that we had to make could be dealt with through rational behaviour. Project members discussed problems and tried to convince each other on the best solution. If a discussion escalated or no solution was found I, as a project leader, made sure that a decision was made and the project could move on (to make sure we kept momentum, since time was short). Our professor noticed this and asked me what I would do if I had to make a decision on something of which I did not know its outcome (uncertainty). What would I do if it turned out to be a bad decision? Of course admitting that I was wrong is probably the best solution, and then try to adjust the project’s course in the right direction. But is this always possible? What about our cognitive biases that manipulate our objectivity on making decisions? [1]

All of this got me thinking; what is – my perspective on – uncertainty within projects? To get a better idea on the concept of uncertainty I’ve read the article of O. Perminova, M. Gustafsson and K. Wikstrom about the definition of uncertainty [2]. This article tries to explain current visions on uncertainty and tries to merge them together to define a perspective for Project Management. It seems that a lot of definitions of uncertainty are derived from the aspect of risks. For example, the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) [3] states uncertainty and risk as:

“Risk is an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on at least one project objective, such as time, cost, scope or quality.”

Reading this definition might raise some questions. Can we state that a risk is an uncertainty? If this holds true, how is it that we can make a reliable risk analyses? Risks that are found in risks analyses for projects are risks that we know might occur. So this would assume that we are at least certain of some aspects of a risk, making it not completely uncertain.

By reading the above paragraph, you might get a bit confused. This also shows us why it is so difficult to get a grasp of the essence of uncertainty. To present my point of view and give clarity on this, I will give you two definitions which are also presented by Perminova et al. and which in my opinion give a better understanding of uncertainty:

“Uncertainty is a context for risks as events having a negative impact on the project’s outcomes, or opportunities, as events that have beneficial impact on the project performance.”

and:

“Uncertainty, in contrast, is an event or a situation, which was not expected to happen, regardless of whether it could have been possible to consider it in advance”

Let us look at the first definition. It states that uncertainty is a context for risks. Context, in this sentence, being the key concept that connects uncertainty with risks. My interpretation from this statement is that a risk is uncertain in the way that we do not know exactly if (and when) it will occur during the project. But also that a risk is not so much an uncertainty, but uncertainty is more a risk which can affect project performance.

If we read the second definition it is argued that uncertainty is an event or a situation which was not expected to happen. This also shows us that it is not an easy task to plan for projects with a high amount of uncertainty. Perminova et al. reinforced this by stating that one cannot plan for something of which one is not certain.

Thinking about this definition and reading through the article I thought: “Can I categorize uncertainty as a risk, and what would happen if I tried to do so?”. From my Project Management classes I learned to create a general risk analysis which would have the following identifiers:

  • Risk ID: A unique identification number for the risk.
  • Name: A name defining the risk.
  • Description: A detailed description of what the risk is like.
  • Probability: The chance of the risk to occur defined in: high, average, low.
  • Impact: The impact on the project performance defined in: high, average, low.
  • Prevention: Is there a way to prevent the risk from happening?
  • Curation: Is there a way to solve the risk when it occurred?

So now the question is, what if one tries to apply uncertainty as a risk to these identifiers? The Risk ID and Name are pretty straight forward, no problems here yet. Description gets a bit more difficult. The author creating the risk analysis (project leader) will have to have a clear view on what uncertainty is and what it means for the project. So far however we’ve seen that it’s not that easy to define uncertainty. Even though it is difficult, I’ll assume that the author finds a good Description. Moving on to the Probability and Impact (which will create the project probability/impact matrix) is where a problem occurs. How does the author know the specific Probability and Impact of uncertainty? He probably doesn’t know.

Recognizing this problem seems to show an important link between other risks one would identify during a risk analysis. If I can map Probability and Impact relatively easy, it shows me that I’m quite certain about what would happen if the risk occurs. To try and clarify this, an example is at hand:

- Example -
If my project objective is the following: Attend the classes Project Management which are compulsory. A risk could be that I oversleep. I know that the probability of this risk is quite low, but the impact would be quite high. I also try to prevent this risk from happening by setting my alarm clock.

This is an fairly easy and straightforward example, but it does show me what happens if I am certain about something. It also shows how I identify risks. I make a risk analysis and I reason – from my own experience and knowledge – which risks could occur and how they can affect the project’s performance. Besides that I also use an alarm clock (a tool) which helps me to minimize the probability of the risk.

So can we state that risks that we analyze through a risk analysis is known information and thus not uncertain? And are risks that cannot be foreseen (by the author of the risk analysis) uncertainties? In my opinion this is rather tricky. Let us look at what Perminova et al. have discovered about this:

“Planning of risk response procedures is an important part of securing that there will be no negative impact on the project outcome. It depends mostly on the project managers’ ability to foresee potential dangers, which in turn, depends on the ability of the person to utilize previously learned knowledge and experience in dealing with uncertain situations. However, not all the risks can be thought of in advance. That is why we think that planning can be considered necessary, but not a sufficient tool in managing risks. Another argument against over exaggerated importance of planning is that one can plan only what one knows for certain. In this sense, we can state that risks are certain or known: project manager can think of potential hazardous events and establish preventive measures.”

