Engagement
All exercises, regardless of size, need to consider engagement of the training audience. Without engagement, there is no learning.
There are three ways to create engagement (explained below) but the key thought to hold in mind is to show the player that their actions matter.
People learn best when an exercise meets these criteria:
It’s relevant to their job
There’s a problem to solve
They have agency to solve it
They can use their experience
There is something practical they can do
Creating Engagement
The diagram below and the following explanation is an easy way to think about creating engagement in your exercise.
Challenge-based engagement: when someone is trying to solve a problem, make a decision, or create some content (e.g. a press release/update brief)
Narrative-based engagement: this is how relevant and believable the scenario is to the training audience
Spectacle-based engagement: this is the momentary engagement from rich media such as video pop-ups, images, audio, and phone calls etc.
Flow
"Flow" is a game design term, which refers to the player's state of mind when their skills and the challenge of the game are aligned. Too high a challenge for the capabilities of the audience will create anxiety and too low a challenge will create boredom.
Some anxiety may be necessary in a crisis exercise to condition the player to working under duress. As the player rises to the challenge their skill level will increase and enable them to grow beyond their comfort zone. However, it's still important to pitch challenge at the right level.
Exercise control can use Conducttr's MELs and Pattern of Life to dynamically add or or less for the player to consider - this can be really helpful in maintaining engagement.
Ultimately...
Sustained engagement comes from designing exercises that adapt to player actions; balancing challenge, relevance, and realism so players remain in a state of productive "flow".
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