# Gamification in IT Service Management: A Systematic Mapping Study
## 6 Conclusions and Future Works  
The main objective of the systematic mapping presented in this paper is to analyze the current state of research in the scope of the ITSM processes gamification, and determine the main limitations and challenges in this research area. The review results presented herein reveal that very little research has been carried out in this field until now. The research interest in gamifying the ITSM processes has been fluctuating since 2013 until 2018, and most of papers have been published in low quality publications (only 14% in high quality conferences, CORE A). Thus, it is clear that the adoption of gamification in the context of ITSM is in its early stages, and this entails a research opportunity for conducting rigorous comprehensive studies in this field. The research papers we have analyzed highlight that implementing gamification in the ITSM processes can be useful mainly for the following aims:  
* Motivating and engaging practitioners involved in the ITSM processes so that they can conduct their tasks more effectively. * Driving the behavior of the process's participants along the process and improving their performance. * Increasing the commitment of practitioners in learning processes for enhancing their skills and competence. * Improving the values of the process KPIs. Regarding the ITSM processes in which gamification has been explored, it is noticeable that the IT service support processes are the processes most frequently gamified, especially the IT service incident management process. Most likely because that is the first process that IT organizations usually implement. Besides, the monotonous and repetitive nature of most of the tasks that support groups agents need to conduct makes of gamification an effective approach to address the agent's motivation in their daily tasks, and improving their performance. The lack of papers that implement gamification in the context of other ITSM processes opens an interesting opportunity for research and exploration. Concerning the game elements included in the gamification proposals, we found that the game dynamics included were progression, emotions, relationship and narrative, though very few primary studies incorporated some of these dynamics. The mechanics most frequently incorporated were feedback, challenges, rewards and competition. The game components most commonly used were points, levels and leaderboard. Regarding the number of game components included in the gamification strategies, most primary studies named the ones they used, but did not explain clearly how they used them in their experiences. Those studies did not discuss the rationale behind the selection of such game components, neither did they address which of them were targeted to achieve which particular goal in the gamification experience. Besides, the authors ignored other relevant gamification design principles to meet the main aims of the gamification experience. Thus, the gamification schemas proposed in the papers analyzed are frequently too simple. Therefore, it is difficult to conclude which game components to select to promote the motivation and engagement in participants to achieve the objectives set. On the other hand, in most of the primary studies, the authors did not conduct a user profile analysis to determine the most adequate game elements to include in the gamification strategies depending on the characteristics of the distinct user types. Since not all people are motivated in the same way, it is important to analyze the different user types involved in the gamification experience, to identify the factors that motivate each user type and to design the most appropriate gamification strategy for each user type. Other important conclusion of our review is that most of the primary studies adopted gamification simply applying some gamification ideas gained from literature or experiencing with game elements, and lack details about the concrete actions and steps taken to adopt gamification in the context of ITSM.