I manage a crew of about 5 programmers at work. During our performance reviews this year, I asked each of them how I could do my job as a manager better. One of them, in a bit of much-appreciated candor, said that motivation was one of his biggest challenges, and that he would be grateful for anything I could do to help.
This guy — let’s call him Ivan — is a capable programmer, and does good work, but (like all of us) sometimes has a tough time overcoming inertia and focusing on the task at hand. Interestingly, Ivan is also a World of Warcraft player. (World of Warcraft is an online Role Playing Game where hundreds of thousands of people play together in a shared, computer-based fantasy world.) One of the interesting characteristics of online RPG’s like World of Warcraft is that they often require one to do a lot of repetetive, mundane tasks to gain in-game experience and thereby increase your character’s prowess. This is referred to as “level grinding”.
When one is “grinding,” one isn’t doing it for the satisfaction of the task being performed, but for an extrinsic reward of some kind that keeps players at it. In the case of online RPG’s, the reward is an improved character (with a higher level or improved skills), better equipment, the chance to participate in more challenging gameplay, or bragging rights among one’s game-playing peers. Ultima Online, the RPG on which I used to work, would allow the player to link to a web page that showed off her character with her honorifics and arrayed in all her finery.
This sense of accomplishment is one of the things that makes computer games so compelling for many people. In the early days of arcades, the chance to put one’s initials on the High Score list on Tempest was often as big a draw as the gameplay itself. We liked the sense of competition and achievement that list of scores brought with it. More recently, Microsoft did something very clever when they introduced the XBox 360: every game for the system has “Accomplishments” that earn “Gamer Points”. People who play for fun will inevitably rack up a certain number of these, but in order to maximize one’s Gamer Score, one has to again do things that aren’t inherently enjoyable: search out every pigeon in a vast virtual city (and shoot them all), get through a level without firing a gun once, or breed 200 worm-shaped piñatas. One can then put a “Gamer Badge” on one’s website or on Facebook to show the world what you have accomplished as an XBox player. This system has been so successful that Sony has recently copied it for the Playstation 3, introducing a “Trophy” system to the platform with their most recent software update.
So as I looked at all these different mechanisms that games use to take gameplay that might otherwise be uninteresting and make it appealing, I wondered if something similar could be applied to work. After all, try as we might to make the office interesting and enjoyable place to be, the fact remains: if we have to pay somebody to do something, it’s probably not inherently much fun. (There are a lot more musicians who will perform gratis than there are accountants who will do your taxes for no charge.) As I mulled this over, several possible systems came to mind:
- Keeping Score: the simplest approach is that of the arcade games of yore: you get points when you do something good, and try to get the highest score within a given period, say a week or a month. (”Something good” for work purposes might be completing one’s timesheet, successfully fixing a bug, dealing with a support call, or presenting at a conference. Each would have a different point value based on its value to the business and degree of difficulty.) This system has the advantage that it provides pretty quick feedback, and that new folks and people who have worked at a job for a while are on a fairly level playing field. The biggest failing of this approach is that a single score doesn’t tell anything about what things one is doing to rack up the points, so one has less motivation to expand one’s skills than to simply concentrate on areas where one already has facility.
- Classes & Levels: As with the Keeping Score approach, one is awarded “Experience Points” for doing something good. These points are tallied and, when one has accumulated enough, redeemed for “levels” in various classes. For example, after completing a performance review and a month of development work, I might be a “Programmer Level 3; Bureaucrat Level 2″. Levels generally become geometrically more difficult to attain as they get higher, so a new employee would “Level Up” more often than someone who had been working at a given job for a long while. This provides a more nuanced view of what sort of work someone is doing and maps more directly to a traditional RPG mechanic.
- Achievements: With this approach, one has a list of specific tasks to accomplish. For programmers, this might include things like “fix your first bug”, “check in 10 changes to our source control system”, or “get a patch accepted by one of the open-source projects we use.” One accumulates achievements over time, and can see a list of which ones have been accomplished, and which ones are still out there waiting for further efforts. (The requirements for a given achievement can also be kept secret until it’s unlocked.) The advantage with this approach is that one is encouraged to stretch one’s wings and try new sorts of tasks. Unfortunately, it lacks any kind of aggregate view of one’s progress.
At this point, I’m thinking that a hybrid of #1 and #3 might be the best for an office. Each person would have an overall score — perhaps cumulative, or perhaps reset monthly — which would be increased accordingly whenever one did something constructive. In addition, one could unlock achievements by doing specific things. Those achivements would then go on one’s record, and would also provide an extra boost to one’s score.
Whatever system we used would need to have a few specific features:
- As much of it as possible would have to be automatic. Nobody wants to spend all day tallying scores, so it would be important to tie much of this to our existing systems and have them add points without human involvement. Some things, like points for helping a coworker, will inevitably require human tallying, but these should ideally be the exception.
- Part of the fun of accomplishment is being able to show off what you’ve done. We would need to be able to publish the information on scores and accomplishments various ways: website badges, added to our Twitter Status Board, screen savers, etc.
I’d really like to hear from people on what they think of this idea. Is it something you would enjoy having around your office? Do you think it would help with motivation? Do you think any particular mechanic would be a more effective motivator than another? I’m still brainstorming on all of this at the moment, so would welcome any diverse input folks might have on the subject. Thanks for anything you can contribute!
UPDATE: As I’ve been giving this more thought, another mechanic came to mind that I think would be worthwhile. In the game Team Fortress 2, each player is given a score for the match. The points, however, are earned in various categories, and those categories tracked individually. This results in a lot more affirmation, as even if one had a relatively poor game, it might still be your best performance as a sniper, or the most points you’ve earned by healing other players. Being able to lump work points into various categories could easily result in similar kinds of encouragement when they are tallied: “You earned 625 points this month, which is lower than your personal monthly best of 1027. However, you earned 400 points for helping coworkers, eclipsing your previous best of 150 points!”
