Exploring Serious Games as a Tool to Improve Communication and Collaboration in Remote Teams

Abstract

In a remote work context, working teams are often composed of individuals from different backgrounds and/or in different geographic locations who must collaborate to achieve common goals. Therefore, building an adequate communication flow is crucial for the members to align perspectives, solve problems, and complete tasks more efficiently. Accordingly, this study explores the potential of serious games to support multidisciplinary team communication and interaction flows, investigating how games can be used in formal contexts to overcome boundaries between team members and promote and facilitate interaction among them. A systematic review of the literature was conducted in the early stages of this research, aiming to find existing articles that could support the relevance of this project and define possible research directions. Then, an exploratory phase was performed, divided into three steps: collecting relevant data from potential users, creating a game prototype, and validating it. Finally, an experimental phase was conducted, and a game prototype entitled "The Best Boss" was played by 14 remote workers from two different companies. At the end of the experimental phase, it was noticed that by playing the game prototype, most workers felt that the proposed game could help to find solutions to daily problems at work and could be a valuable tool to enhance communication with teammates.