Microsoft Shows How Product Managers Can Use Serious Games

For product managers, getting workers to help test new products has always proven to be a challenge, making finding an engaging inducement for participation the Holy Grail. As a panacea, a small but growing team at Microsoft created productivity games to encourage employee participation in the quality assurance (QA) testing of software. Microsoft's most successful use of games to support software QA processes is the Language Quality Game, which was used to check language translation in the Windows 7 user interface. The marrying of serious gaming and business process is now spreading within Microsoft as other groups apply the lessons learned from the Language Quality Game. For product managers looking to mimic Microsoft's use of games in product development, it is best to start small, focusing on a specific issue within a business process that will allow you to build use cases through experimentation.