# Gamification in IT Service Management: A Systematic Mapping Study
## 1 Introduction  
Given that the use of Information Technology (IT) has been significantly enhanced over the last years, currently, the IT service providers industry is one of the most important industries. Increasingly more, organizations request more efficient technological services, and IT service providers need to focus on improving the quality of the services they provide and the relations with their customers [1, 2]. IT Service Management (ITSM) is a process-oriented approach aimed to define, manage and deliver properly IT services to achieve business objectives [3] and ensure IT service quality to satisfy the service levels agreed with the customers [4, 5]. With the purpose to offer a road map for adequately managing IT services, several ITSM-related theoretical process reference models have been developed [6, 7], such as ISO/IEC 2000 [8, 9], Capability Maturity Model for Services (CMMI-SVC) [10] and Information Technology Infrastructure (ITIL) [11]. The adoption of ITSM reference models enables IT service providers to enhance IT service quality and customer satisfaction, to decrease the service provision charges and to increase returns of investments [12, 13]. Therefore, implementing an ITSM framework is crucial for IT organizations to maximize business opportunities and improve their competitive market position [14]. Given the popularity of ITSM frameworks, a growing number of companies are implementing ITSM reference models with the purpose of improving their ITSM processes [15, 16, 17]. Besides, to help IT companies evaluate and improve their processes, various models have been developed [18], such as CMMI-SVC [10], ISO/IEC 15504-8 [19] and TIPA for ITIL [20], among others. The idea that the ITSM process improvement has a positive impact on the service quality has promoted important practice and research in this area [21, 22, 23]. There are manyresearch papers in the field of ITSM model implementation. Most of them focus mainly on examining both the benefits of adopting these frameworks in real-world companies [16] and the critical success factors (CSF) for an adequate implementation [16; 24]. IT companies can develop, maintain and deliver greater quality services, enhancing the efficiency of their processes and the productivity of their employees [25]. Thus, one of the factors that most influence the success of ITSM process implementation is the incorporation of adequate process management practices [24; 26]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [25; 27] empirically demonstrated the strong positive effects that the use of process management practices, such as to establish process performance objectives and to systematically monitor the process performance metrics, have on the processes improvement. On the other hand, improving certain human aspects are also very important for a successfully ITSM process adoption. For instance, it is necessary that IT managers and employees change their attitudes and acquire new behaviors aimed to increase their performances and meet the process objectives [28]. Likewise, other aspects that greatly influence ITSM adoption are the level of expertise, motivation and commitment of process participants and the communication and collaboration between them [27]. A Gartner study [29] also noticed that one of the factors that most affect IT service malfunctions is the lack of employee skills and competence. Thus, in ITSM adoption initiatives performing a suitable training of process stakeholders is also fundamental for filling these lacks [30; 31]. Given that ITSM is a process-oriented approach and the human nature of many ITSM processes, gamification turns into a promising trend that can influence positively the success of ITSM process adoption. Since the second half of 2010, gamification has grown as a relevant approach that can be applied to modify and influence people's behaviors [32] and for enhancing people's motivations and engagement when performing activities [33; 34]. Besides, gamification is considered one of the emergent teaching technologies in education and training [35].