Episode 108 Sue Baechler on Developing Serious Games
Sue Baechler on Developing Serious Games
Episode Summary:
In this episode, Dave Eng and Sue Baechler discuss the impact of learning games. Sue Baechler shares her journey from creating a sales game that broke records to starting her own learning game business. They delve into the Bottom Line Game at CVS, an educational board game that aimed to enhance profitability understanding. The game's mechanics involved challenges and opportunities on a game board, mirroring real-world scenarios. CVS used it for training new store managers for over five years. Sue also talks about the evolution of her All In Game, an inclusive online planning tool developed with Focus Games post-COVID-19. It aims to foster collaborative action planning for teams. The game can be tried for free on the Focus Games website.
Sue Baechler
she/her/hers
Game Designer & Learning Designer
Sue Baechler is a business leader and innovator with a playful mindset. So, it’s not surprising that she invents custom games and learning experiences that help people play their way into better relationships and results by solving their own challenges in companies like Deloitte, Hilton, Hallmark, CVS, Genentech, H&R Block, Xerox and GE. Sue’s games for global brands have been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, CNN, Huffington Post, People & Strategy and The Wall Street Journal. Before founding her game design and learning design businesses, Sue was a business leader for LensCrafters in California, Osco Drug in Chicago, Melville in Boston and New York, and two Silicon Valley start-ups. Sue’s BA in Communication and Education Design for Adults & Children from Buckminster Fuller’s School of Design at Southern Illinois University is a special major she invented to study across the schools of design, graphic arts, education, communications and multimedia.
(LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/suebaechler/
(YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piFMlNV8lRg
(Website): https://www.originaliti.com
Dave Eng:
Hi, and welcome to Experience Points by University XP. On Experience Points, we explore different ways we can learn from games. I'm your host, Dave Eng, from Games-Based Learning by University XP. Find out more at www.universityxp.com. On today's episode, we'll learn from Sue Baechler. Sue is a business innovator who creates custom games for global brands like Deloitte, Hilton, and CVS. She's been featured in Forbes and Fast Company and is a former business leader from LensCrafters and Osco Drug. Sue holds a BA in communication and education design from Southern Illinois University. Sue, welcome to the show.
Sue Baechler:
Thanks for inviting me, Dave. And thanks for creating the show. I'm enjoying your episodes.
Dave Eng:
Great. I'm glad to have you here, Sue. So I want to start off first with your origin story, which is how we first met each other. And I want to know more about your background with Originaliti and applied games. So I know you have such an interesting and diverse past. Can you share just in quick detail, what is your origin story? How did you first get started in applying games for learning?
Sue Baechler:
Thanks for asking that question, Dave. And not a lot of people ask a lot of others about their origin story, and I do now to others and their eyes light up. So thanks for asking. I think you know I didn't start out career-wise making games. But I realized looking back that I've always been very naturally inclined to make experiences fun for people and meaningful. So as a kid, I created backyard carnivals, and I did it so that everybody could showcase their talents. I was very clear about what I was trying to do. As a camp counselor in my teens, I wrote interactive songs and plays because I knew that kids needed to connect and relate. And in some of the volunteer organizations I was involved with, for example, I got the Chicago Bears to dress up like their cheerleaders so we could raise extra money at a Special Olympics event.
So I was aware that I was using play and engagement and experience design at that early time. But applying games and play to learning really started when I was a corporate employee, when I had to solve business challenges in whatever role I was in in a communications director, director of training and education, or as an operator. And so the first time I used play, I won't say games, but play to solve a business problem, I was 22. I created a wildly popular interactive play that diffused kids' fears about going to the hospital. It was repeated weekly and very successful to the tune of thousands of kids coming through 50 at a time. Well, The Denver Post thought it was also great and wrote a feature story about it. And my boss tried to fire me for upstaging her.
Dave Eng:
Oh, no.
Sue Baechler:
So sometimes you learn from a wrong deed, but that's how I knew I had something of value. The next time I used play to solve a business problem, I created a P&L game for my retail managers at LensCrafters in California. And I used a very simple Candyland-style board game, handmade myself, and it would journey the managers and the optometrists and the lab technicians through the everyday actions that impact the top and bottom line. Because they looked at the P&L that would come across the fax machine and they said, "What is this to me?" I said, "Uh oh, we're going to have to learn." And the corporate solution at the time was a rather boring slideshow that went line by line, but they didn't understand how their actions related to creating profitability and sales. So after the game where we had hundreds of managers play eight at a time, we broke sales and profitability records for my region in California, and my boss took credit for making the game.
