How to Play Games at Work - and WIN!

I know what you're thinking -- business is business! Playing games at work only leads to getting a nice cushy spot in the (now virtual) unemployment line. But what if I told you that you can play games at work, and get kudos from the boss for doing it? 

Here's how we played a game at work, accomplished our task in the timeline we planned, and got more than we expected in payoffs:

The Business Need: We needed to elicit detailed User Requirements for a new departmental web site from 20 Key Users in a 2 hour session. Sounds like a daunting task, right? Well, as it turns out - not so much!

The Game: Inspired by a recent presentation on "gamifying" the workplace, we decided to try our hand at making the work into something that would encourage participation, creativity, collaboration, and generate as many unique ideas as possible. 

We huddled, we brainstormed, and we came up with a game that put our users into teams to foster collaboration and create a competitive environment (which we hoped would generate more "User Requirements"). Then, we devised a point structure that gave the teams who came up with the largest number of unique ideas the most points.  These unique ideas were limited to the use of their web site, and how it could make their work easier, better, and faster. We also gave points to standard User Requirements in the way of "need to have", "nice to have", and "dream to have" ideas.

We spent an hour introducing our Key Users to the concepts, value, and the application of User Requirements, and the remaining hour was spent playing the "game".

The Win:

We gathered 80 detailed User Requirements from 20 users in 2 hours - and they were excited to do more! 

The other payoffs included 100% participation, user-reported excitement about the project, enthusiasm, and engagement!  

Who says you can't play games at work and win?  Happy gaming!