Gamification - making work fun, or making fun of work?

Stephen Dale @stephendale

Unless otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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The challenge for you…..

• Does gamification have a place as an effective business change agent?

• Can gamification encourage more effective knowledge sharing behaviours and better employee engagement within and across the/your organisation?

Gamification is not.....

Gamification is.....

The process of applying game elements to non-game applications in

order to drive participation

Is It all Hype?Gamification

source http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2575515

Some Statistics

• 80% Percent of Current Gamified Applications Will Fail to Meet Business Objectives Primarily Due to Poor Design (Source: Gartner)

• Projected gamification growth to reach $5 billion ( £3 billion) by 2018 (Source: Mind Commerce)

• In 2015, over 2,000 global organisations will deploy gamification applications for employee performance, healthcare, marketing and training. (Source: Gartner)

• 80% of 2000 global organisations “will have gamified applications and/or processes” by 2017. (Source: Mind Commerce)

• 50% of innovation practices will be gamified by 2015 (Source: Gartner)

• 40% of all gamers are women (Source: Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal)

• 1 in 4 gamers is aged over 50 (Source: Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal)

Gamification – potential benefitsWhat benefits can a company hope to achieve using gamification?

- Increase the motivation and productivity of their employees- Align the expectations of workers with the company’s objectives- Inform the workers of all the new initiatives of the company- Convert the workers into advocates of the company

For a behaviour to change you have to have a trigger, the ability to do the behaviour, and motivation.

Motivation and ability are trade-offs:-Low ability requires more motivation.Low motivation means making behaviour steps really small.Overlaid motivational rewards (red and blue lines) will give the user the feeling that they're working toward something.

Typical components of a gamified application

• Points – allocated for specific high-value behaviours and achievements

• Achievements – provide positive reinforcement for high value behaviours

• Levels – provide a gateway to new challenges

• Missions – used to create a set of behaviours that enable users to unlock specific rewards

• Contests – missions that reward those who finish most quickly or effectively

• Leaderboards – introduce a sense of competition

• Notifications – to encourage engagement when users perform a desired action

• Anti-gaming mechanics – used to set limits on how often a behaviour can be rewarded.

Gamification Techniques For Online Communities

Badges: Use to promote participation and reward employees and/or customers for reaching specific goals. For example, award a welcome badge for joining the community. Display earned badges on the member’s personal profile page.

Points: Use to encourage engagement, collaboration and participation in online conversations. This could decrease support costs as more members look to the community for help.

Campaigns. Use to encourage member participation. Track and monitor members' activities and let them know their current status, sending them information about how many points they need to achieve the next level (e.g. guru status).

Leaderboards: Points could be used for building leaderboards, which can boost a member's reputation, or be used as a currency, e.g. exchanged for products, services or some other benefit.

Some ExamplesPart of a growing trend for ‘wearable technology’ that tracks and reports on daily activities, e.g. number of steps walked, number of calories burnt etc. Additional motivational incentives include comparing activity results with friends or participating in community groups challenges.

Clubcards/Loyalty cards that influence shopping habits by giving rewards.

Gamifiaction to help solve world hunger. FreeRice created a quiz game where each time you answered a question correctly, FreeRice will buy 10 grains of rice, which are paid for by the sponsors of the site.

More ExamplesAstraZeneca introduced a game-based learning to teach its agents about a new medicine. Users have to earn points to be the first to reach a Stadium, which represents the official launch event of the medicine. In the web game, agents can get points by answering quiz and playing different mini-games focused on the features of a new product. AZ reported a 97 percent engagement rate and 95 percent of the users completed each teaching session.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsl9NjyVpHY

SickKids needed to find a way to encourage young cancer patients to fill out detailed reports daily. Using an iPhone App they gave them some control over their pain and give doctors the tools they need to understand the experience of pain from a child's perspective.

Engagement Motivators

Gamifying with Dr. Amy Jo Kim's Social Engagement Verbs Credit: Amy Jo Kim, Ph.D.

http://amyjokim.com/2012/09/19/social-engagement-whos-playing-how-do-they-like-to-engage/

Extrinsic & Intrinsic Motivators

Extrinsic Intrinsic

Money Recognition

Points/Badges/Trophies Personal Achievement

Prizes Responsibility

Penalties Power

Quests Fun

Progress bars Mastery

Points Mean Prizes!#Points

Activity

10 Post a correct answer to a question

5 Have your reply marked as a decision

5 Have someone follow you

5 Post a helpful response

3 Create a document

3 Follow another user

3 Mark something as a decision

2 Comment on an idea

2 Create a blog post

2 Create a discussion

2 Create an idea

2 Have someone ‘like’ something you’ve posted

2 Reply to a discussion

1 Attend an event

1 Vote on an idea

Data extracted from the gamification module of a leading collaborative platform

Valued Collaborator Badge

More On Intrinsic Reward Mechanisms

…don’t rush in...Gamification should be well understood and planned out prior to implementation. Some questions to consider asking during the planning process include:

•Be sure your organisation’s goals for using gamification are clear. This is an especially important step to take before getting too deep into the effort. It is far better to determine all of the goals of a gamification programme during the beginning stages.

•Think carefully about your company culture. What types of rewards will motivate employees, and how can you build out a recognition programme that ties into the prevailing culture?

Rewards...money isn’t everything

Points could be redeemed for a day off or a team “happy hour”.

Changing the rewards system periodically will ensure employees remain engaged and not get bored with the same-old options.

Focus on activities first, and outcomes second.

Don’t “game”the workers. Companies need to design game systems that enhance work, and not to exploit their workers.

Who are the players?

Further Reading & References

• The Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test

• Gamifying with Dr Amy Jo Kim’s Social Engagemement Verbs: http://amyjokim.com/2012/09/19/social-engagement-whos-playing-how-do-they-like-to-engage/

• Making work fun or making fun of work: Steve Dale, Business Information Review June 2014 http://bir.sagepub.com/content/31/2/82

Play at Work: how games inspire break-through thinking. Adam L Penenberg

Unlocking the power of game dynamics in business and in life. Aaron Dignon

Discussion: What do you think?

• Does gamification have a place as an effective business change agent?

• Can gamification encourage more effective knowledge sharing behaviours and better employee engagement within and across the/your organisation?

Unless otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0

Unported License.

Email: steve.dale@collabor8now.comTwitter: @stephendale, @collabor8nowProfile: http://about.me/stephendale

“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.” ― Mark Twain

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