Bringing Gaming to the Workforce
A team of MMM students collaborated with Microsoft to explore how 'Minecraft' could teach soft skills to a new generation of workers.
“Minecraft” is the best-selling video game of all time, so how could the blocky sandbox game be used to teach skills to a new generation of workers?
That was the challenge presented by Minecraft Education to a team of students from Northwestern's MBA + MS in Design Innovation (MMM) program — a dual-degree program between Northwestern Engineering and the Kellogg School of Management. The project was part of Business Innovation Lab (BIL), the culmination of the MMM experience that pairs student teams with leading global organizations to solve real-world business problems.
The students wanted to understand how to make “Minecraft” a corporate learning tool that could teach traditional soft skills.
"The challenges were very clear," Gabriela Mendes (MMM ’24) said. "People associate gaming with children and struggle to see the valuable skills gaming can develop, and generational tensions often complicate working dynamics and lead to breakdowns in trust and collaboration, especially when it comes to using new tools, such as ‘Minecraft.’"
The project was particularly meaningful for Mendes, who spent four years working in the gaming industry. In 2021, she co-founded Boardible, a digital home for board games.
Mendes was not the only one with gaming ties on the team. Kevin Petty (MMM '24) interned with Activision, the company behind the popular Call of Duty franchise, for his MMM internship. Sky Lalwani (MMM '24) was actually playing “Minecraft” when he learned he would help support Microsoft for BIL.
Those three students combined with Cate Dorigan (MMM '24) and Atreya Sinha (MMM '24) to form what Mendes called a well-balanced team. Dorigan's experience in education technology and Sinha's past work building software for workforce planning and corporate upskilling were pivotal to the overall team's success, Mendes said.
The team worked together to explore the realities of finding a new product-market fit for an existing and well-known product. To do that, they relied on lessons learned in MMM.
They started by trying to understand consumers' potential pain points. It was a lesson each student honed during Research - Design - Build (RDB), where students develop a creative set of design thinking methods to enhance their problem-solving capabilities.
"We followed the same design process," Mendes said. "It's amazing to see how we can add value from the start when we follow the steps we learned during the MMM program."
Mendes will now bring the lessons learned from MMM, and BIL specifically, to Activision. She's looking forward to continuing in the gaming industry and being an advocate for what the consumer wants — and needs.
"I want to make sure we are creating user-centric solutions," she said, "so I will make sure to be the person on my team to bring relevant insights that contain opportunities."