Dave Eng:
Oh, no.
Sue Baechler:
So I definitely knew I had something of value. Now, I had wonderful bosses in all my corporate roles. I did have a few who did things like that that I learned from as well. So at that point, a friend suggested that I go make the games and playful experiences to help other people solve their business problems and be my own boss. So that took me to applying games for a business. Soon I was watching hundreds of drugstore managers really deeply engaged in playing a learning game that I had developed. They didn't want to leave for lunch. And later, the CEO pointed me out in the back of the room and he said, "I have never seen people rush back from lunch to play a learning game. Bravo." And this is when I started my own business making learning games, which leads right into your next question, I think, about our very first conversation that you and I had about my first learning game client, CVS.
Dave Eng:
Fair. Well, thank you, Sue. I know we talked about it before, but the thing that I think is in common between both of us is we were both camp counselors at some point. And your story about LensCrafters really resonates with me because every time I think about my past as being a camper or a camp counselor, there is an educational component based on that role, but the education is always experiential. I can count on maybe one hand the number of times when there's been a, "Lecture," at camp, because everything else I did as a counselor and as a camper was based on experience, games being part of that experience. And I wonder if that's a common thread between people that work in our field that we're very much activity-based, experiential-based, and games-based. I think that I'm sad that your boss took credit for your own creations, but it feels like everything that you're doing, and we'll talk about this with the Bottom Line Game, is based on experience, based on actually doing by learning. So thank you for sharing, Sue. I appreciate it.
Sue Baechler:
I agree completely, Dave. And yeah, there might be a common thread. Doing and learning simultaneously just seemed to make good sense to me.
Dave Eng:
Exactly. So I know you talked about it before, but now I want to speak specifically about the game that I think launched the conversation between the two of us, which is the Bottom Line Game at CVS. So when we first met, you shared your story about the Bottom Line Game, which is an educational board game similar to what you were talking about before with your past clients like LensCrafters. But you created this specifically for the CVS drugstore leaders. So can you share more about this game? And then specifically, what were the learning outcomes associated with this game, how it plays, and what kind of impact the game had?
Sue Baechler:
Yeah, definitely. Yes. In short, the Bottom Line Game product and the client was a direct result of that P&L game I developed while I was an employee, so of course I didn't own it, for my LensCrafter managers. That was where my corporate career ended and my new career running my own learning game business began.
Dave Eng:
Yeah.
Sue Baechler:
So to market my new learning game experience or business, I shared the P&L game, the Candyland-style P&L game with friends and colleagues. And I asked them if they had any business problems that a learning game like this one, don't even know if I called it a learning game at that time, Dave, but if a game like this one could help them better solve than using traditional training. Well, this resonated with one of my friends who happened to be a business leader at CVS. He was starting up the whole western CVS region. And they were changing their compensation program, which would've required then that all district and store managers fully understood how to achieve profitability through their everyday actions and decisions because their compensation would now reflect applying that knowledge.
This business challenge and opportunity became really the key learning outcome of the game. Every district and store manager would need to fully understand how their knowledge, their actions, and their decisions every day impacted the top and bottom line profitability. So we developed a test game for the CVS drugstore district in California and the store managers, and then a game for all CVS managers nationwide. And that was just a product of when you have success in one place, you get the attention of the corporate training people who come to you and say, "Can you do it for everybody?" And what they really realized was that there was a gap between what people learned through either college or business school or wherever they come from to be running these large stores, and what they really understood about the mechanics of making profitability happen, margins and so on.
So it was important for CVS to be transparent and open and open up those P&Ls in a way that people could really learn and make a difference for their own lives. So as far as how the gameplay goes, it was at the time a two-hour game, board game, using a timer and a dice and a board with challenge and opportunity cards. And there was a scoring sheet size of a place mat for each of the four teams of two participants. There were four distinct real store P&Ls. We did different types of stores, different volume, different aspects, so that this wasn't just for one, represent one group, but the four different types of drugstores. And there was a participant and facilitator guide. And I had written a rather poetic and easy to remember, very short narrative that described not only the goal of the game, but it distilled how profitability is achieved through responses to challenges and opportunities that require these everyday actions and knowledge and decisions.
