Overcoming knowledge gaps regarding gamification implementation

Businesses are continuously looking for innovative ways to improve their business processes. This is where gamification can be of added value, since it is an increasingly popular strategic instrument, which can influence behaviour and enhance performance and productivity. Currently, there are numerous knowledge gaps concerning the implementation of gamification. In order to overcome these challenges a roadmap for structured implementation of gamification is developed. The development of this roadmap is based on findings occurred by synergizing business needs and existing knowledge. In this paper the realization of the roadmap is described and also future research areas are identified to improve the knowledge concerning gamification in business processes. Keywords Applied gamification, roadmap development, game elements, motivation, target behaviour, feedback. 1 Problem definition In recent years, gamification has become increasingly popular in businesses (Groh, 2012) as a strategic instrument to engage people, to influence behaviour and increase performance and productivity. In literature gamification is defined as the use of game design elements and game thinking in non-game contexts (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke, 2011). It could reduce costs and subsequently increase revenues by improving performance of employees (Singh, 2012). Something that is needed by businesses which continually try to improve their performance to remain successful (Becker & Gerhart, 2014). Therefore, businesses are continuously looking for innovative ways to improve business processes. According to Singh (2012), any process that needs to motivate human users, is candidate for gamification. Therefore, it is expected that gamification will play an important role in the future throughout different sectors (Hamari, Koivisto, & Sarsa, 2014). Even though many claim that gamification has become a worthy player in business improvement (McGonigal, 2011), there are also some challenges to overcome. Firstly, current gamification literature does not have a very high scientific level and most literature is written in a general way (Hamari et al., 2014). Insufficient difference is made between gamification for internal gamification (for the employees) and external gamification (for the customers). Also, academic evidence of the benefits of International Journal of Business Innovation and Research (IJBIR) Vol., No. , October 2014 Copyright © 200x Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. gamification is lacking. Secondly, since gamification is a relatively new concept it is largely unclear how an effective design can be realized (Deterding et al., 2011). Burke (2013), a research analyst of Gartner, speaks of the unrealistic expectations for success and consequently many businesses are implementing gamification without proper investigation into whether or not gamification is the right instrument to improve the business process. Gartner, Inc., an information technology research and advisory company predicts that about 80% of gamified solutions will fail in reaching business objectives by 2014 due to poor design (Gartner, 2012). Also, Chorney (2012) stipulates that gamification has its limits and cannot significantly alter human behaviour. Thirdly, there is no uniform approach to developing and successfully implementing gamification aspects in an existing process. This means that there is limited knowledge on how gamification can be structurally applied in many processes. Furthermore, it is uncertain if gamification is applicable to all types of business processes in order to improve the behaviour of employees (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). Hence, it can be concluded that there are numerous knowledge gaps. This indicates more research needs to be done in order to bridge these gaps. The coherent challenges need to be faced in order to successfully implement game aspects in business processes. Therefore, the goal of this scientific article is to develop and discuss a roadmap for structured implementation of gamification in business processes. The development of this roadmap will be done by synergizing business needs and existing knowledge. The business needs are investigated by executing a case study. This case study is conducted at the sorting process of PostNL parcels which is a commercial standard process. The case study can provide insight in effectiveness of gamification as an innovative instrument to alter behaviour of employees in standardized processes. The findings of this case study can also indicate differences in theory and practice. Thereby, these findings might be used to reflect on the current gamification literature and to give recommendations on improvement. This paper is mainly focused on the development of a gameful design. Furthermore, it will focus on gameful (the same as gamification) design elements and not on playful design elements, since commercial standard processes are generally very controlled with little room for autonomy. Additionally, this paper is also limited to internal gamification, gamification of a business process in order to improve the performance of employees. Since the case study is conducted at a commercial standard process, the findings of this paper are also limited to commercial standard processes. The outline of this paper is as follows. In chapter 2 current developments in gamification are discussed. Chapter 3 introduces the case study and subsequently chapter 4 describes the development of the gameful design. In chapter 5 the results of the case study are discussed and in chapter 6 the findings through the case study are presented. These findings will be used in chapter 7 for the development of a roadmap International Journal of Business Innovation and Research (IJBIR) Vol., No. , October 2014 Copyright © 200x Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. for structured application of gamification. Finally, this paper is concluded with a recommendation for future research (chapter 8) and a conclusion (chapter 9). 2 Current developments in gamification Before introducing the case study and learning by doing, it is required to discuss gamification in more detail as instrument to improve a business process. Gamification is an instrument that is just about using elements of games and therefore it is much more flexible than a full-fledged game (Groh, 2012). Since this instrument understands the motivational power of goals, reputation, and identity, it can be seen as a useful trigger to perform target behaviour. Furthermore, it is stated by Werbach & Hunter (2012) that there is significant overlap between work and games. They indicate that gamification uses game design elements to solve organizational problems in order to achieve goals effectively. As already mentioned in the introduction of this paper, no uniform approach for gamification is currently available in literature. It is found by Hamari et al. (2014) that there is a dearth of coherent understanding with regard to gamification. Currently, in literature it is also undecided which game elements can be used in order to gamify a business process. According to Deterding et al. (2011) game elements are characteristics of games (elements that are found in most of the games). It is also stated by Deterding et al. (2011), that there is much room for debate over what appropriate “characteristics” for games are. In this paper game elements of Palmer, Lunceford, & Patton (2012) are used, which are four overarching elements for business gamification. These four elements are: 1. Progress path 2. Feedback & reward 3. Social connection and 4. Interface & user experience According to Palmer et al. (2012) these game elements are a useful toolkit to facilitate the process of gamification in business. However, the elements seemed to be developed for gamification of online services. Nevertheless, they will be used in this paper and therefore the elements are now briefly explained in order to give a definition that is assumed for this paper. Progress path This game element is focused on showing the progress path by providing narrative guides and challenges. The complexity of the challenges, or in this case the task of the employee, could increases over time (Palmer et al., 2012). However, it is important that there is room for challenges in the business process; otherwise it will be difficult to implement this game element. International Journal of Business Innovation and Research (IJBIR) Vol., No. , October 2014 Copyright © 200x Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Feedback & reward It is already discussed in the previous paragraph, the current status of gamification in business, that feedback and rewarding is a common used game element. By adding hyper feedback to a business process it will be much easier to provide the right reward at the right time. The second challenge will be to design an appropriate reward (Palmer et al., 2012).