Serendipity and Learning

About 15 odd years ago, when the internet had not crept into all devices, we purchased a Nintendo Wii and we have all of one game CD on it. And it is crazy that even today the kids are able to derive enjoyment out of it and as they grow, the game is becoming a great de-stressor in the midst of exam prep.  Today we are at a stage when every app worth its salt sends updates every week, if not more. So, features can be added, newer levels can be introduced and all sorts of things can be done. But what do you when you have ship your product as "one and done". Or put in other words,  what if updating was a constraint.  Whatever the issue, what is impressive that is that it looks like the game will keep going on and on.  Here are some of the things they have discovered.  The game unlocks new characters as your achievements increase.  There are many such possible achievements - the race is done in reverse, mirror circuits There are many challenges As the players u...

When was the last time you did something for the first time. I did yesterday. I attended a design conference. For various reasons which included learning about a field that has held me in thrall for a long long time. And it did not disappoint. Met some folks with whom I only had telephonic conversations, some long lost contacts rejuvenated and meeting some old friends in a different setting. Design conferences are surely creative. And highly educational. And I highly recommend visiting a different conference than your profession... some problems are the same and some are different. Gives a great perspective. As an L&D professional...my takeaway...deepen your practice else AI is waiting. Rewrite the rules!

 I was travelling in a bus and the ticket dispenser failed - low battery. And whoever designed this system had no plan B. The conductor had no spare battery, no charging point or even manual tickets to give. So, he closed the bus doors and told the driver, we cant take any more passengers and sped to our destination.  Whoever thought of this wonderful tech did not think of a plan B in case it fails. Aside, the electronic ticket dispenser is slower than the manual ticket and at peak hours, it is quite an effort for the conductor to keep up. And most of them hate electronic payment at peak hours - simply because it is way too slow for them.  This is similar to toll boths in India (some of the high through put ones) which are faster than fast-tag (yet).  This does not mean that tech is bad or tech is too slow - it just means, it needs to designed and thought through better. 

Smaller companies innovate better? Happened to read this piece on Koenigsegg somehow while reading something and searched for more of their innovations and  here is what I found There is more on their website:  Automobile innovations . And heres their ex-design head talking about annoying design trends in automobile design.

In Leadership BS - this is the authors  take on what is wrong with the leadership industry. It is 1, well intentioned, values laden. 2, set of prescriptions - lots of shoulds and oughts. 3, that are mostly not representative of most people in leadership roles and 4 are recommendations that are almost certainly not implementable and may be fundamentally misguided.  In which case, what should a training program look like? 1. Assessments, observations, honest feedback (the most difficult part in my view). This is difficult because unless observations are unbiased and feedback is honest (best from peers) this cannot happen. Also leaders are leaders - people do not share honest feedback to leaders for a variety of reasons. Assessments are also expensive - so often they are the first thing that is ditched (second being the next one) 2. Lots of practice. That comees by investing in long term behaviour change (the second most difficult thing) It is difficult because of budgets and tim...

We upgraded our washing machine. After nearly a decade and a half or thereabouts. For good measure, we purchased the same brand and roughly the same capacity - since, well, we were used to the machine and as change averse as we are when it comes to washing clothes, we decided to stick to the brand. But little did we realise that the world has changed. From simple washing machines to fuzzy washing machines - nowadays they also use AI and IoT - to wash clothes. I think by the time the next generation of machines hit the market, we will have to offer it crypto coins, biometric scanners and use blockchain to identify the clothes and modes.  Jokes apart, after using it for a few days, I am fairly convinced, washing machine designers do not use the washing machines they designed.  The washing machine does not allow me to put wet clothes into it. Why do I put wet clothes, you ask? (Because I am a user and I have my quirks). But rational explanation - Some times clothes need to be scr...

 We replaced our washing machine after 15 odd years. In those 15 years, we had used exactly one setting of the machine. Everything else was pointless (and not for lack of exploring).  The older one had 4 options. This one has 8.  Water level options are the same though (I suspect you cant do much with it) - there seems to be a mapping of the level to the wash program - I havent cracked it yet. But the automatic function has been messing up things. It apparently weighs the load and then decides - but almost always its decisions seem to be wrong with the result that the clothes were not washed properly.  The beeps of the older machine were different - this one sounds odd (for now) We are still getting used to this machine.  So, ultimately, it is a washing machine. What would make it more user friendly? (No, please dont think IOT and app driven sms, notifications for a wash). I somehow feel it can be far more intuitive.  Clothes are X. Water level has to be Y ...

