At last, an excuse to play computer games at work
February 2009
The idea of sitting at your desk playing a computer game during the working day may seem alien to many (it certainly should!), but now a UK-based company has developed a game-based learning platform that aims to educate players about the benefits of service management and ITIL.
The IBM Service Management Virtual Simulator, developed by Big Blue in conjunction with Edinburgh-based G2G3, offers players the chance to improve the performance of a fictional company. Players can run through some of the issues facing different departments within the organisation, and attempt to implement changes to solve the problems.
The platform was given its grand unveiling at IBM Pulse 2009 in Las Vegas, and is described by the company as, "A challenging and engaging path to operational maturity, customer satisfaction and business success".
There are similar offerings from the likes of Nortel and Cisco in the networking space, but those enable users to customise it to their own business so they can see the potential financial savings on offer.
This Simulator does not let people add their own data. Instead users are presented with a set scenario and have to work their way around the company, talking to employees about the issues they are facing and try to solve them.
The clock is ticking all the time, and as revenue is creeping very slowly upwards, you have a budget of $3m to turn around the company's fortunes.
"We wanted to abstract people from their environment. If we used an industry-specific platform, people would say 'That’s not how we do it', and would not engage with the game. The scenario might be different, but the issues are the same," G2G3's Jason McClay told CBR.
Although it is called a game and is billed as a fun way of building service management and ITIL skills, users are still applying real-life processes and should gain a better understanding of the issues their company is facing.
McClay says that the game is deliberately soft on the marketing side of things - which is probably a good thing as otherwise it runs the risk of appearing as simply a marketing gimmick.
Obviously IBM is hoping to drive sales through this, but McClay insists that it is designed to bring IBM's service management lesson to life. Users are not bombarded at the end of the game by promises of how IBM’s products and services could help their company.
This of course leaves IBM open to the possibility of people using its tool to improve their understanding of ITIL and service management and then heading to a rival company to buy products that may help them put that knowledge to use.
"Maybe that's possible if they are after just a single part," says Ken Godfrey, manager, eMarketing Capabilities, IBM Software Group. "But IBM is really the only company with the breadth of products to answer the queries."
The game is free to use for anyone signed up for IBM's Service Management Resource Centre, and can be found at www.servicemanagementcenter.com/game
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