6. SO WHAT IS THIS TALK ABOUT (AND NOT ABOUT)?
Using games solely
for training or
planning (a.k.a.
serious games)
Marketing
and loyalty
programs
Experience
report
Applying game
thinking to daily
work
Gamification as a
way to build in
continual, reflective
improvement
Discussing how
agile teams have a
head start
Missions of
our own!
Gamified
services (e.g.,
Foursquare)
8. CREATE A CHARACTER
• Player name (your name)
• Character name (made up)
• Class (Ruby Warrior, Kanban
Wizard, etc.)
• Level (agile experience)
• Guild (organization, team)
• Spells and special skills (org-
change magic, analysis spell, ninja
coding)
11. REEVES AND REED’S 10 INGREDIENTS FOR GAMES
1. Self-representation
with avatars
2. 3D environments
3. Narrative context
4. Feedback
5. Reputation, Ranks and
Levels
6. Marketplace and
economics
7. Competition under
explicit, enforced rules
8. Teams
9. Parallel, reconfigurable
communication
systems
10. Time pressure
13. WORK-PLAY
MIRROR
1. Pair up within your guild
2. On a piece of paper, make a table with two columns: Work and Play
3. List as many of your experiences that are common to both
15. CSIKSZENTMIHALYI’S 9 FEATURES OF FLOW
1. Clear goals at every step
2. Immediate feedback
3. Balance between challenge and skill
4. Merger of action and awareness
5. Exclusion of distractions
6. No worries about failure
7. Absence of self-consciousness
8. Time becomes distorted
9. The experience is an end in itself
16. FLOW AND AGILE
Flow Steps
Clear goals
Measure progress of goals
Concentrate on task and keep
making finer distinctions in
challenges
Develop skills to meet
challenge
Agile Practices
Value
Features, Stories
Running tested features
Cycle time
Refactor mercilessly,
incrementally develop, test-
drive development
Pair, practice katas
18. CREATE A
FLOW EXPERIENCE
1. Pick a simple, mundane task that you don’t experience flow with today and
plot it on the flow diagram.
2. How might you gamify it to create a flow experience?
20. VOLUNTARY, PARTICIPATORY SUCCESS
• Voluntary
discipline
• Self-organizing
teams
• Teams built
around motivated
individuals
• Collaborative
improvement
21. QUEST-LIKE WORK
• Stories
• Narratives
• Spikes
As a team memberI want to gamify our work
So that I can feel like I’mnot even working
24. INTENSIFY THE
FEEDBACK
1. Quickly list as many forms of feedback as possible that you get on your
team.
2. Brainstorm ways to intensify those feedback moments.
25. HIGH LEVELS OF COMMUNICATION
Realtime, face-to-face communication
Pairing to solve problems
26. GAME DIMENSIONS
• Get to the other side (Complete the iteration,
feature)
• Visit all the map (Unlock “secrets” by technical
discovery)
• Time limits (Velocity metrics, iteration time
box)
• Finite or infinite (“iteration-less” development)
• Competitive or cooperative
28. SOMETHING BIGGER THAN OURSELVES
What is the organization
about and where do
we fit in?
The “Why” of work
(Sinek’s “golden circle”)
Epic context for action
31. PROJECT INCEPTION
Team members create
characters, identify what they’ll
need
Game designer works with
customer to create narrative
Customer helps map out quests,
assigns virtual monetary value
Designer and customer
determine what it means to
win, rules, virtual currency and
rewards
32. PROJECT INITIATION (ITERATION 0)
Team members mini-
quest for their
equipment
Game designer tells the
team the narrative
Team sets goals for first
missions
Guild leadership
33. DEVELOPMENT AND DELIVERY
Gamify small components
to address pain points
Hackathons and secret
missions to destroy bug
“bosses”
Use retrospectives, Toyota
kata to “mod” the game
Measure the impact
Monitor flow experience
35. LEVELING UP AS SELF-IMPROVEMENT
Flow experience
supported by
sustainable pace
Reflect recognition and
reputation
Encourage team
members to view their
job as self
improvement
38. DANGERS
You can’t just spawn a
new project after failing
Could depersonalize
rather than personalize
No one game can please
all
Gaming and misuse of
metrics
39. HOW DO WE CONQUER THIS NEW QUEST?
Use agile and lean principles
Intrinsic then extrinsic
Voluntary participation
Give autonomy to teams
Lightweight (i.e., fun)
40. FINAL “BOSS”
1. List three things blocking you from gamifying.
2. With a pair, come up with a possible solution for them.
41. BEFORE YOUR NEXT QUEST
BOOKS
Flow
A Theory of Fun
Total Engagement
Reality Is Broken
Gamestorming
Designing Virtual Worlds
WEB
alistair.cockburn.us
delicious.com/matthew.philip/
gamification
smilingfinney.blogspot.com
codingconduct.cc