On collaboration games and why some people don’t like them (50)

On November 9 I wrote an article about serious games. I hope the readers recognized I was making a bit of fun criticizing these games, though I am not entirely sure every reader saw the name 'Rorschach' in the caption below the picture.

Pondering about games a bit I realized that in the Business Analysis Body Of Knowledge (the BABOK) rather than 'serious games' the term 'collaborative games' is used. I was not sure if this is the same thing, so I looked up the definition of collaborative games in BABOK V3. I was distracted by something else, though.

According to the BABOK V3 "Collaborative games encourage participants in an elicitation activity to collaborate in building a joint understanding of a problem or a solution." Reading on I got to the section where the strengths and limitations of the games are described. One of the strengths (according to BABOK) is: "Challenges participants who are normally quiet or reserved to take a more active role in team activities." Surprisingly the first limitation that was mentioned was: "The playful nature of the games may be perceived as silly and make participants with reserved personalities or cultural norms uncomfortable." In short this means that people with a reserved personality are challenged to take a more active role by making them do silly things while feeling uncomfortable. Yeah, like this is going to work.

Let's get back to that 'definition' of a collaborative game. It states a goal: a joint understanding of a problem or solution, and it states a method: active participation in a certain activity.

Now that is ?the problem of these games, I think, at least for me. Making reserved people do these silly things to achieve this joint understanding. That is not the way ‘reserved’ people work, or want to work. And you aren't going to change that either.

The people referred to as 'reserved' are introverted people. Introverted people are not necessarily shy but activities with a lot of social interaction like collaborative games cost them lots of energy. They prefer other, more quiet ways of working and they often perform better when they can work in their own way. Reading, thinking, discussing in small groups. Those 'fun' games can be very exhausting to them. What's more: being introverted is a personality trait that is rather fixed. Not only will it probably not change very much during a persons lifetime, it also is a trait that people do not want to change. Why should they?

So there it is, my problem with collaborative games: they seem to be an attempt to try and change me (yes, for those who don't know me personally, I am extremely introverted) in a way I do not want to be changed.

That doesn't mean games are useless. Playing is probably one of the best ways to learn things. Keep in mind though, that a game is not necessarily fun for everyone. When selecting or designing a serious game, or collaboration game, please realize that people can not always change, they do not always want to change and they certainly do not want to be changed.

Now hand me those Lego bricks again and I’ll build a nice duck.

This article is an article in the series about the versatile profession of requirements engineering. Every week a colleague of?Improve Quality Services?will share with the reader an aspect of requirements engineers from daily experience. Every article begins with a picture of a bridge. The bridge visualizes connecting two sides. In requirements engineering connecting different stakeholders assisting the stakeholders in collaboration and communication about requirements.

Articles published till date (articles 1 till 28 in Dutch):

1.?Requirements?(Piet de Roo, December 1, 2020)

2.?Shared Understanding?(Kaspar van Dam, December 8, 2020)

3.?Context en requirements structuur?(Patrick Duisters, December 15, 2020)

4.?Van Twin Peaks naar Twin Pines?(Patrick Duisters, December 22, 2020)

5.?Modellen om te bouwen?(Erwin Pasmans, January 5, 2021)

6.?Minimaal Modelleren?(Piet de Roo, January 12 2021)

7.?Begrip en Vertrouwen?(Benjamin Timmermans, January 19, 2021)

8.?En wat als de specialisten het niet met elkaar eens zijn??(Benjamin Timmermans, January 26, 2021)

9.?Waar zijn we nou helemaal mee bezig?!?(Erwin Pasmans, February 2, 2021)

10.?Soft skills? Keiharde wetenschap!?(Kaspar van Dam, February 9, 2021)

11.?… en nu enkele feiten: Requirement Attributen?(Patrick Duisters, February 16, 2021)

12.?Waarom, waarom, waarom, ...?(Piet de Roo, February 23, 2021)

13.?Een leven lang zorgen?(Erwin Pasmans, March 2, 2021)

14.?Casus: Requirements management bij een distributiecentrum in aanbouw?(Eduard Hartog, March 11, 2021)

15.?Iteratief versus Incrementeel?(Kaspar van Dam, March 16, 2021)

16.?Requirements of-the-shelf: geen maatwerk, geen requirements??(Erwin Pasmans, March 23, 2021)

17.?Creatief door constraints?(Piet de Roo, March 30, 2021)

18.?3 Amigo’s?(Patrick Duisters, April 13, 2021)

19.?4 Amigos (of meer?)?(Patrick Duisters, April 20, 2021)

20.?Requirements, de CoronaCheck-app en Fred Flintstone?(Benjamin Timmermans, April 28, 2021)

21.?Meer kapiteins op 1 schip (of staan de beste stuurlui aan wal)??(Erwin Pasmans, May 4, 2021)

22.?Hoe SMART is SMART??(Benjamin Timmermans, May 11, 2021)

23.?Jip en Janneke?(Piet de Roo, May 18, 2021)

24.?Laten we het simpel houden?(Patrick Duisters, May 25, 2021)

25.?Dilemma's?(Erwin Pasmans, June 1, 2021)

26.?Living Documentation Event 2021?(Kaspar van Dam, June 8, 2021)

27.?Non-functional Requirements?(Patrick Duisters, June 15, 2021)

28.?The Big Shift?(Kaspar van Dam, June 22, 2021)

29.?Why do we have these problems over and over again??(Erwin Pasmans, June 29, 2021)

30.?Non-functionals, who cares??(Benjamin Timmermans, July 6, 2021)

31.?Usability and UX, a revelation I had?(Benjamin Timmermans, July 13, 2021)

32.?How??(Piet de Roo, July 20, 2021)

33.?Requirements and design??(Erwin Pasmans, July 27, 2021)

34.?Tom's people skills to deal with the customers?(Piet de Roo, August 3, 2021)

35.?Requirements creep: the ideal pocketknife with 3000 functions?(Benjamin Timmermans, August 10, 2021)

36.?Requirements creep: good or bad??(Benjamin Timmermans, August 17, 2021)

37.?End with the begin in mind?(Piet de Roo, August 24, 2021)

38.?Requirements: Do we really need them??(Kaspar van Dam, August 31, 2021)

39.?Begin with the End in Mind?(Patrick Duisters, September 7, 2021)

40.?Solving the right problem?(Piet de Roo, September 14, 2021)

41.?Adapt requirements (and your process) to your development approach!?(Erwin Pasmans, September 21, 2021)

42.?ISTQB and IREB are joining forces?(Piet de Roo, September 28, 2021)

43.?New stakeholders?(Benjamin Timmermans, October 5, 2021)

44.?Just start over again?(Erwin Pasmans, October 12, 2021)

45.?Booking a desk at the office?(Piet de Roo, October 19, 2021)

46.?Don't drive away in your prototypes?(Erwin Pasmans, October 26, 2021)

47.?Edward de Bono?(Piet de Roo, November 2, 2021)

48.?Do you like games? Seriously??(Piet de Roo, November 9, 2021)

49. The 7 habits of highly effective requirements engineers (Piet de Roo, November 16, 2021)