A recent article put out by the Wharton School of Business with the University of Pennsylvania shares several ways companies are using gamification as a motivator for employees, particularly in sales fields. Of course, as with any successful design solution, a sound understanding of what the solution should accomplish and an analysis of the target audience are critical in designing the best solution to meet a company’s needs. I was encouraged to read that VP of Software Architecture at Fidelity Investments, who has looked into gamification as a means to help their customers better manage their finances, caution those interested in gamification as a problem solution. He states, “They’re saying, ‘How do we put gamification into X?’, and I’m saying, ‘Please don’t.’ … Let’s have a conversation about what your real goals are.”
I’ve had so many clients come to me and tell me they wanted to gamify this or that, and had to back them up to first learn what they wanted to accomplish, what their goals are, and then see if gamification is a good fit.
While gamification is still in its adolescence as far as a learning technology goes, the fundamentals of good instructional design still apply.
An example of gamification in practice can be seen on this website for the solution, Gamification of Sport Management. This project was a winner of Wharton’s Reimagine Education competition in 2014.
Read the Wharton article: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/gamification-still-a-gamble-but-one-with-real-payoffs/