Gamification and the search for a win



Earlier this summer I ran across an article in the Journal of Accountancy about gamification and how it can be used to help engage Millenials in the workforce. I thought it was an interesting take on the concept of gamification, which is a topic I have been keeping my eye on for years. Although the article included some examples that leaned very heavily on game type activities, my interest lies more in the area of gamification being the "psychology of game design" for purposes of improving performance, both personal and for an organization.


Personal Gamification

One area where I find gamification is used is in personal productivity efforts. This was most explicitly exposed for me during the time when I was using Todoist to manage my tasks and todos and my overall GTD implementation for personal productivity. Within Todoist, the creators included a measure called "karma". Karma is achieved by gaining points for a variety of activities within the app, primarily completing tasks although other steps like rescheduling could generate points as well as it showed you were actively managing your tasks. As points are accumulated, users can move up to new levels like Expert, Master, etc.

Initially I enjoyed the chase for karma, but as the goalposts started to get moved, I ended up losing interest. That doesn't mean I did not lose my interest in how it could impact my life. In fact, as I recently moved to an analog system this summer (using Planner Pads if you are interested) I ended up adding in some of my own gamification elements, although some of them are suggested by Planner Pads and their users. One gamification element is the crossing off of tasks as they are completed. I also implemented the crossing off of the top level lists once everything was processed as well as the daily task lists. In both of these cases, I use different color pens to help spice things up and give it a little more impact. As I am finally building up some history, the cutting off of the page corners has also become an internal point of accomplishment.

Organizational Gamification

At a higher level, I see gamification being a useful tool for management purposes. Perhaps the most easily identified example of this is in the use of the balanced scorecard. It has the word "scorecard" right in the name of the tool! Really though, any implementation of key performance indicators (KPIs) could become part of a gamification initiative.

For years I always pondered how to get employees to pay attention to how their business or function was performing. As the numbers guy, I always felt pressure to help managers monitor their budgets and spending. While that is an important component of their responsibilities, that always seemed like an inadequate way to help them keep an eye on how things were going. Instead, other measures need to be considered.

I always envisioned systems that were similar to sports like football or auto racing, although any activity that has a scoreboard is comparable. For example, in auto racing, teams have loads of data that is constantly coming in that helps them assess exactly where they are relative to their competition and to their own internal goals. They have lap times, they have gaps to competitors both in front and behind, they have sensors monitoring engine performance. One of the interesting things is that teams can focus on racing against the track, against their competitors, or even against their own internal targets (e.g. achieving a certain fuel economy target). Wouldn't it be great to bring this same kind of insight and understanding of business operations to the table in the business world?

If you think about a football game, there are elements present that help the coaches and players reach the endzone. There is the clock, the down markers, and position on the field. With all of these different "measures" - which are shared and known by everyone on the team - all members know what needs to be accomplished and (assuming they have been coached properly) what they need to do individually to help the team reach the goal. Wouldn't it be great of our business information systems generated the same types of feedback for employees?

I don't run across many articles about gamification and even less so in the accounting field, so it was good to see the topic get some attention. I would just warn against going overboard with it as in an episode of Parks & Recreation where it was employed for marketing purposes.

Do you think you could employ more gamification elements in your personal or professional efforts to help drive performance?




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