The document discusses the implementation of gamification in a large logistics company to improve team performance and project outcomes, addressing challenges like low motivation and lack of common criteria for success. It outlines a structured approach involving rule establishment, motivation techniques, and transparency measures to enhance collaboration and product quality across various teams. The results indicate a more reliable development process, better team involvement, and improvements in product quality and performance metrics over five months.

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Mikalai Alimenkou
Independent consultant at XP Injection
@xpinjection
GAMIFICATION: EXPERIENCE REPORT

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ABOUT THE CUSTOMER
One of the top 4 logistic companies in the world. The corporation has more than 400 000 employees
in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide and generated revenue of more than € 50 billion
in 2010.
It is divided into business units along regions:
• Europe
• Asia Pacific
• Americas
• Europe, the Middle East and Africa

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BIG PRODUCT – BIG PROJECT
2000+ requirements in Use Case format4
Huge and growing project team: 150+ ppl1
3 streams, 10+ cross functional teams, service teams2
4 locations3
15000+ unit tests cover code base5

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COMPLEX PROCESSES AND COMMUNICATION
AGILE / SCRUM
• Daily standup and scrum-of-scrum
• Grooming, pre-planning, planning
• Retrospective, retro-of-retro, demo
FAST CUSTOMER’S FEEDBACK
• Work items
• Feature demo for PO
• Daily demo for SME from PO
• Sprint demo
SCOPE PRESENTATION
• PO presents scope for team
• Q & A session
• Work items for SME
LOREM IPSUM DOLOR AMET
• Nulla nu nisi
• Risus purus id fusce
• Lobortis ipsum felis sed
DIRECT COMMUNICATION
• Own area for each team
• All teams in one big same area
• Plenty of meeting rooms
SMART TOOLS
• JIRA, RTC
• Confluence
• Skype for business
TRANSPARENCY
• Town halls with PM/DM
• Town halls with customers
• All hands retrospective

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CROSS FUNCTIONAL TEAMS
FE developer1
BE developer2
QA engineer3
Business analyst4
Automation QA5
Team Job Functions Team Roles
Team Lead1
Second pilot2
SCRUM master3
Product Owner4
Demo mentor5

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VERTICAL INTEGRATION OF ALL FEATURES
7
FE
BE
CI
i18n
QA
PO
QA team tests implemented feature
and PO provides demo for SME.
Testing and Demo
FE developer implements layout and
client-side logic on JavaScript
FE Design & Construction
Required configuration items are
created for the feature and applied.
Configured items are available for
Admin.
Configuration
Product owner analyses requirements
provided by BA team and creates JIRA
User Stories for developers
Requirements Management
BE developer implements business
logic and incorporate database
entities
BE Design and Construction
Developer creates new key in the
translation dictionary with default
value, according to the rules.
Internationalization

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GENERAL TEAM ISSUES IN BIG PROJECT
Hard to make team performance visible and transparent4
No common approach to achieve project goals, common process1
Team focuses only on it’s scope, integration issues2
Low focus on the whole product quality3
Low collective ownership5
Low motivation6

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WE DECIDED TO INTRODUCE SOME GAMIFICATION
MIKALAI ALIMENKOU
SENIOR DELIVERY MANAGER
OLEKSIY LEMESHKO
AGILE COACH

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REASON #1. ALL TEAMS ARE DIFFERENT

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REASON #2. NO COMMON PERFORMANCE CRITERIA

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REASON #3. INJECT SOME FUN AND INCREASE MOTIVATION

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1 2 3 4
OVERALL GAMIFICATION APPROACH
SETUP RULES
• Define how team can
get or loose points
• Select transparent
criteria in different
areas
• Publish them and allow
team to affect rules
with common decisions
SELL RULES
• Explain teams how
rules affect common
project goals
• Define and spread
common values and
principles
• Lead by example
MOTIVATE
• Understand motivation
of different teams
• Make achievements
visible and honorable
• Use project budget to
add more fun and
introduce some
material bonuses
INSPECT AND
ADAPT
• Gather feedback
continuously
• Review rules and adapt
them to changing
reality
• Introduce new rules to
cover new project
goals and improve
overall process

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RULES ARE FOCUSED ON DIFFERENT AREAS
Product quality1
Organizational and technical maturity level2
Transparency3
Responsibility and proactivity4
Extra mile efforts5
Hand of help6

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#1. PRODUCT QUALITY RULES
Iteration is finished without additional defects (+1, -1 points)1
Some defects from backlog are fixed (+1 points)2
New critical/blocker defect was introduced (-1 point)3
Critical/blocker defect was reopened (-1 point)4
Post delivery issues was found on target environment (-1 point)5