So people could easily repeat, what is achieving profitability? Well, here's the story. So regional managers facilitated the game. I brought them in to meet with me for one hour prior to them facilitating the game. They didn't need to be taught. They simply needed to know that they were in charge. And if they followed the step-by-step scripted guide to run the game, then the interaction would be successful. And then their district managers played in teams of two to support and learn from each other because, again, wherever there was a knowledge deficit or an experience deficit, others would help each other and they would diffuse any of that fear of being exposed and not looking like they knew what they needed to know about a rather important thing that they worked with every day. So each of the teams used a participant guide and a scoring sheet to play through a series of challenge and opportunity cards and keep score.
So every single thing they did was recorded on the scoring sheet. And to play was to learn, to score was to apply, and to win was to change and know what you needed to do. So achieving profitability for each of those four real stores with real P&Ls through these challenges and opportunities was the goal of the game. And the impact of this first gameplay for district managers of eight in one room was very immediate and positive. We had hundreds of people playing at tables of eight. We even, as I remember, lost power and had to come back and couldn't, we were in a great big hotel ballroom, and couldn't play the game for hours. So there were all kinds of things that did happen. But CVS not only had immediate and positive feedback, and yes, the CEO did stand up and recognize us in the back.
A hallmark of my games is as I'm not in charge of them, the players themselves and the people who are responsible for the outcome in real life, they're responsible for the game outcome as well. So the CVS used the Bottom Line Game for at least five years, could have been more, from the first play that I'm telling you about to train all new store managers at the corporate headquarters. So when everybody came in, they played the Bottom Line Game. So I think indeed they found it to be a good alternative way to educate people and to help people relate to each other and learn from each other. And from my learning game business, it was the Bottom Line Game, which we packaged in a pizza box, by the way, because of the delivery metaphor, which is subtle. But also because it was a very cost-effective, easy thing to ship around the country.
But it was that game that I took with me in my hands to all my next game client meetings, most of which were referrals. A friend saw the game and told a friend at Deloitte, another friend at Deloitte's told the people at Xerox. I cold called Hilton Hotels up in Beverly Hills. But other than that, lots of referrals because it was just so unique to have a game that actually solved problems and that people enjoy. My growth strategy with the company was to solve as many different problems as possible in as many different industries as possible using games. And that was 50 or more games ago now, Dave.
Dave Eng:
Wow. Wow, that's quite-
Sue Baechler:
Yeah.
Dave Eng:
... a story, Sue. So I just want to clarify for our listeners, P&L means profit and loss statement, correct?
Sue Baechler:
Yes, thank you.
Dave Eng:
So profit and loss statement is going to be all of a business's income minus their expenses. And then the bottom line is your profit, your margin that you've made for that particular store. My follow-up question, though, is it sounds like CVS locations are corporate-owned. Is that correct? They're not franchises?
Sue Baechler:
Yeah, they're corporate-owned.
Dave Eng:
Ah, okay.
Sue Baechler:
Yeah. And of course, CVS since those days expanded greatly from drugstores to health and clinics and all of that. But-
Dave Eng:
Right.
Sue Baechler:
... we were working with the 50 states of CVS drugstores, yeah.
Dave Eng:
I see. Do you know, or do you think that you would've approached it differently if those CVS locations when you designed the game were franchises as opposed to corporate-owned? Would that have influenced your design strategy?
Sue Baechler:
Ooh, that's interesting. Perhaps in the franchise mode each person would be a bit more like the business owner. And therefore, we might've taken a different tact, although I think the business owner would then simply be the facilitator and work with the folks in a coaching collegial way in the game in a very similar way. So I think the corporate-owned, what made it easier was, of course, the corporate decision makers came to me and said, "We want this for 1,700 people."
Dave Eng:
Right.
Sue Baechler:
So that was the ability for them to act on something they wanted for everyone. And they gave me access to the senior vice president and director of operations for the entire country.
Dave Eng:
Wow.
Sue Baechler:
He and I worked side-by-side, a busy guy, and we worked by telephone side-by-side. I would write everything, put the new P&Ls together, share with him through fax machines and all of that, the pre-email days.
Dave Eng:
Yeah.
Sue Baechler:
And he would come back to me and say, "Let's use this terminology. We can't really say that about the margins," whatever it might be. "This P&L works, why don't you change this and that?" Because we have real information, real information in the game, and real situations. So I wrote all the challenges and opportunities. He refined them to make sure they resonated. So to be able to work side-by-side with that person at that level gave incredible credibility to the game. And I might not have had that with a franchise by franchise situation.
