A new take on training – Guestblog series Play & Learn, part 8

As Risktec’s Director of Clean Energy and Innovation I wear two hats. Firstly, I lead our work to help clients around the world implement the global energy transition necessary to support the fight against climate change in a safe and sustainable way. Secondly, I lead Risktec’s work to embrace innovation and digitalization to allow us to provide an even better service to our clients, right across the above services, to allow them to; directly reduce existing risks, improve what’s currently being done, and, do what previously couldn’t be done.

OK, so what is Game Based Learning?

It’s about having fun and losing yourself within a game and learning something without really being aware of it. So, it’s all about playing a game with learning on the side.

We work with clients across many different industries around the world. They all do very different things, but when it comes to promoting and encouraging a positive safety culture across the organization, they all face the same fundamental challenges:

• Are they effectively communicating simple but very important safety messages across their workforce?
• Can their workforce relate these messages to their specific roles and responsibilities to ensure tangible safety improvement?
• Are these messages delivered in a memorable way, providing long-term benefit to their business?

A perennial frustration (let’s see how many cheesy game references I can get into this blog!) within major hazard industries is that accidents continue to happen even though organizations go to great trouble to train their personnel to avoid them. Making learning “stick” is clearly not a trivial pursuit!

Well, GBL provides an answer to all of these questions.

We provide a unique training and education service, from individual courses to a Risktec CPD or a tailored MSc programme in Risk and Safety Management, all taught by our experienced consultants. Our approach is flexible to meet individual and company needs: varying levels of assessment, different delivery methods (face-to-face, distance learning or blended), choice of modules, scheduling and locations.

Whereas this Risk and Safety Management syllabus focuses on transferring complex technical knowledge and understanding to industry specialists, GBL is the exact opposite of this. It’s about communicating simple messages to large numbers of people at all levels of an organization.

Having fun within the serious environment of a major hazard industry should never be taboo, particularly when it enhances learning and therefore the competence of a workforce. GBL gives all employees an enjoyable experience whilst delivering a serious message in a high impact and memorable way.

So, what benefits does it deliver?

BENEFIT 1: The learning sticks

Firstly, according to Edgar Dale’s “Cone of Experience”, after two weeks you remember 90% of what you DO when you simulate, model or experience something and this is what GBL is all about. When you contrast this to remembering only 10% of what you READ or 20% of what you HEAR, this shows the huge power of GBL.

Secondly, when you have fun doing something you are more likely to remember what you did and learned.

So, by combing these, GBL helps people learn more and retain this knowledge for longer – a real win-win!

BENEFIT 2: It’s accessible to everyone

An individual’s status, position, knowledge and experience has no bearing on how they approach the games or how successful they are. They can be played equally by everyone in an organization and therefore provide a unique opportunity for everyone to come together on an equal basis and learn from each other and relate that learning to their own job.

BENEFIT 3: It’s extremely flexible and versatile

It is extremely flexible and versatile allowing it to be used in a number of ways:

• To deliver a serious message in a short, high-impact and memorable session.
• Providing a fun, energizing break from traditional classroom sessions.
• As a fun competition in a “Safety Day” which are becoming increasingly popular with our clients.
• As an entertaining ice-breaker within a meeting, workshop or conference whilst conveying relevant learning.

The main reason why it is so flexible is that each game only takes 30-60 minutes to play so doesn’t take up lots of people’s time and can be easily blended into other activities.

Everything you need to play the game is in the box. There is no IT equipment required and no need for a power supply so you can just about play the games anywhere.

GBL is deliberately light on written materials. The power of it is in the game-play, the immersive experience, and the style, approach and experience of the facilitator. So the games can easily be delivered in any language.

Secrets to success!

To try and illustrate the benefits GBL offers, I’ve distilled down what we see are the key ingredients to the success of GBL based on our experience in developing and playing the games. I’ve also picked-out some individual games to illustrate these.

