Examining the training and education potential of the metaverse: Results from an empirical study of next generation SAFe training

Restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have forced many to seek alternative means of training and learning, which ended up with increasing investment in the notion of the metaverse. Metaverse is envisioned as the next iteration of the Internet in which the virtual and the real world are blended to materialize a highly immersive experience. Not surprisingly, perhaps, next-generation training and education systems are concerned with methods to integrate themselves into metaverse environments. In particular, participants are looking for more interactive and flexible training while maintaining a degree of educational content and high quality for their training plans and interactive workflows. In this paper, we conducted research to explore the role of metaverse in employee training. To this end, we utilized a variant of PlaySAFe (i.e., a 3D game) to investigate its metaverse adoption and usage. A qualitative design was adopted, using semistructured interviews to explore practitioners' experiences using the new version of PlaySAFe. After having it played in an industrial setting, we interviewed a group of software practitioners to compare the actual and expected features. This research has explored the pros and cons of using the current technologies for the practical groundwork of SAFe training. Findings from this research suggest that the metaverse holds the potential to deliver improved practical alignment in training and education programs, but that at the present time, practitioners expect more metaverse compatible features.

PlaySAFe: Results from a Virtual Reality Study Using Digital Game-Based Learning for SAFe Agile Software Development

A common strategy to train software practitioners in agile frameworks is to have employees undertake classroom-based training. However, due to its nature, participants are lectured for a scheduled time-line with little necessity to interact. In particular, classroom-based training often might not provide substantial trainee interaction, which could result in apathy. To tackle this issue, we conducted empirical research to investigate the role of digital game-based learning (GBL) in employees’ training on the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). To figure out whether gameplay was a preferable training method, PlaySAFe (i.e., a 3D game) was developed within the study’s scope and tested with nine active SAFe practitioners from an industrial setting. Restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have forced many to seek alternative means of teaching and learning. In particular, the findings obtained from the tests illustrate that PlaySAFe can be effectively used as a complementary tool that supports SAFe classroom-based training. This study has highlighted numerous benefits of GBL, such as allowing newcomers a quick and efficient means to learn and understand the practical groundwork of SAFe in advance of learning more theoretical concepts in conventional training. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.