Dave Eng:
Right, right. Yeah, I think having that top-down corporate approach really gave you greater access to all of the-
Sue Baechler:
Yes, well said.
Dave Eng:
... CVS locations. Thank you, Sue. Appreciate it. I want to jump into our third and last question here, which is not your latest game, but I think your most impactful one, which is the All In Game. And I want to give you time and space to think about it. So when you first developed and sold the All In Game as a board game, you worked with your content partner, Brenda Hardesty. Then you and Brenda collaborated with Andy Yeoman and Focus Games in the UK to publish, market, and sell the game globally. Since then, you've transitioned to an entirely online offering of the All In Game since COVID-19 that you co-developed with Focus Games. So can you tell us more? And I'm very familiar with it, but for the benefit of our listeners, can you tell us more about the All In Game, its goals, outcomes, and how people can try out the game for free?
Sue Baechler:
Absolutely, Dave. And yes, thanks to you for your enduring interest in this particular game since it was a board game that's almost 10 years ago when it started, and a few years ago when you first saw it. But you've been a supporter and a tester throughout the game's evolution, particularly now to its new online offering. So as you mentioned, All In Game is a commercial game solving a shared workplace problem. And that means it's available to everyone, which is very different than the custom game solving a specific client's challenges that, of course, I typically do. So it was a departure for me. Brenda came to me with content that she'd used in Silicon Valley, a live workshop, two days. She said, "Sue, you make games. I think this is important. I find this in industries and organizations across the country. Do you think this paper workshop could become a game?"
The short answer there was yes. We made the board game. We tried it out, people bought it, they used it. We had success. But we are makers, we are not marketers. And so we searched for a group that could help us get the game, publish it, and get the game out to a wider audience. We found Focus Games, and that's been several years working with them. So you're right. I mean, Brenda and I saw this universal need for a better way for teams to plan and solve problems together. And the All In Game specifically is an inclusive action planning process where everybody, all team members, can get really clear on an important goal. They can share their ideas and actions for solving it so that they can be all-in rather than just be asked or told to buy-in to others' plans, which is the way a lot of things go in a lot of environments. It's faster, but it's not as inclusive and definitely not as meaningful, and sometimes not as successful.
So the boards game success was our proof of concept. And then COVID-19 came around and it gave Brenda and our Focus Game colleagues and an opportunity to experiment with how would we reach more people with some sort of browser-based version of the game? We used all kinds of different tools to create a mock-up. We used Jamboard from Google for the interactive piece and all that. We finally decided let's make a proprietary piece of software that you can play in a browser. So the goal of... And it's out there, and yes, you can use it. The goal of the online All In Game is to make planning and problem solving more engaging, more enjoyable, and effective by turning everyone's ideas into real actions that they can implement right away.
So the game enables up to eight people to collaborate online, face-to-face, or both. It's a 90-minute session that requires no facilitation. Any group anywhere can use the game to create individual action plans right in front of each other that help them achieve a shared purpose, their shared purpose that they describe when they start the game. And it might be implementing a strategy, taking it from the poster to the reality of implementing it, maybe creating alignment. You've got an important role of some kind of goal of something that you need to do, and you need to align people around why are we doing this? And then how are we going to implement it? Developing a plan. Whatever it might be for, you have a committee, you have a task group, you have your own team. You need a plan to make something happen. How do you do it more effectively hearing everybody's voices?
Or maybe just delivering results in a better way, that's the purpose and how do we do it? How does everybody play? So a business leader who recently used the game, she brought a diverse group of people together to create an onboarding program. And she had never used the game before. She described the game experience and outcomes with a couple sentences, and I'll share them. She said, "I got a team of seven people together to play. We had three weeks to plan and execute a new program, so time was of the essence for me. The game enabled us to work together, have everyone's voice heard, collaborate effectively. It helped us outline the actions to get this job done very quickly, this onboarding job." When I asked her about the effectiveness, she said, "I rate it very high because it's well-designed, it takes you through a very specific planning process. It takes you from the high level of purpose to the individual level of action and momentum. And for people to see that and the importance of that is really the value of getting all-in, all included, all inspired."
The last thing she said was that, well, she said many things. But the other one I'll share is that she said, "To get the entire group's perspective, all seven people, in 90 minutes to listen to everyone's voice, to feel like they were heard, to have real actions and individual plans walking out the door of a 90-minute session was really priceless." And they did it in-person on their computers in front of each other. There's a printed game map that you use along the way, which she also felt was a priceless piece because it really helped people walk away with the physical as well as what they left in the game that you can also download. Everything that people say and share gets downloaded after the game.
