Agile Network India | Impact of Gamification on Agile World by Suvrajith Sarkar

1. Impact of Gamification on an
Agile World

2. Highlights of Today’s Session
• The Psychology of Gamification
• What is Agile Gamification?
• Applying Gamification Drives on Agile Processes
• Advantages of Agile Gamification
• Darker side of Gamification

3. The Psychology of Gamification
• Epic Meaning through Metaphors
• It gives us a sense of being in control
• Social Influence
• Elements of Surprises
• Loss Avoidance
• Sense of Scarcity & Impatience
• Ownership
• Achievement

4. What is Agile Gamification?

5. Applying Applying Gamification
Drives on Agile Process

6. Planning & Requirement Definition
General Behavior:
Prioritising the features that the client is requesting for.
Desired Behavior:
Prioritise the features that when combined demonstrates the
maximum value of a sprint.
Driver: Epic Meaning and Calling
How might I prioritise the right
features in a sprint?
Ravi: Product Owner
Lego Blocks:

7. Design - UX/Prototype
Seemantini: Prototype Designer
General Behavior:
Designing the best possible Prototype that exceeds the quality
of previously designed Prototypes
Desired Behavior:
Understand the pressing needs of the user, which a feature is
intended to address and designing a prototype that improves
the user experience at key decision points for a user.
Driver: Accomplishment
How might I design the best User
Experience that will go on to become
my next masterpiece?

8. Develop - Executing on the user stories
Pooja: Full Stack Developer
General Behavior:
Getting the low hanging fruits out of the way and then taking
a look at the big ticket items that may have other
dependencies. The team’s velocity must be met after all!
Desired Behavior:
Execution of stories in the order of their priorities determined
by the product owner(s).
Driver: Scarcity & Impatience
How might I beat the team’s velocity
in this sprint?

9. Test - Assuring the Quality of Deliverables
Neelakantha: Junior QA
General Behavior:
Need to improve on previous best records in finding as many
bugs as possible!
Desired Behavior:
How has QA accessed the overall quality of the sprint
deliverables?
Driver: Empowerment - Dev Give KUDOS Badges to QA
How might I beat my previous record
of finding X number of bugs?

10. Advantages of Agile Gamification
● Collaboration and build bonding among the Agile Team Members
● Socialize & Communicate Ideas more effectively in the Team
● Offers a different perspective aligned with the bigger picture
● Promotes honesty in a friendliness within the team
● Visualize what is truly valuable to the team

11. Darker side of Gamification
(Keeping the Goals of an Agile Process in Mind)

12. Eying on the Wrong Goal
Creating a Leaderboard that ranks the developers in the
order of Story Points accomplished by them in a Sprint.
Result:
Demoralising performers who may not be ranking high in
terms of Story Point but may be adding value through
other measures like refactoring badly written code to
make the software more robust.

13. Mandatory “PLAY”
As a QA team member, you get points for
the priority of a bug that you reported: High:
10, Blocker: 20, Critical: 30
Result:
No matter what the overall quality of the
release is, I am still chasing the tail since I
just need 40 more points to beat the team’s
average
Aswathy: QA Lead
I am only worried about the overall
quality of this release.

14. Trying to FIX a Poor Execution
Sagar: Product Manager
Although the new Workflow is not well
architected but it is a valuable feature
afterall
As a Product Manager you are on your toes
to reward a developer as soon as your pet
feature is out for demo even if it is poorly
executed
Result:
Chances are the developer is so focused on
the reward, he might end up doing quick
work arounds

15. Rewarding the WRONG Behavior
Poo Avinav! He is trying so hard to
learn Angular JS!
Anisha: Project Manager
You fully empathise with the pain a developer
is going through to pick up a new skill and
reward for “TRYING” hard.
Result:
Chances are, Abhinav may never come up to
speed...

16. Thank You
Questions?
suvrajit@productndesign.com