OCR loops, which stands for “Objective, Challenge, Reward”, are a pattern of game design that I learned from the experts at Ubisoft. They are used to describe various levels of motivation in such a way that challenges can be distributed throughout the game to keep the player engaged.
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When I was working with the Codesign-it collective, I often heard about the Open Forum (often know as OST, “Open Space Technology”), a method that they were deploying in collaborative innovation projects with clients. In July 2018 I was able to witness how it was used by the members of the collective themselves as part of the “Summer Sprint”, their annual off-site meeting. This was an opportunity to observe more closely the ins and outs of this technology, whose origins can be found in citizen-run open forums.
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En travaillant avec le Collectif Codesign-it j’ai souvent entendu parler du Forum Ouvert, déployé chez des clients dans des projets d’innovation collaborative. En juillet 2018 j’ai pu assister à son utilisation par les membres du collectif eux-mêmes dans le cadre du “Sprint d’été”, leur rendez-vous off-site annuel, et observer de plus près le fonctionnement de ce dispositif hérité des forums citoyens.
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The Agile philosophy is not only applicable to IT projects. It makes sense in any collaboration context, because it is just a better way of working. My recent experience of Agile with primary school teachers has shown me that the approach truly can be used everywhere and that it will quickly be of benefit to the team that uses it.
No matter how engaging an experience is, or how much effort you put in designing cool rules and goals: If someone feels forced to engage in an activity, they will find it utterly boring. In this fourth and final part, we are addressing the last aspect of what makes a game fun: Voluntary participation. How does this notion apply to Scrum?
Feedback is a decisive aspect of human interactions. Be it in education, games, management, design or in interpersonal relationships, the way we communicate to people if they have met our expectations can have a strong impact on their future behaviours. Well-designed feedback loops are thus crucial for crafted experiences, and one of the main reasons behind the success of Scrum as a method.
After looking at the goal (part 1) and at the rules (part 2), we are continuing the exploration of the fun in Scrum with the third trait defining a game: The feedback system.
In the past few years I had the opportunity to explore various uses and dimensions of Scrum. On projects working with Scrum and the Agile philosophy, I always felt more energized, accomplished and enthusiastic. The atmosphere in my team was better, we were more productive, engaged, and overall we experienced much less stress. To put it simply: Working on projects with Scrum was fun. I started to ask myself why it was so much better to run a project with Scrum than without.
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I have started this blog to explore how work methods can foster motivation in human organisations. It is meant to grow organically, and will follow the twists and turns of my work and research.
My first idea was to start from game-thinking and see how it applies to various topics and activities. You can see this unfold in the four-fold series “Why is Scrum so much fun?”
