CM Game for Awareness Campaign

[zajonc]

In some ITIL classes I've taken, they used a kind of game to demonstrate certain ITIL processes. One was a car race where the class was divided into teams for fixing the car, supplying parts, info about the car, driving, etc. When a "problem" with the car happened, the groups would have to communicate to find and fix the problem. I heard of another one that used air traffic control similarly.
We're trying to build awareness of CM where I work and thought that such a game might be a good idea. Does anyone know of such a game specifically for CM? Or other ideas to increase awareness of CM?
Thanks!

[besceh31ca]

Hi

The "Airplane Game" was developped by Microsoft for their MOF methodology (similar to ITIL) but I think they recently setup a new simulation...

[vawns]

Hiya,

I've used poster campaigns and lunch and learn sessions in the past which have worked quite well. The lunch and learn format was a 15 minute overview on our Change Management process and the remaining 45 minutes was for questions.

Hope this helps and best of luck

Vawns

[zajonc]

Thanks for these replies.
For the "lunch and learns", did you focus on how CM worked, or did you also include info about what happens when a CM process is followed conscientiously, and when it's not? Was attendance mandatory?

[zajonc]

I wasn't able to find much on the "Airplane Game" from MOF... But I guess airtraffic control woul be a good metaphor. Has anyone considered making such a game? Does anyone have ideas for other things that might work? Maybe a lending library that stored instructions for running a simple business...

[vawns]

[llondra]

I'm not sure what it says about me that what finally prompted me to join the forum was a topic with "game" in the title, but perhaps this idea will prove helpful to someone... goodness knows that awareness and buy in to change management are one of the key parts of it being successful!

That being said, I do mandatory training for those who are directly involved, which is an in-depth process training and also how to use our CMS. But, I've also done awareness training that is geared toward those not directly involved (e.g. product managers and specialists), but who feel the "pain" of change control. In our organization, these are the people who will have little to no understanding of change control. The awareness training has the main purpose of communicating the importance of change control and basically answering "why we do what we do the way we do", and then giving a high-level overview of our change management process.

I wanted something interactive and thought that a game would be a good way to go. Since I don't have the budget HP does, I came up with the following. (It worked well - people always love games, I guess - and I think it really worked at demonstrating my point that change control is important.)

Class size was generally between 15-20 people. I used the game as an icebreaker and it would generally last about 10-15 minutes.

The class was divided into three groups: customers, waitstaff/servers, cooks. Each customer was given an order to place. Each order was some combination of hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and chicken sandwiches. The customer would give their order to the waitstaff, and the waitstaff would pass it to the cooks. The cooks had rules for their kitchen (and I may not remember these exactly): they had 2 grills, chicken and beef could not be cooked on the same grill, hamburger took 2 minutes to cook, chicken took 3 minutes to cook.

So there was the basic set-up. The first "round" of the game, I handed the orders to the customers and they gave the orders verbally to the waitstaff. I did not allow the waitstaff to use any pens or paper to take the orders - everything had to be done verbally. The waitstaff would then pass back to the kitchen and again during the first round, orders were passed verbally. And chaos ensued... especially once customers started changing orders.

The first round lasted about five minutes. The second round, I introduced the fabulous concept of documentation and history. Waitstaff were given pens and Post-It notes. They now took the order and passed it to the kitchen. I'd let the second round go for a few minutes and then move to the final round.

The third round I split out a few people from the waitstaff and a few from the kitchen and formed a new group - management. The management group was now responsible for reviewing, approving, and scheduling all orders.

Anyway, it was very simple and more than a bit silly - but, I really think it was effective.

Following this, there was about a 30-40 minute presentation that addressed legal/B2B requirements driving CM, risks of not and benefits of, and high-level walkthrough of the process. Then finished up with Q&A.

[zajonc]

Hi Ilondra,
This looks like it would be good way yo get the idea across that Change Mgmt is important. I'm glad you came up with an game that had only a very modest budget re: time and materials. Thanks for this suggestion.
Michael