Gamification in Software Development

Developers continously work on similar tasks and deepen their skills in the process. Their improved skills make the tasks become a routine. Routine reduces motivation. To keep your developers engaged you need to give them targets to strive for, focus on their personal development and reward them when they deserve it.

How efficient is your IT team?

• 42% of the IT projects were delivered after the deadline and more expensive than the original plan.
• 37% of the IT projects have been successful, been delivered before the deadline and within the estimated cost.
• 21% of the IT projects were total failures, being cancelled before the delivered time or were delivered but never used.

What are the Characteristics of High Performance Teams?

1. Organizational: team diversity,team size, team’s autonomy, work less hours, organizational commitment, life quality at work, low turn over.
2. Technical: coordination, professional orientation, teamwork orientation, focus on specific tasks, experience in delegation, knowledge, less decision made, work tasks division, goals fixing, managerial involvement,  restriction of external influence,
   performance evaluation, competencies of management,  usage of resources.
3. Contextual: team work, team leadership, personality, organization, comprehension, accountability, flexibility, intelligence, analytic, communication, team cohesion, improvisation, respect, empathy emotional intelligence, cognitive
   work abilities, less tendency to conflicts, socialization, motivation, unexpected challenges, attitude, passion to teach, better sharing information, believe on own abilities, tasks participation, confidence, awareness.

The quality of the professional is directly related to the quality of the education he/she received.

Why Gamification in Software Development?

1. Developers accomplish similar tasks on a day-to-day basis and spend a lot of time in the workplace on procrastination.
2. New tasks in the work process over time also increase the experience of developers.
3. The more experienced the developers, the more skills they have, so doing their tasks becomes a routine.
4. Routine reduces employee motivation. So the project manager needs to find mechanisms to motivate project team members to increase employee motivation and productivity.
5. There are a lot of methods, such as the emphasis on the promotion of personal development, rewards, preserving work-life
   balance, participation in conferences, team consolidation measures and others.

Where is Gamification Used the Most in the Development Process?

• 55% for Development
• 27% for Testing
• 14% for Requirement Definition
• 4% for Project Management

Gamification Benefits in Software Development

The use of the gamification technique contributes to the improvement of productivity in working  conditions, employee motivation and interest in the work

Benefits Development Phase:

• Code quality improvements
• The number of processed applications
• The smallest  number of errors
• Increase in  the rate of error prevention
• Learn from others by assigning ratings to people’s work
• Increase in motivation by seeing feedback about  the work done

Benefits Testing Phase:

• Improvement in product quality
• Learning from  others (review sessions)
• Code quality (automatic testing)
• Best motivation to work
• The opportunity to track work progress
• Better communication among team members

Sources

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322409704_Gamification_in_Software_Development_Projects
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282711853_What_Are_the_Main_Characteristics_of_High_Performance_Teams_for_Software_Development