INGREDIENT 1: One game, one message

Each game seeks to instill a basic understanding of a single process safety message. We currently have games which cover 9 process safety themes:

INGREDIENT 2: Heaps of physical game materials

We base each game on physical game materials which everyone can use and lose themselves in regardless of age, capability, experience, position etc. Our Game “Why Guess?” which covers the process safety theme of “Adherence to Procedures” is based on the popular game “Guess Who”. “Building in Change”, which covers “Management of Change”, uses a Lego tower block to represent an asset you are responsible for and “Chemical Hazard” which covers “Chemical Safety” uses a set of “Top Trumps” style cards for the range of chemicals used within your facility.

INGREDIENT 3: Lashings of fun, team-based interaction

This creates the fun, enjoyable experience which helps with knowledge retention. A good example of this is the game “Peak Performance” which covers the message of “Roles and Responsibilities”. Here teams race each other to climb Mount Everest by completing a number of different mountaineering tasks, whilst dealing with a range of aliments they pick up along the way. In the first round the roles and ailments are allocated randomly across the team resulting in many individuals struggling to complete their tasks with amusing results.

In the second round the teams are given time to think about the optimum relationship between tasks and impairments to achieve the fastest ascent based on their experiences in the first round.

This game therefore demonstrates the importance of filling roles with people with the right training, experience and knowledge and who are provided with the tools and information to perform those roles effectively.

INGREDIENT 4: A good sprinkle of healthy competition

A good example of this is our game “Plane Simple” which illustrates the importance of clear, intuitive Operating Instructions to the safe, effective completion of any task. Players are given a box of Lego and a set of instructions to build a seaplane. These instructions vary hugely in style, presentation and hence effectiveness. Players race each other to build their plane with the winner getting a prize.

Watching the players wrestle with the incredibly detailed set of step-by-step written instructions is particularly amusing and reminds me of my days working on nuclear power stations.

A fun twist to this game is that we throw in some instructions to build a hovercraft and it’s amazing to watch the players’ reactions to this, generating some really interesting discussions about human behavior and how it influences how we follow instructions.

INGREDIENT 5: A fun theme everyone can relate to

This takes the game out of the workplace allowing it to be played on an equal basis by everyone regardless of their status, position, knowledge or experience. A good example of this is our game “Star Culture” which communicates the basic principles of the “Hudson/Parker” Safety Culture Ladder which organizations must strive to climb.

Here we blend the 5 steps of this ladder with the traditional “snakes and ladders” board game and wrap it all up in an inter-galactic space flight theme. So, the ladders are replaced with light speed boosters and the snakes are replaced with black holes. When players land at the foot of a light speed booster or top of a black hole they are dealt a card which describes an event or scenario they must deal with as crew member on an intergalactic space ship. This card tests their awareness and appreciation of how specific actions and decisions influence safety culture. Depending on how they answer the question they will move up, down or remain at the same place.

INGREDIENT 6: A memorable analogy for process safety

This helps to bring the safety theme to life helping to make the learning stick. A good example of this is the game “Tipping Point” which covers the process safety theme of “Layers of Protection” and therefore aligns brilliantly with CGE Risk’s barrier management tools.

Players are responsible for managing the safety assurance of a product, project, facility, process, etc. The complete tower of wooden blocks represents the multiple barriers present to ensure safety. Exactly what the tower represents can be tailored to suit the attendees as required. It can represent a physical asset such as an oil and gas facility, an offshore wind turbine, a rail system or a nuclear power station. The analogy is hugely flexible as it can be applied to anything that requires structured controls to succeed, so could represent project management, product development, a safety management system, ALARP decision-making, etc. The applications are pretty much endless.

The teams are presented with scenarios from a deck of cards which either erode or reinstate barriers, requiring the removal or addition of blocks. These scenarios challenge ongoing integrity, represented by degrading the stability of the tower.

This game illustrates the concept of defence in depth to prevent major accidents and is a great way of bringing the Swiss-Cheese analogy for accident causation to life in a very practical, visual and hence memorable way.

INGREDIENT 7: The all-important wrap-up message

This is where the facilitator brings the group together after all the fun and hilarity to have a short, typically 5 minutes, serious discussion about what the game means, how it relates to process safety and how it relates to your specific roles.

