
Gamification of the workplace - pitdesi
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204294504576615371783795248.html?mod=e2tw
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scarmig
I expect most responses here to be critical of the trend mentioned in the
article. I see it as useful.

Its utility is limited to tasks that are commensurate, however. This means you
can't really apply it to creative work. It's difficult to compare a developer
to another using the kind of simple metric that easily lends itself to
gamification. Even if you use something as general as time, you'll fail,
because the question is time to what? Unless you've got two people working on
different implementations of the same feature, you'll still be measuring
different things. (And if you do have two working on generating two
independent implementations of the same exact feature, any gains from
competitiveness will be more than offset by wasted time.)

Other tasks, like data entry or content generation, do have easily comparable
metrics, like rows per minute or clickthroughs. So it should be expected to
work better there.

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luu
So, they're replacing incentive based pay structures with points,
leaderboards, and badges? Where do I sign up?

The people I know at companies where everyone is explicitly ranked and rated
in a way that's made public (e.g., Intel) mostly dislike the pressure it adds
and the comparisons it creates. If pay and promotions are based off these
leaderboards, then this has all the advantages and disadvantages of the Intel
system, and there's nothing new here. If the leaderboards are just "flavor",
then this is just another form of lucite plaque, and there's nothing new here.

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mathattack
Gamification has always existing in large companies, though historically it's
been more subtle.

At 5 years you get a nice pen. At 10 years you get a larger carpet in your
office. At 20 years you get a silver picture frame. At 30 years you get a nice
retirement party with free shrimp for your friends.

Yes - really - I knew LOTS of people at old Ma Bell would hang on underpaid
for several years just to get the free shrimp for their friends at the
retirement party.

All of these come at the expensive of opportunity, interesting work, and
money.

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foulmouthboy
This is getting ridiculous. The idea of bonuses, rewards for completing tasks,
the earning of newer impressive titles, gifts for accomplishing things
coworkers couldn't. It's not the gamefication of work. It's just work.

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pkamb
_And global consulting firm Deloitte employs digital games for its Deloitte
Leadership Academy, an executive education program it uses to train clients
and its own consultants._

Gamification doesn't mean "playing videogames designed to teach you about
work". I got the sense that that's what many of the companies in the article
are using, HR "games" for employee training. Proper gamification is a feedback
loop that pushes the person to do better in their _actual_ job.

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ja27
I've been thinking for a while that the next phase of my career might be as a
"gamification expert". I enjoy Foursquare, Gowalla, etc. and have a reasonable
amount of interest in game theory, game design and mechanics, and psychology.
But whenever I even type "gamification" I cringe. Can it really be a good
thing for so many companies? Does it matter as long as they'll spend money on
it?

I love this quote from Chris Dixon: "The next big thing will start out looking
like a toy". That's certainly the prevailing attitude about "gamification".
<http://cdixon.org/2011/09/28/some-lessons-learned/>

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jtap
A couple of years ago I was working at a company that had a pretty large sales
center. Just for kicks I created a fantasy sales center app. You got to pick
people from marketing who were generating leads, salespeople, and sales
managers. You could only play each person 3 days out of a week. I was pretty
surprised to see the positive impact it had on the company. Everyone was
interested in sales. Discussions on how to increase sales numbers increased,
and projects shifted from what might help the company to what would increase
sales. Sometimes the sales team members would get upset about getting benched
but hey make the sale and I'll put you back in. :)

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2arrs2ells
Microsoft has been incorporating RPG-like elements into their review/promotion
system for a while. By developing certain skills and finishing achievements,
you can "level up" getting increased pay and responsibilities.

/not a MSFT employee - but that's how my MSFT friends describe it

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maaku
I work for a large defense contractor, and that description could just as
easily apply to us.

However it is neither fun nor productive. The majority of the official
classifications are mismatched and/or inapplicable (but nevertheless required
hoops to jump through), and getting any change approved requires heaps of
paperwork. About this time last year I threatened to quit with an offer letter
in hand from a startup; my company promised to match my salary to the offer. A
year later, I'm only just now getting the rest of the raise and promotion,
because of the skill qualifications, achievements, etc. that we had to get
filed and approved.

That certainly makes me feel happy about the “gamification” of my industry.

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jmjerlecki
Seems like there might be an idea for a start up in there

~~~
adjohn
Sounds like <http://www.lovemachineinc.com/>