So that is the online game. It's a planning game for groups. And right now, yes, anyone can try the game for free. And we can post the Focus Games website for the game page. As you know, Dave, make it a commercial game that you think people need is the first fun challenge. But getting people to use it and share their successes like this woman did and help the game find its market is the challenge we're working on now, getting it out there. So yeah, that's the All In Game. A planning game, 90 minutes, makes a world of difference in getting all your team members aligned, inspired, and all-in.
Dave Eng:
Wow. Thank you, Sue. I appreciate it. I know that when I first heard about the game and I play tested the original iteration of it on the web browser, I was thinking, I was like, "This game has so many use cases," because it's really for organizations that need its members to collaborate and cooperate with one another, which is basically every business or organization except for those that are single proprietors. So I think that its applications are pretty wide. I'm glad that it exists right now because I think it's a much needed game. Sue, do you happen to know what the URL is for the All In? Is it allingame.com or is it something else?
Sue Baechler:
Yeah. It's allingame.co.uk.
Dave Eng:
All right. So that's allingame.co.uk. I'll also put the link in the show notes that our listeners-
Sue Baechler:
Perfect.
Dave Eng:
... can listen to it there.
Sue Baechler:
Yes. It doesn't require any kind of credit card or anything. You just register and use the game as much as you like. That's why we're getting so much great feedback. People not only use the online survey for feedback, but they literally text or email us and tell us, "This was great, this worked." This same person that talked with me about that I shared her thoughts, she's using it yet for another committee next week.
Dave Eng:
Great.
Sue Baechler:
Just a whole different group because it's working. Also, spontaneous feedback unsolicited from people saying, "That was fun. Could we do something like that again?", which is interesting when you try something new, as you know, Dave.
Dave Eng:
Right, right.
Sue Baechler:
Yeah.
Dave Eng:
Cool. Well, Sue, thanks for joining us today. Where can people go to find out more about you?
Sue Baechler:
They can go to my website, originaliti.com. And that's Originaliti with an I at the end, not a Y, so O-R-I-G-I-N-A-L-I-T-I.com.
Dave Eng:
Excellent. I'll also put a link to that in the show notes so that our listeners can find you as well.
Sue Baechler:
Thank you. Well, this has been a great opportunity, Dave, to share some stories about these learning games. As you can tell, it's beyond exciting for me to see people learn and change and excel together right in front of my eyes in a game in their environment. I don't think I'll ever stop doing it.
Dave Eng:
Great. Glad to have you, Sue. And glad for you to share your knowledge and expertise and experience.
Sue Baechler:
Thank you, Dave.
Dave Eng:
So I hope you found this episode useful. If you'd like to learn more, then a great place to start is my free course on gamification. You can sign up for it at www.universityxp.com/gamification. You can also get a full transcript of this episode, including links to references, in the description or show notes. Thanks for joining us. Again, I'm your host, Dave Eng, from Games-Based Learning by University XP. On Experience Points, we explore different ways we can learn from games. If you like this episode, please consider commenting, sharing, and subscribing. Subscribing is absolutely free and ensures that you'll get the next episode of Experience Points delivered directly to you. I'd also love it if you took some time to rate the show. I live to lift others with learning. So if you found this episode useful, consider sharing it with someone who could also benefit. Also, make sure to visit University XP online at www.universityxp.com. University XP is also on Twitter @University_XP, and on Facebook and LinkedIn as University XP. Also, feel free to email me anytime. My email address is dave@universityxp.com. Game on.
Cite this Episode
Eng, D. (Host). (2024, March 31). Sue Baechler on Developing Serious Games. (No. 108) Video]. Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/video/108
Internal Ref: UXPP1TRX5YIF
References
Abbott, E. (1949). Candy Land [Board game]. Hasbro https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5048/candy-land
All in game. All in game- UK. (2022). https://allingame.co.uk/
Baechler, S. (2023). The Bottom Line Game [Board game]. Originaliti https://www.originaliti.com/project-06
Eng, D. (2019, August 20). Play is Work. Retrieved August 25, 2023, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2019/8/20/play-is-work
Eng, D. (2020, March 26). What is Games-Based Learning? Retrieved August 25, 2023, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2020/3/26/what-is-games-based-learning
Segal, T. (2023, May 16). Profit margin: Definition, types, uses in business and investing. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/profitmargin.asp