This post is from a white paper on how ASCI uses The GO Game to reinforce and test content delivered in its PVC Sales Training Program. The sales training itself is good stuff but when combined with the GO Game its a blast.
Pervasive Gaming and Experiential Learning
Overview:
The client, a major Canadian financial institution, engaged Anderson Sabourin Consulting Inc. (ASCI) to conduct sales training. ASCI delivered a two day PVC Sales™ seminar that culminated with an experiential learning event. The GO Game was selected to deliver the sales training content using its unique wireless interactive technology.
Article:
The GO Game is an interactive wireless technology based urban adventure game where teams of 3 to 10 players complete missions throughout a private or public game zone. Each team is equipped with a handheld wireless device (Blackberry Curve or LG 9800), a digital camera, a map of the game zone and some items required to complete various missions. The handheld devices are connected to the internet so that players experience a rich user interface including hints, pictures, and videos. All missions are received and answered using the handheld devices. The GO Game was conceived as a team building game and has been active globally for over three years with close to 2000 games and over 20,000 participants.
GO Game missions focus in three main areas. Creativity; players are challenged to create short video clips and pictures with minimal guidance for creative missions. These missions are judged by their peers at the end of the game. Team work; missions are designed to embrace different learning styles within the team. Players work together to solve problems, and have to cooperate and collaborate to solve the mission and gain points. Finally, the GO Game challenges participants to be creative under pressure and improvise. Business people generally rely on the planning process to be successful; the GO Game creates the need for solutions in real time and because the game is played in a public forum, it increases pressure dramatically. All this equals a great opportunity for teambuilding and a perfect environment for learning and practicing skills that are utilized under pressure.
ASCI integrated key knowledge points from its PVC Sales Training Program into GO Game missions. The teams competed for points by solving missions and to gain enough information to lead them to book the ultimate order utilizing skills and concepts from the sales training.
Instead of facing Ninjas and Super Heroes in the tradition GO Game actor based missions, participants were challenged by facilitators and senior executives. They were required to create and deliver value propositions, overcome obstacles and discover customer requirements using objection handling and questioning models. Understanding the models presented in the workshops and then use them in pressure situations helps ‘seal’ the learning in a positive but competitive practice atmosphere.
Location based missions and creative missions where also adapted to reflect PVC Sales Training material. The afternoon became a combination of team building, sales training and adventure game.
GO Game judging is always the most entertaining part of the event. Teams collectively watch their creative missions replayed with sound effects and commentary. The hand held devices are used to tally votes for the best performances.
The winning team is crowned based on mission points obtained during the GO Game and creative points obtained by their peers during the judging phase.
Conclusion:
It has always been the goal of training programs to achieve a change in behaviour of the participants (Kirkpatrick). Testing the knowledge of the participants in practice experience that still resembles the reality they face when utilizing the material has always been a challenge. Using the GO Game’s competitive experience to deliver the content gives the user a practice environment and the facilitators to measure the effectiveness of the learning material. The participants also were able to feedback solutions that were new and so were rewarded for the creativity. The rest of the teams benefitted from these new insights through the judging process and the facilitated discussion.