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#2. ORGANIZATIONAL AND TECHNICAL MATURITY
Delivery due dates are followed for all User Stories (+1, -1 point)1
Code changes never failed CI/CD pipeline (+1, 0, -0.5 per failure points)2
Sprint scope is done and delivered in time (+1, -1 point)3
Code review is effective (under discussion)4

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#3. TRANSPARENCY, RESPONSIBILITY AND PROACTIVITY
Time tracking in JIRA is properly performed (+1, -1 point)1
Team actively participates in incident management (+1 point)2
FE/BE capacity is planned in advance (under discussion)3
Backlog is properly managed in JIRA (+1, -1 point)4

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#4. EXTRA MILE EFFORTS AND HAND OF HELP
Quality assurance extra effort (+1 point per QA lead)1
Overall delivery extra effort (+1 point)2
Valuable help for other teams (+1 point based on likes)3
Technical debt reduction (under discussion)4

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WHO ARE THE JUDGES?
Teams themselves1
QA leads2
Delivery managers3
Tools like Gerrit or JIRA4

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• Some criteria didn’t take into account subjective reasons like sick leaves, unstable external
systems, environmental issues
• Not all successes and extra efforts are covered in criteria
• Human factor in results gathering
• Preview results with the team before publishing
• Open discussion and feedback gathering for controversial cases
• Only confirmed results are published
ISSUE #1. SUBJECTIVITY
ROOT OF THE ISSUE
STEPS TO FIX

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• Not all teams see value in such competition and don’t want to participate
• No clear common understanding of criteria by all teams
• No time to improve
• Work closely with the team, gather feedback, perform root cause analysis, “sell” criteria as metrics
• Every team could affect criteria, propose any change to be discussed
• Transparency and detailed description for all criteria
ISSUE #2. MOTIVATION
ROOT OF THE ISSUE
STEPS TO FIX

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• Developers live in their own nutshell
• Weak team spirit on cross-team level
• No challenge and motivation to be involved into global issues/processes
• More criteria in ‘extra mile/hand of help’ groups
• Customization of JIRA and KB (active flow plan and report, agile boards, common filters, visual
radiators)
• PR (winner is announced on the whole team, hall of fame, visual radiators)
ISSUE #3. POPULARISATION
ROOT OF THE ISSUE
STEPS TO FIX

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• Some criteria brought more points for the win than others
• Some criteria didn’t take all nuances into account (reason of code changes to fail CI pipeline, due
dates following and time reporting in JIRA)
• Continuous involvement of teams to improve criteria
• Work with teams to perform root cause analysis and reflect changes in both development process
and criteria
ISSUE #4. CRITERIA BALANCE
ROOT OF THE ISSUE
STEPS TO FIX

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WINNER TEAM GETS CUP AND APPLAUSES

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BRANDED CUP AND VISUAL RADIATORS

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3 CUPS = TEAM BUILDING FROM PROJECT BUDGET

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TABLE OF RESULTS FOR 5 MONTHS
Sprint 19 Sprint 19s Sprintodrop 20 Drop 21 Drop 22 Drop 23 Drop 24 Drop 25 Drop 26 Drop 27 Drop 28
Air.Wind 9 11 9 10 15 13 11,66 13,5 13 11,5
Air.Storm 15 11 18 13 12,5 14 13 16,5 17 11
Air.Breeze 7 11 9 8 12 10 11 11 10 11
Air.Tornado 6 10 13 11 13 14 13,83 9 15 12,5
Air.Jet 12,5 8 9 10 12 9,5
Fire.Nova 9 19 17 14 13 12 8,33 13 12 12
Fire.TNT 11 14 11 7 10 12 13,5 13 13 11
Onyx 8 10 10 9 12 13 11 8 14 11
ADT.Alpha 13,5 9,33 14 11 12
ADT.Delta 9,5 10,33 14 14 9,5
Kharkiv 11 14 13 11
Rubin 9 15 12 16 12

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PROGRESS DURING 5 MONTHS
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Sprint 19 Sprint 19s Sprintodrop
20
Drop 21 Drop 22 Drop 23 Drop 24 Drop 25 Drop 26 Drop 27 Drop 28
Air.Wind Air.Storm Air.Breeze Air.Tornado Air.Jet Fire.Nova
Fire.TNT Onyx ADT.Alpha ADT.Delta Kharkiv Rubin

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SUMMARY OF ACHIEVEMENTS
More reliable, stable and transparent development process1
Involvement of all teams at project level2
Significant improvements in product quality and CI/CD3
Objective performance metrics across all teams4
Flexible motivation driver in gamification format5

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QUESTIONS?