serious business: playing serious games to accelerate learning & deliver better outcomes

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How do we re-design a big call centre for better performance?

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SERIOUS BUSINESS Playing serious games to accelerate learning & deliver better outcomes

David Colls - dcolls@thoughtworks.com

p l a y i n g g a m e s

A BIG CALL CENTRE How do we re-design a big call centre for better performance?

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THE GM STRUGGLED to improve his call centre. Time for changes was running out. He was down to his last $3. The crowd urged him to upskill agent Charlie. We ran the simulator.

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$3?

Crowd?

Simulator?

What kind of business is this?

CONTEXT

A BIG call centre 200,000 calls per day

10,000 agents

500+ products

24 hours

7 days

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CONTEXT

A BIG improvement program New paradigms for:

■  Staff management, and

■  Telephony technology

To better design which agents get which calls With the aim of continual learning-led performance improvement:

■  Customer satisfaction

■  Cost

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APPROACH

Big Bang Launch is Risky! New design can’t be tested on current systems.

We can build new technology and implement new management processes.

But, when we switch it on,

Can we be sure the design will work?

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UNRESOLVED QUESTIONS

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Can we find a design that

works?

Success of improvement program at stake!

UNRESOLVED QUESTIONS

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Can we find a design that

works?

Maybe games can help us…

BUSINESS VS GAMEPLAY

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Goal

Environment

Limited Resources

Moves

Taking Turns

Scoring

Results

More freedom.

Don’t break the law!

Less freedom.

Don’t break the rules!

Simplification highlights essential features

Simplification conceals

necessary complexity

THEORY IN PRACTICE

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Goal

Environment

Limited Resources

Moves

Taking Turns

Scoring

Results

Build a simulator

Devise and play

a game scenario

VISION FOR SIMULATION

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Call Arrives Call Classified

Class. Rules

Call Targeted

Targeting Rules

Call Queued Agent With Skills Available

Agent Skill Assignment

Call Serviced

Customer Calls Agent Connected

Classified call arrival

file

Production Systems

Production Systems

Simulation wrapper

Simulation ofreal systems Call event

log

Realbehaviours

Realbehaviours

Simulatedcustomerpatience

behaviour

Simulatedagent

transferbehaviour

Reality

Process

Design

Simulation

GOAL – TO MINIMISE ABANDONED CALLS Abandon = when a caller hangs up before talking to an agent

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ENVIRONMENT The state of the world

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LIMITED RESOURCES $20 and 4 minutes – later reduced to 2 minutes

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MOVES Given the information so far, your choices determine your performance

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TAKING TURNS Competitors take it in turns to move, under constraints, with helpful and less-than-helpful suggestions from the crowd

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SCORING Simulation is run and the crowd waits anxiously for the result.

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RESULTS Scores are posted, Top-Gear Style

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“What [the winner] has done is add agents and implement default routing, just like [our newest

operation]!”

CONFIDENCE BOOST

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Can we find a sufficiently good design to launch?

The game produced the

same design as the real world!

MORE OUTCOMES

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We have a great communications and

training resource

Management and technology change teams, and other stakeholders,

now understand one another

There is value in further simulator development

AND THEN WE CHANGED SOME MECHANICS AND DID IT ALL AGAIN This time with the aim of minimal transfers

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NEW GOAL, ENVIRONMENT AND SCORING Transferred calls now part of the game

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NEW RESULTS New measures of performance yield a new strategy

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MORE OUTCOMES

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What we measure will affect what we design

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

More people played the game Effective communications about the program

Simulator scaled to production complexity To find the launch design

New system launched! Which was the real game after all

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BUSINESS OUTCOMES

Validation

Focus

Knowledge sharing

Accelerated program

Better launch design

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NO SIMULATOR?

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Goal

Environment

Limited Resources

Moves

Taking Turns

Scoring

Results

Simulation

Live systems A/B tests

User testing Role playing

SMEs Excel

THANK YOU For questions or suggestions:

David Colls

dcolls@thoughtworks.com

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