 Recently a friend sent a small video he had created with the caption, "I cant believe I created this". I opened the video and it was a nice video with text, images and a simple background score. He had created a small clipping of the Bhagavad Gita. And he wanted someone to create the video - but he created it on Canva and was thoroughly pleased with the effort. This is why Canva is so loved. It makes you feel that you can design your folder, brochure, ppt, video - you name it. The free version is so generous - it is possibly the most generous app - and it makes you feel that design is accessible, affordable and captures your unique voice.  Ideally if you are building something, you want the users to feel the way they feel after they use Canva. That satisfying feeling when a painter takes two steps back from the canvas, admires her work and says "I did that".  Canva makes users feel they are designers. They can do it. It is easy. It is unique. And of course, it capt...

I am somewhere in the last stages of designing a game. I have been in the last stages for 3 months now. But each time I see it with a fresh pair of eyes (of my users or my collaborators), it is excruciatingly tough to change what I knew or thought I always knew. Over 20 playtests with approx 80-100 folks and about a 100 odd hours of testing and iteration led us to keep seeing thing that were blind to us. For instance, a design which I thought was working well is now being comprehended in a different way. In order to make that right, I have had to change my thought/approach and come at it from a new lens.  We made many changes as we engaged with users and bit by bit the change has happened. And yes, we could see the improvement of the way the users engaged in the next test. Colours had to be changed. Text. Visuals. Rules. We had to simplify things. We had to explain things we thought were obvious. And things which we thought were difficult - users wanted a degree of complexity as we...

I was attending a session on design and the speaker referred to this book, "Creative Selection". Instantly I ordered it. And promptly finished it over the weekend. This is a fantastic book. If you are in the creative space or in the space of design or product or just want to get a deep inside view of design or creation, this is a must read book. And the single biggest takeaway? Great product or design is no accident. It is a combination of perseverance, diligence, risk, choices and decisions, among other things... Thats all I will say. Read it!

So, after multiple deletes and reinstates to goals and promises, we finally deleted Clash Royale. After we reached the Legendary Arena, of course - we are no wimps. We battled the algorithm, curbed our instincts and did everything. It was tough saying no to Clash Royale. The mind doesn't take stop contracts very well said my trainer. But we managed. This in in my mind is the end of Clash Royale in our devices. In the meantime, we learnt about this new app called Loco. And Loco has a simple premise. Ten quiz questions, live, 10 seconds per question and its a survival game. If you get all 10 answers right progressively, you win - real money. If you miss a step, you get eliminated. But, if you get friends to install the game and use your code - you can lives (one per game) and continue upto question 9 - at 10 - there no life. For what it is worth, we started playing and won a little bit of money (think sub-hundred). Now this is the start contract to rival CRs stop contract....

I was lucky to be part of Design Thinking teams in my last two organisations. Design Thinking as popularised by the Stanford D school is an open source methodology and I have seen it being used in a few organisations to good effect. What is wonderful about this methodology is what you can do with it. It is fast, it is fun and it is productive. It is simple, yet - you can go through it many a time and still discover new things. There is fun in designing around it - and seeing the possibilities unfold in so many ways. It is early days yet, but we have seen how this approach has a lot of potential...as we discovered in a recent workshop that we conducted to go after some fairly commonplace 'problems'. But at the end of it, as I have seen in every other workshop before this, the 'insight' is always different. There is always something new that comes up when one uses this framework. As I constructed it, I realised that Interviewing with Empathy is not easy, nor is Ide...

Some years ago at a job interview a candidate told me, "I am looking for a challenge that is why I am looking for a new job" And I asked him,"Why is staying at your current job not challenging enough?" A few days ago, the little one was building yet another complex contraption with his building blocks and was stuck. He said, this is difficult. And off went the parental machine,"Well everything is difficult. Things take time and effort. And you know it. But ask yourself how come you do these challenges very well with patience, time and effort while other challenges like Hindi make you crib" "I don't like Hindi" Yes, in both cases, challenges are challenges only if the mind sees an element of positiveness in them.  If the learner does not accept your challenge as a challenge but as a drudgery then you have lost the battle. The 'why' has to be established in the learners mind - and then challenges become challenges worth tak...

As we usually do, the little ones and I explored the app store for trying out a game or anything that catches our fancy. This is something we do quite often. Explore. Discuss. And then try out. Sometimes we try out someone that someone has recommended on the net (and usually paid apps fall in this category). Sometimes, we try out something on a whim. And a few clicks later, some apps fail the initial interest test and are deleted ruthlessly. Some sustain interest for a longer while. Some keep us occupied for a long time. And so on and so forth. (As customers, someone who explores the app store is more ruthless than a channel surfer on television. But thats for another post.) As part of this process, we chanced upon an app named Valiant Hearts. It is part graphic novel, part strategy game, part war game, laden with juicy clues as 4 people make their way across a war theatre (WWII). (Aside: There are zero games with Indias freedom story as a backdrop as much there is a ton of WW...