8 Comments
Actually this is an interesting line of thought. I think just after a brief read (working so I can get points myself), I think you could take paragraph two and do an exercise of just changing out your reward words for real world rewards. Just do it as fast as you can with whatever pops into your head and then I think you have a good starting point.
In my mind rewards programmers like are the ability to lead projects. Maybe those are rewards given out as one builds hit points so to speak.
I’m no programmer, but whatever you guys decide, I’m up for helping you brainstorm ideas or help with designing the “publish the information on scores and accomplishments various ways: website badges,etc”
My assorted ramblings and hopefully marginally useful feedback:
It’s an idea with significant merit. Working at an employee recognition company, one of the things we look at is factors affecting employee morale. Interestingly, studies show that purely financial incentives are among the least effective.
As I see it, the biggest barrier to your ideas are employee buy-in. On xBox live for example, some people care about accumulating points and will spend hours doing mundane or esoteric tasks to accumulate them. Others simply don’t care. With a staff of 5, if you fail to get buy-in from 3 or 4 of those employees, then the competitive nature of trying to garner ‘points’ looses it’s appeal, and you’re back to where you started. Additionally, it can be a bit daunting for new hires to catch up with someone who has been gaining points for a year or two.
I’d suggest a mixed approach that rewards benchmark scores as well as the current leader. I’d avoid gift cards or cash incentives, and focus on recognition. Not being familiar with your workplace, I don’t know what incentives you can offer, but things like casual dress for the current leader, a day of comp time for hitting certain score benchmarks, or being able to host the coveted office mascot in your cubicle make excellent incentives that not only reward achievement, but do so in a way that your co-workers can’t help but notice.
An additional recommendation would be that anything which can get points be universally available. Tasks which some team members can get but others cannot can be divisive. If three people can each get 20 points for programming tasks, make sure that there is a comparable 20 point task for the administrative assistant. I would also create a mix of team tasks which can be gained only once by the first team member to complete the task (Document and fix a specific bug), as well as universal tasks awarded to each person who completes the task as they do so (Identify, document, and fix your first bug). Note that in some cases, one task might accrue more than one benchmark. People who watch their points will look for these ‘exploits’ and feel rewarded when they happen.
I have really liked the xBox system of making all achievements public. I can browse the achievements of my friends (co-workers) and also peruse what options I have open to me at any given time to accumulate more points. I would suggest something similar in terms of posting options for the point system you are proposing. Any new opportunities could be quietly slipped into the list to encourage people to check it regularly, rather than announcing them outright at meetings and such.
To promote enthusiasm for the project, you might want to launch it with some sort of group incentive. Once everyone in the office hits 5,000 points for example, you have an early release Friday, or extended lunch with pizza brought in or something. This encourages people to track each others scores (breeding a bit of competition) as well as encourage those lagging behind to participate.
Getting everyone on board with the program is a key factor. You know your team better than anyone else hopefully, so specific incentives should be tailored, but my suggestion would be that they be visible to co-workers. Everyone wants to be recognized by their peers.
Thanks for the feedback, all. There are some great ideas in there! I’m still percolating on this, but will certainly post again when/if we get around to implementing something of this sort.
My candid two cents.
In my long and varied employment history there are precisely three things that have ever provided me any sort of motivation:
1) money
2) a sense of personal obligation towards customers or co-workers
3) concern for the quality of the work
Reward or morale programs of the sort being discussed have always struck me as irrelevant at best, risible at worst. When I worked for Bartlett we had an employee safety program where employees at each office earned points for accident free months that could be exchanged (eventually) for various prizes (tv’s, ipods, etc). My thoughts on the program, then and now, are that if the prospect of a hospital stay isn’t enough to make you don your protective equipment, but a free flatscreen is, then your intelligence level is best characterized by terminology you might not want left in your comments.
I’ve been in office situations where other sorts of programs were implemented, and I’ve always been annoyed when they were introduced and brought up again later. Other than subsequent mentions by management I never once thought about them.
I’ve found the best way for a manager to keep me motivated is to make sure that I’m doing work that I find interesting and valuable. This is never possible all the time in any job, but a good manager can do a lot to make sure that employees are at least getting to do some work on things that they care about, which makes the dull parts of the job easier to be enthusiastic about. When your working life is a tedious slog for 40 hours a week there’s no morale program that can improve that, and when you find your work interesting and rewarding you don’t need to earn points (or whatever) to stay motivated.
“When one is “grinding,” one isn’t doing it for the satisfaction of the task being performed, but for an extrinsic reward of some kind that keeps players at it. In the case of online RPG’s, the reward is an IMPROVED CHARACTER”
…improved character huh, kinda of like in REAL life sometimes when we do things we do not “want to / feel like” with no immediate gratification… but it improves our character!
I’m with Daniel on this one. Plus, I worry about the competitive aspect here. What you want is a focused, unified front at work and introducing competition like this could result in a divisive sort of environment. But that depends on the personalities of the players, of course.
Recogntion comes in many forms and it does not always have to be monetary. I know for my team, a simple card is sometimes a chin lifter. If you have any kind of artistic ability whatsoever, simply writing the name of the recipient on the outside in pretty script makes them tickled pink. And a kind word always goes a long way. Listen to your team…if you know something that is going on in his/her life, ask them about it. Nothing makes a person feel more noticed and recognized than for his or her boss to know and respond to life situations.
As far as competition goes, I don’t think it hurts in the workplace, in small amounts. You wouldn’t want to drag a competition out over a long period of time because it CAN lose it’s momentum and can also cause rifts between co workers but a little healthy competition now and then can’t hurt.