In the game “RiskJet”, which covers “Safety Critical Elements”, teams decide what items they want to include on their private jet which they’re buying after a big lottery win. Items range from things that are clearly Safety Critical to things that are frivolous like a disco ball and pool table, and through lots of things in between. As the budget gets cut the teams have to make tougher and tougher decisions as to what they need to make their plane safe.

At the end of this game the facilitator encourages an open discussion amongst the group, framed around questions like:

• What are the SCEs within your plant, facility etc.
• How do you know they are safety critical?
• Why are they safety critical?
• How are they looked after?

Are there any barriers to its use?

We’ve delivered GBL sessions to a wide range of clients around the world within the offshore oil & gas, offshore wind, onshore petrochemical, nuclear generation and rail industries and have received excellent feedback. We get lots of anecdotal feedback that the games have helped increase awareness and interest in process safety across a workforce. One of the most satisfying bits of feedback we’ve received is from a shift manager who overheard an operator talking to a colleague about a process safety theme (Safety Critical Elements) and using the name of our GBL game (RiskJet) interchangeably with that theme. There is no better evidence that GBL is working than an operator recalling one of our games and associating it with a process safety theme in the workplace.

The only barrier we’ve encountered in promoting and using GBL is the very occasional reluctance from organizations or individuals to embrace what can be seen as a flippant approach within the serious environment of a major hazard industry; “safety is not a game!”

However, what we find, time and time again, is that when people actually experience the games either by watching or playing, they see first-hand just how deep and thought provoking the analogies and metaphors for process safety are, and how these generate lots of very positive and creative discussion about very serious subjects, but in a fun, memorable way. They also see that whatever level of detail you want to explore these process safety themes, the analogies support a healthy and robust discussion. These metaphors and analogies are by no means flippant or superficial, they are carefully crafted by risk and safety professionals to form the foundation of a highly effective learning technique. Finally, they see the smiles on players faces as they genuinely enjoy a fun experience not actually realizing they are learning at the same time.

In our experience, the vast majority of people throw themselves into the sessions openly and enthusiastically. However, what is incredibly satisfying is to watch the body language of a very small minority of people quickly change from sceptical and disinterested to engaged and energized as the game unfolds. I think this just goes to show we are all just big kids at heart and if you create the right environment people (fun experience, depth and integrity of message) people just can’t help having some fun.

So where do we see GBL going in future?

Whilst these games have delivered significant value already, it is the process behind their development which perhaps offers most potential. Through the process of creating these games, we have generated an expansive list of concepts, themes, analogies and metaphors, along with a process which allows these to be combined to develop further games. We have a number of games in the pipeline covering:

• The principle of ALARP
• Emergency response
• Incident investigation
• Business continuity management

With this experience, we believe there is the opportunity to develop a game to cover any message and we’ll continue to invest in this program and expand the suite of games available to allow our clients to reap the rewards of GBL.

One key dilemma we face, and I’d be very keen to hear your views on this, is to what extent we digitalize these games. As I’ve mentioned, the real beauty of these games is that they are played in groups using tactile, fun materials. Clearly this doesn’t lend itself to the ongoing pandemic limiting the reach it can achieve and the benefits delivered. We’re therefore considering trading off some of this benefit to make it more accessible in this new normal by digitalizing the games allowing them to be played virtually.

Conclusions

Having fun within the serious environment of a major hazard industry should never be taboo, particularly when it enhances learning and therefore the competence of a workforce. GBL gives all employees an enjoyable experience whilst delivering a serious message in a high impact and memorable way. Who would have thought that having fun playing a game could reduce the likelihood of a major hazard? Well, GBL does just that and, excuse the pun, that’s why we think it is “game changing”. It makes much more effective use of training budgets, ensuring the message that needs to be communicated is received, understood and implemented quickly and efficiently, providing a long-term benefit to the business.

You can find out more about our GBL program here. Gareth very much welcomes your feedback on this blog. You can contact him at the e-mail address: [email protected]

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