Stephanie Daul

Mira Mendlovitz

• What is your favorite game to play?

• Text your game to

Gaming vs Gamification

Gaming

• Creating a game to learn or reinforce content

• “Will I learning something new after my seventh time playing it?”– Operation Product

• Winning and losing does not make a game

Gamification

• Gaming elements into learning experiences

• PBLs– Points (Chris’ KeepStock

Challenge)– Badges (Grainger Mobile

Learning)– Leaderboard (OnCall and

Orchestrating Talent Excellence)

• Levels• Challenges

Apples to Apples• Find a group of 4-7 people• Play 10 minutes of Apples to Apples• Come up with the components of the

game (the generic rules and concepts)• What business skills or rules do they

relate to?

Inventory Shuffle

By using games people are familiar with allowed the team members to think about the gaming concepts.

Objective or Purpose

What is It?

Implementation

Learnings

Games and Grub is a lunch activity involving the Learning and Development team. Team members eat lunch and played commercially produced games, discuss the rules and strategy of the game, and identify business challenges were the concepts of the game could apply.

The purpose of the activity was to get Learning and Development team members to experience game play and analyze the foundations of these games.

August 2011

Team members were invited to bring their lunches and a game and teach the other team members how to play. Games included Splat, Apples to Apples, Mille Bornes, and Catch Phrase. The sessions are optional and have 4 to 20 players in the sessions.

Let’s Play

Electric Company App• Need 4 people• 5 minutes to play• Come up with the components of the

game (the generic rules and concepts)• What business skills or rules do they

relate to?

Flawless Consulting

Let’s Play

Sally’s Spa• Need 1 people• 5 minutes to play• Come up with the components of the

game (the generic rules and concepts)• What business skills or rules do they

relate to?

Nintendo DS

• Why?

• Plan on a prototype

• Where to take the game

Grainger Quest/Diagnose This

Inventory Shuffle

Grainger Extreme Makeover

• Keep them simple• PLAY TEST!!!!• Make paper prototypes• PLAY TEST!!!!• Take the feedback and change• PLAY TEST!!!!• “Does it still tie back to the objectives”• PLAY!!!!

Design First!

Power Transmission (2008)

$70,000

Flash Focus (2009) $ 500

Grainger Extreme Makeover (2011) $50, 000

Inventory Shuffle (2012) $ 35,000

Consulting Game (2012) $ 0

Grainger Quest/Diagnose This (2012) $500

On Call (2012) $ 1,500

Operations Product (2013) $ 0

Orchestrating Talent Excellence (2013) $ 3,500

• Always connect to the business• Stay strong!• Great resources

If you want to design games – Play Games!

Stephanie DaulLearning Development Consultant

WW Grainger

StephanieDaul

Stephanie.Daul@grainger.com

Mira MendlovitzLearning Development Consultant

WW Grainger

Mira_Bell

Mira.Mendlovitz@grainger.com

Power Transmission Game

A successful launch of our first game. Power transmission sales increased to meet the product launch business goal.

Objective or Purpose

What is It?

Implementation

Learnings

The purpose of the game was to expose our customer service and sales team members to power transmission products and how they are used in the maintenance and repair industry.

The Power Transmission game was launch in 2008 as part of product expansion initiative. The game is an interactive module where the players are required to build a simple machine using power transmission products. Points are awarded for the most complex or simplest machine.

Spring 2008

The game was available through our Learning Management System. In addition to the game, a power transmission measurement kit was distributed to over 400 branches to give practice measuring power transmission products.

While there was an increase in the quality scores, it was not given the priority by leadership and never moved out of a pilot phase.

Objective or Purpose

What is It?

Implementation

Learnings

Flash Focus is a commercially produced game for the Nintendo DS gaming system. On a daily bases players complete a series of five hand/eye focused activities. When completed, the player receives an Eye Age for that day.

The objective was to increase the quality scores for our Pick/Pack team members. We selected Flash Focus because the objectives of the existing course match the activities in the game.

Winter 2008

A request to convert an instructor led course on hand eye coordination to a technology based course came from our distribution center operations department. Two Nintendo DS systems and 10 Flash Focus games were purchased for the pilot distribution center. Team members were asked to complete the activities 3 times a week. Recognition was given to team members

who’s Eye Age was below 30.

The interaction during the tournament play was incredible. Team members were sharing ideas and collaboratively working to solve business challenges. The only change I would implement is allowing more time for discussion.

Objective or Purpose

What is It?

Implementation

Learnings

A card based game that has the players create mobile solutions for real business challenge.

Provide an understanding of basic mobile learning technologies and applications that can be applied to our business challenges. This was the first exposure to mobile learning that many of the learning and development team members had.

August 2011

A group of 8 played a tournament to experience the play of the game and “train” to be a judges. A single elimination bracket tournament was held both in person and virtual via the phone. Players randomly selected a challenge and were given just a few minutes to create a mobile solution. After both solutions were presented the players were asked to offer feedback to their opponent. After the

interaction the judges declared a winner.

The game was implemented as in a pilot with a small number of customer facing team members competing as individuals and on teams of six. The game is ready for a full implementation (approximately 4,000 team members) when the eCommerce Deployment team determines it should be done.

