IBM'S MANAGEMENT GAMES: NO FOOLING AROUND

Thunder crashes, lightning flashes, and a camera zooms in on a shadowy, futuristic-looking, gray-and-black office. The camera follows a female avatar in slacks and a button-down shirt as she jogs from one cubicle to the next, up a spiral staircase, and across a high gangplank as dramatic classical music plays in the background. This YouTube trailer could easily be a plug for a new shout-'em-up video game or a slasher flick. Instead, it's promot­ing a video game called Innov8, which IBM began selling in September 2007.

IBM says it received dozens of calls from potential cus­tomers after showing the vi4eo clip at a recent conference for clients. Designed to help tech managers better under­stand the roles of business people, and vice versa, players go into a virtual business unit to test their hand at ven­tures such as redesigning a call center, opening a brokerage account, or processing an insurance claim.

Why is one of the world's most buttoned-down organi­zations encouraging its people and customers to play games? IBM says that the skills honed playing massive multiplayer dragon-slaying games like World of Warcraft can be useful when managing modern multinationals. The company says its research supports that claim.

IBM tracked the leadership qualities of gamers with the help of Seriosity (a company that develops enterprise soft­ware inspired by multiplayer games), Stanford, and MIX IBM also surveyed more than 200 game-playing managers at the company over a seven-month period.

The IBM researchers found that those who are deeply immersed in online worlds that link millions of players, such as World of Warcraft, were ideally suited to manage in the new millennium. They were particularly savvy at gathering information from far-flung sources, determining strategic risks, failing fast and moving on to the new chal­lenge quickly.

One of the key findings from the research, says Thomas Malone, an MIT professor of management and Seriosity board member, is that companies need to create more op­portunities for flexible, project-oriented leadership. In fast-paced games, people can jump in to manage a team for as little as 10 minutes, if they have the needed skills for the task at hand. "Games make leaders from lemmings," says Tony O'Driscoll, an IBM learning strategist and one of the authors of the study. "Since leadership happens quickly and easily in online games, otherwise reserved players are more likely to try on leadership roles."

The study points out that games can become "man­agement flight simulators" of sorts, letting employees manage a global workforce in cyberspace before they do so in the real world. More than half of the managers sur­veyed said playing massive multiplayer games had helped them lead at work. Three-quarters of those surveyed be­lieved that specific game tools, such as expressive avatars that can communicate via body language, as well as by voice and typing, would help manage remote employees in the real world.

IBM, of course, has every reason to stress the impor­tance of online gaming. It's trying to fashion itself as the go-to consultant for business games, working with more than 250 clients. For now, IBM's challenge is convincing companies that online games are more than just a frivo­lous pursuit. IBM also is pouring millions into developing what it calls "the 3D Internet," in the hope that corpo­rate gaming will become the next lucrative online frontier.

Questions

1.      Analyse the case

2.      In an organization that wants to use Innov8 for man­agement or sales training, how could you assess readi­ness for training?