From technical assessment to global adventure
How Volvo Trucks reimagined VISTA
How do you turn a technical competition into an engaging learning experience that strengthens collaboration, decision-making, and problem-solving?
Together with Volvo Trucks, we explored exactly that question when redesigning one of the competition rounds in VISTA 2026, the world’s largest service market competition for Volvo Trucks technicians and service teams.
Heroes around the world
The result was Heroes around the world, a self-led digital mission that took teams on a journey across five continents, challenging them to make decisions, solve problems, and learn together in a completely new way.
Beyond traditional assessment
Technical assessments often rely on isolated questions and individual answers. While effective for measuring knowledge, they rarely reflect the collaborative reality of the workplace.
For VISTA 2026, Volvo Trucks wanted to create an experience that would not only test technical competence but also encourage teamwork, judgement, and engagement.
Instead of moving through a traditional question-based assessment, teams entered a story-driven mission guided by video hosts. Along the way, they encountered challenges, timed quizzes, branching decisions, and immediate feedback. Every choice influenced their progress through the journey, creating both urgency and a shared sense of purpose.
The experience encouraged teams to discuss, analyse, and decide together, mirroring the collaborative problem-solving that happens every day in the field.
Beyond traditional assessment
At Funkis, we believe people learn best when they think, discuss, and make decisions together.
Heroes Around the World brought that philosophy to life by combining several elements into a single experience:
- Video-guided storytelling
- Team-based decision-making
- Technical assessment
- Gamification and scoring
- Adaptive learning journeys
- Real-time feedback
Rather than simply checking whether participants knew the correct answer, the experience challenged them to apply their expertise in context and make informed decisions as a team.
The result was a learning experience that felt less like an assessment and more like an adventure.
Learning through collaboration
At Funkis, we believe people learn best when they think, discuss, and make decisions together.
Heroes Around the World brought that philosophy to life by combining several elements into a single experience:
- Video-guided storytelling
- Team-based decision-making
- Technical assessment
- Gamification and scoring
- Adaptive learning journeys
- Real-time feedback
Rather than simply checking whether participants knew the correct answer, the experience challenged them to apply their expertise in context and make informed decisions as a team.
The result was a learning experience that felt less like an assessment and more like an adventure.
Learning at scale
The scale of VISTA is remarkable. Over a two-week period, 1,000 competitors completed more than 4,000 hours of training and assessment through the platform.
Yet despite the scale, the experience remained highly engaging and self-directed. Teams could work through the journey independently, without requiring facilitators or instructors in the room.
This demonstrates the power of combining subject-matter expertise with collaborative digital experiences. Knowledge can be embedded directly into the platform, allowing participants to practise judgement and problem-solving in a realistic, scalable format.
A flexible platform for many contexts
While Funkis is often associated with leadership development and capability-building programmes, VISTA demonstrates something broader.
The same collaborative learning principles that support leadership development can also transform technical training, competitions, onboarding, assessment, and certification journeys.
By combining content, collaboration, reflection, and decision-making in one experience, organisations can create learning journeys that are both engaging and effective, regardless of the subject matter.
VISTA 2026 is a powerful example of what becomes possible when learning is designed around participation rather than passive consumption.
We are grateful to Volvo Trucks for their trust, creativity, and partnership in bringing Heroes Around the World to life. Together, we showed that technical learning can be challenging, collaborative, and genuinely fun.
Heroes Around the World was developed as the digital experience for Round 4 of the VISTA 2026 qualification. Learn more about the competition and the road to the World Final on the official VISTA website.
How Volvo Trucks reimagined VISTA
From technical assessment to global adventure How Volvo Trucks reimagined VISTA How do you turn a technical competition into an engaging learning experience that strengthens
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