Lets face it. Most trainings are badly designed. Indeed, training design, as opposed to instructional design is a field that generally lacks thinking. Pick any vendor you engage. Or any training you have attended. There are exceptions, but mostly these are tightly designed activities or simulations. Some trainings that are high on activity also appear well designed, but they score more on the engagement side rather than on the learning side. What may be the reason? It could range from bad diagnosis to bad execution. It could range from boredom to objectives not understood. Or the lack of engagement from the leader. Or a tick in the box approach. Or too much of subjectivity. Or too much objectivity. Trying to do too much. Too little. Too soon. Too slow. But is there a single one way to design a training? I think there is not, but I personally feel that there is a lot of laziness in training design. And that trainings are not meant to be just designed, but crafted, with pass...

Recently, we had to design a change management program for a set of people. Now, for most change management programs there are two objectives. One is the actual change - the change needed - the cultural change and the effectiveness of it and so on. But, there is a second unstated objective - signalling. Telling the powers that be that 'I am working on it', 'creating noise' and 'some event management'. All too often, the second objective overtakes the first. With the result that there is a lot of short term happiness of something being rolled out, the sound of boxes being ticked, but without an eye on the real (actual) change that is expected as an outcome. Usually, the shortest path to get there is to get a training consultant - usually a marquee consultant with a big name. Now, nothing wrong with this - but the risk of doing this is to kind of place your second objective before the first. On the other hand, it is smarter to get an organizational consultant w...

A few weeks ago, we had to work on a leadership meeting - which was essentially a series of technical presentations. And the problem at hand was to 'design' it. It is a senior audience, so there was no point over-engineering it (and that applies even if it is a junior audience) - though over-engineering is often a temptation one succumbs to. But some design element had to be used - and thats when we got an idea of using a scoring system for each presentation. This scoring system was designed with certain constraints so that the most common problem in scoring systems (socialistic distribution) is eliminated. We also provided another constraint as a team to team scoring rather than an individual to team scoring. All of which was a method of peer to peer evaluation. This one small change, completely changed the behaviour of the groups. Suddenly, there was competition, motivation, energy and the groups competed with each other to put their best foot forward. We also ensured th...

Grand plans need time. Grand plans cannot be done in a jiffy. Especially something that involves technical development, device compatibility, digital experience. Perhaps they can be done in some place - where funds are not a constraint neither is effort or if all talent is internal, but if you have to go to a vendor and get something done, it takes a long long time before it can see light of day. We realised this the hard way while 'designing' for an event - jazzy, grand plans come to nought when they meet time, budget and of course, bureaucracy. But deliver we had to - so we delivered an interactive experience using mechanical interactivity - instead of digital interactivity. Well, that is a term we coined ourselves - but we were pleased with the output in the end. Cheaper than technology, faster and yes, fun too. We were called in with a purpose - to provide a 'different' experience and we delivered...And this is a concept worth exploring - a mechanical arcade....

Some weeks back we were working on an exercise. The discussion was a very useful one. Between us, those who would design the exercise, we were discussing what the customer wants - preferences, working styles, current need and so on and so forth. As we were discussing this, we realized that the customer wants something different from what we have currently (and that is no surprise). Our current offering was too time consuming for him and he did not have the patience for that kind of an exercise. However, we still had to offer that service for the benefit of the other members in the team - and as part of the hygiene factor of the exercise. What did we do? We came up with an alternate way of doing the same thing - that would get us there - without the rigmarole (the customer) associated with our original textbook approach. With a bonus, it tied in neatly with what the customer wanted out of this particular exercise. We spoke about stated and unstated needs and inside in and outside i...

A few weeks ago, me and my colleague got an opportunity to put together something for a particular group. I will be hazy on the details, for very obvious reasons, but as you will see that is not necessarily important for this post. When we started off, we really had no clue what we were going after. We read up a bit, met people and put out a few drafts of what the program would look like. We, were obviously, not very satisfied at how that turned out, but we persisted. For a week or so, the presentation went back and forth, but with very little forward movement. As we made progress, we reached a point of self doubt and started looking for back up options. It reflected our own lack of self confidence than anything else. But the back up options that we saw seemed to be no better. Then, a breakthrough happened. While tossing ideas back and forth, something happened that made us re-imagine the entire way we had conceived the program. And at that point, we did not want to take the new...