From this statement it seems that the identification of risks is indeed through the mindset and perspective from the author creating the risk analysis. In reaction to this Perminova et al. mention the importance for reflective learning and standardization to better manage uncertainties throughout projects. Every project is unique and that is also why there are always lessons to be learned. By recording these lessons, uncertainty can be managed more effectively in future projects.

As you might have experienced so far in this post, I’ve tried to get a hold of the concept which is called: “uncertainty” and how risks are related to this concept. However it was, and still is, not an easy task to do so. Each project that is initiated is unique and therefor has uncertainty. However there are many more aspects that affect the behaviour of uncertainty. Just as I am thinking up loud, I can come up with some of the following:

  • Stakeholders
  • Complexity
  • Mechanistic versus organic projects
  • (Turbulent) Environment
  • Unpredictability
  • Organizational experience and learning

A lot of things influence the uncertainty of uncertainty and I hope that I’ve given you some small insight on how uncertain projects might get, and that I’ve challenged you to think about the way uncertainty can occur just as the article by Perminova et al. did with me. I hope that in the future I may gain more experience in handling projects, risks and uncertainty and that I can write a more elaborate article on this intriguing subject.

[1] Jones, 2010. Organizational Theory, Design and Change (6th edition). P371.
[2] O. Perminova, M. Gustafsson & K. Wikstrom, 2007. Defining uncertainty in projects – a new perspective.
[3] Project Management Institute, 2004. A Guide to the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK).

Also a big thanks to all my fellow project members for achieving the results with our project group ;)

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Veranderen met een voorsprong!

Posted on July 21, 2011 by bas

Een verandering doorvoeren met een voorsprong – iets waar elke organisatie die met ICT te maken heeft wel in geïnteresseerd is. Bedrijfsprocessen worden vandaag de dag steeds afhankelijker van informatie- en communicatiesystemen. Het kan voor organisaties soms lastig zijn om de razendsnelle ontwikkelingen op dit gebied bij te benen. Toch moeten ze ervoor zorgen dat hun IT-systemen zo effectief mogelijk zijn geïntegreerd met hun dagelijkse activiteiten, waarbij ze de concurrentie bij blijven, of beter nog, vóór blijven. Om dit te kunnen realiseren moet een organisatie zich constant aanpassen aan de omgeving en de markt waarin zij opereert. Verandermanagement is hierin een belangrijk proces.

Verandermanagement helpt in het gestructureerd doorvoeren van een (IT-)verandering binnen een organisatie. Dit is van belang omdat er, vooral in grotere organisaties, veel verschillende bedrijfsaspecten mee gemoeid gaan. Denk hierbij bijvoorbeeld aan het personeel dat misschien anders zal moeten gaan werken, of de incompatibiliteit die kan ontstaan met huidige systemen. Een verandering kan, om de bedrijfscontinuïteit in stand te houden, niet altijd zomaar worden doorgevoerd.

Met de opdracht om een bestaand hulpmiddel bij één-op-één interventies, genaamd de Interventiewijzer, toegankelijker en aantrekkelijker te maken zijn Bas Bolmer en Kiki Smallenbroek bij Logica begonnen aan hun afstudeeropdracht. De Interventiewijzer is een tool waarmee een veranderaar de haalbaarheid van verschillende beïnvloedingstactieken kan achterhalen. Deze tool was voorafgaand aan het onderzoek alleen op papier beschikbaar en werd binnen Logica nog niet veel gebruikt. Om de opdracht met het gewenste resultaat af te ronden, is onderzoek gedaan naar twee onderwerpen, namelijk: hoe is de Interventiewijzer optimaal te digitaliseren voor gebruik via diverse mobiele media, en kan er op basis van de huidige wijzer een tool of handleiding worden gemaakt voor één-op-veel interventies?

 

De vierdejaars ICT-studenten hebben met deze opdracht de CU Award 2011 gewonnen. De CU Award is de afstudeerprijs van het Instituut voor ICT van de Hanzehogeschool Groningen.

CU Award 2011

Tijdens hun afstudeeropdracht zochten Smallenbroek en Bolmer naar hulpmiddelen om organisaties gemakkelijker te laten omgaan met veranderingen als gevolg van de invoering van ICT. Over het algemeen verloopt de invoering van ICT in organisaties niet over rozen. Veel ICT-projecten mislukken omdat het veranderen van werkzaamheden en cultuur altijd veel lastiger blijkt dan men van te voren inschat. Het afstudeerverslag van beide vierdejaarsstudenten biedt organisaties een helpende hand om de benodigde veranderingen eerder en beter onder ogen te zien en een veranderplan op te stellen. Daardoor neemt de kans van slagen van ICT projecten behoorlijk toe.

 

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