Angry Birds–No Accident

One of the problems with things that are well executived and flawlessly performed is that they tend to look too easy and, therefore, anyone thinks they can do it and, in reality, they can’t.

Take for example, Shaun White’s performance on the second run at the X Games, he performed effortlessly and with tricks and air that is unmatched. That is why he is a four-time champion.

But this isn’t just a sports phenomenon, it happens in business all the time. Take a look at the apps market for the iPhone. The concept looks simple and easy to do, just create a fun app and people will be stepping over themselves to give you money to download your app. Just look at the simple, fun-to-play Angry Birds application. You look at that and think, “Hey, I could do that.”

Well, you alone in your garage, probably couldn’t do that:

.. Angry Birds was not a small-team effort, nor was its success a lucky strike. Based in Finland, the Rovio game studio that makes Angry Birds has 40 employees and expects to expand to 100 by the end of this year. Angry Birds was actually the studio’s 52nd published game, and its 16th originally created game, according to Mikael Hed, Rovio’s CEO. He said the game’s success was carefully engineered with physics-based gameplay that made it easy to learn, while creating depth for advanced players in later stages. Add to that very cute characters and sounds, and a polished design, and you have a big hit.

(Source: How Angry Birds Is Becoming the Next Super Mario)

The game was a result of a great deal of hard work and focused resources:

Hed said the company studied the iPhone app ecosystem hard, looking at what worked. A team of 12 at Rovio spent eight months developing and refining Angry Birds before it was released. “It wasn’t completely random that Angry Birds did very well,” Hed said. “We did a lot of homework before we ended up with that concept.”

(Source: How Angry Birds Is Becoming the Next Super Mario)

So when some manager wants a “quick and easy” e-learning piece, game or simulation using software “so easy a subject matter expert could use it.” Just remember that you can get an average e-learning piece, an average simulation or game but you won’t get something with impact, desired outcomes or desired playability if you don’t plan, have a good team and do you homework and all of those things take time and money.

So, if you want to reproduce something like “Angry Birds” for the learning community, you’d better think twice before giving the assignment to the newest person on your learning and development team and telling them to “run with it” Instead, you need to dedicate time and effort to get desired results.

Success is not an accident whether its successful learning outcomes or successful video games.