Grainger Extreme Makeover

We are currently evaluating the pilot but we know that it has increase accountability to learn about the website as a result of playing on a team. Team members are identifying themselves as power users and are requiring no additional training.

Objective or Purpose

What is It?

Implementation

Learnings

Grainger Extreme Makeover is an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) designed to expose all Grainger team members to the new Grainger.com website. Players receive clues in the form of a factious customer requesting help via emails, social media, corporate communication, and a game portal. Players are required to use the website and various communications to answer the customers questions.

To increase the understanding of the new Grainger.com website for customer facing team members .

November 2011

To help the business understand the concepts of the game we used A Game of Phones as an example of what the game play would be like. We also included SMEs in a 2 day design and development session which short cycled the development time.

Objective or Purpose

What is It?

Implementation

Learnings

Modeled after A Game of Phones this game , Inventory Shuffle has the participants select a customer challenge and use their Keepstock Solution suite to solve this customer’s challenge.

Apply Grainger’s KeepStock® solutions suite to a specific customer challenges. Player select the appropriate value and KeepStock solution for the implementation . A judge or players determine which solution would work with the customer challenge.

Spring 2012

Inventory Shuffle was rollout to the sales leadership January 2012 and the remaining sales organization by district in March 2012. We are currently working on additional challenges. The game is used in onboarding as well.

The game was complex and needed more then time to complete then was allowed. It took the participants longer to start playing the game. The lesson learned was to have more time then needed and allow them to play multiple times.

Objective or Purpose

What is It?

Implementation

Learnings

A simple board game designed to reinforce Flawless Consulting and seller onboarding learnings. Players select a card related to each of stages in Flawless Consulting and selling. They answer the question on the card. The others player determine if the answer is good, better or the best answer possible. The player advances 1, 2, or 3 spaces. Their turn ends with the shake of a die. Even rolls and their turn ends, odd roll and they have an opportunity to answer a resistance question.

Reinforce the concepts learned in Flawless Consulting and seller onboarding.

Summer 2012 and Summer 2013

The game will be played during the L&D team meeting in July.

Grainger Quest/Diagnose This

Grainger Quest was create because the leaders “wanted a game”. The time to play the game was cut the day of the meeting so there was limited time to get feedback. Diagnose This was played multiple times so there was an opportunity to incorporate feedback after each session.

Objective or Purpose

What is It?

Implementation

Learnings

A simple board game designed to introduce basic facts about the companies strategy and market segment content. Teams of 3-5 team members select a card for a question deck and answer the question on the card. The others teams determine if the answer is acceptable. If the answer is correct, the team selects a gem or coin from a bag of multi colored gems or coins. The team that collects all of the colors wins.

Introduce basic facts about the companies strategy and market content.

Fall 2012

Grainger Quest was played during the Top 200 Global Leadership meeting. Diagnose This was played at Healthcare Summits throughout the US.

Seller’s were not willing to play the game at first because they thought the vendors were getting their personal phone numbers. Communication of the purpose of the game is critical to the success when you ask people to give personal information.

Objective or Purpose

What is It?

Implementation

Learnings

A SMS based game that encouraged sellers to interact with vendors during a vendor expo. Prior to the conference vendors submitted information about their products or service that we then used to make multiple choice questions. A unique code was displayed at each vendor’s booth. As the seller walked around the expo they texted the code and received and text question. For every correct answer they texted back they get got points. A live leader board was displayed and the winning seller received a gift card.

Encourage interaction between vendors and sellers.

Fall 2012

The game was played during the Healthcare Summits.

Create an engaging story to help learners work through boring content.

Objective or Purpose

What is It?

Implementation

Learnings

A web based game played by an individual to understand the types of products Grainger sells. Team members match 20 products with their product categories in a given amount of time. The learner must successfully complete the challenge before the next challenge is avaiable.

Introduce basic product information.

Spring 2013

The games was part of a field based onboarding program.

Orchestrating Talent Excellence – The Game

Need to use a web based game with international participants. Not everyone was comfortable with technology and refused to play. When implementing a complicated game have the direction in some type of media so there will not be an interpretation of the rules.

Objective or Purpose

What is It?

Implementation

Learnings

The goal of the game is to be part of an orchestra by being recruited for an orchestra by one the leaders of HR. The instrument is determined by the card selected at registration. The instruments were associated with the Credible HR Activist. There are two types of player in this game: Conductors: A conductor is responsible for recruiting members to their orchestra and Orchestra Members. At various times in the game planned disruptions would change the roles of conductors and members. These disruptions were video recorded and shown before the meeting break. The winning orchestra was the one that had the most people .

Encourage networking at an annual Human Resource meeting.

Summer 2013

The game was played during the Global HR meeting.

Grainger Mobile Learning Game

Beginning of the implementation so we are still evaluating the learnings. Need to plan out the point systems and how to award the points.

Objective or Purpose

What is It?

Implementation

Learnings

Grainger Mobile Learning (GML) is a mobile and web based app that provides learning content and tracks the use of the content. As learners complete learning assignments they receive points. Once they receive a certain amount of points in a category the learner received a badge. There are winners for each game which is played over different timeframes of the onboarding.

Encourage the completion on the assignments.

Summer 2013

GML is used by all Grainger sellers and leadership in Customer Service.