E.T. The Extra Terrestrial is a game for the Atari 2600 video game system based on the classic Steven Spielberg film of the same name. The film was one of the most successful movies of all time, and the Atari 2600 is one of the most successful video games systems of all time. The game was released during the holiday season at a time when the system and video games in general were very popular.
Despite the fact that this is the second post I have written in a week’s time with a video game as part of it’s topic, this blog is not about gaming; it’s about learning. My posting last week regarding Angry Birds explored what a successful video game might teach us about employee learning. This week’s posting is similar, with a more cautionary tone. Let’s explore why this game failed, and how we can avoid having our learning programs suffer a similar fate.
When something is being produced, there are three measurements related to the production: Time, Cost, and Quality, as demonstrated by the triangle on the left. The basic idea of this triangle is to show the connectedness of these three measurements, and the fact that you can not improve one measurement without adversely affecting at least one other.