The Jenson8 multiplayer virtual reality (VR) team-building machine focuses on human behaviour and cooperation to build strong and unified teams by subjecting groups of people to various demanding training situations where they have to perform novel and unknown work to fulfil the simulation’s objectives, says inventor and Jenson8 founder Jena Davidson.

Stress, a common feature of life and work, arises from the perception of having insufficient resources to meet requirements. It negatively impacts on our ability to reason effectively and perform efficiently. It is this stress dynamic and a common lack of trust among people in a newly formed team that the simulation aims to overcome.

Up to eight people put on VR headsets and hand controllers. The Jenson8 machine then projects each person into a VR simulation, which participants interact with through the hand controllers and head movements. The simulation can be designed to test or mimic almost any situation.

The simulation typically involves each person being placed on a fictional distant planet as a robot. The people, as virtual robots, must perform specific tasks and projects to fulfil the training objectives.

“None of the participants can use their existing knowledge to help them in the simulation. Each person, from the most experienced CEO to the newest intern, is on the same, level playing field facing unknown challenges without any preconceived ideas of how to solve them,” says Davidson.

The participants go through the different stages of trust creation. The first – fast trust – relates to relying on people to perform a task – this is when people begin to like each other and form longer relationships.

The second is operational trust, which sets in after successfully performing work together and where sufficient trust exists to delegate work between participants. The final stage – strategic trust – is when team members are expected to navigate high-level decision-making processes and where each believes the other members bring valuable elements to the team.

The team-building psychology of the system is based on the Kirkpatrick model of learning evaluation, which focuses on analysing the effectiveness of training.

“While there is significant hype around VR, we maintain that the focus must always remain on people. We want people to be the best humans they can be and to develop methods and techniques to manage unfamiliar experiences and challenges,” she emphasises.

The training can include heart rate monitors to monitor stress. Each interaction by the virtual participants is tracked and provides data that psychologists and human resource managers can use to improve training.

“If you participate in a VR simulation, your brain accepts it as real. It is indistinguishable, from a psychological perspective, from performing the actions in the real world, with all the associated stress and intensity of experience.

Science of Cooperation

“The next phase of our development is to become a science-driven organisation. The data from the Jenson8 can be used to determine how effective teams are formed and how different people perform, as well as how to improve their performance or reduce stress in demanding contexts,” says Davidson.

The use of technology in business and everyday life will only grow, and the data from the simulations can help companies, and societies, to determine how to approach and manage the future of work.

The data from these simulations will help to improve team building and training initiatives and determine how companies can change their environments to support the wellbeing, as well as performance and efficiency, of people in their organisations.

The system can also communicate information and instructions to each user in different languages. The system converts spoken communication into text, which is then translated into the desired language. A robotic voice then speaks the words, if they are to be verbally communicated, or the text is displayed in the required language. The languages are limited to English, Arabic, Mandarin and Cantonese, but the team is working on other languages and can include local languages, if there is sufficient demand.

The Jenson8 VR system is also available as a cloud product, which means that a team-building exercise does not require people to be in close proximity, as each can broadcast his or her avatar into a hosted simulation.

Local partner Team VR’s Rosebank WeWork offices have a Jenson8 device, and it can deploy a mobile VR system at a client’s site.

The system uses high-performance, but readily available, computer components, which ameliorates technical support requirements, although Team VR can provide assistance for clients as needed, says Team VR parent company The Networking Company CEO Helen Nicholson.

“There has been significant interest in the system from the financial services, energy and telecommunications companies at the launch in Rosebank last month. We believe that there is a lot of work to do in South Africa during the current phase and we will broaden out into the rest of Africa as part of the next phase,” she says.