1. You may have already
participated in game play, such
as; playing Angry Birds – earning
stars based on your performance
that allow you to unlock more
challenging levels, or receiving a
gold star and ‘helpful vote’ points
for your review on tripadvisor.com.
Even being shown that your profile
on LinkedIn is X% complete and
receiving an ‘endorsement’ from
a colleague is a form of gaming,
aimed at pulling you in.
www.northhighland.uk.com
The psychology
At some point or another, we have
all played games and felt a sense of
fulfilment that has compelled us to play
some more, even if the actual process
is repetitive.
This sensation can be attributed to a
game influencing your behaviour in
your quest for success, progression
or partnership. In recognising this
psychological ‘pull’, people realised that
it could benefit business, if you were
able to align success in a game to a
business’ objectives. We’ve done this for
projects and programmes.
Why you should care about it
Humans respond positively to loyalty,
reward, reputation and status. In
real life these are often neglected
by employers, but by introducing a
gaming culture into the workplace we
acknowledge these triggers and use
them to drive performance.
In the current project management
environment, clients are expected to
deliver more work for less money. This
places the burden on project teams to
operate at a higher level. Gamification
is a way to ensure tasks are completed
on time, team members collaborate,
and issues are raised in a timely
manner so that they don’t come
as a big surprise to anyone.
Gamification in
PPL is about taking
the mechanics of
games and applying
them to project and
programme situations
to make them more
engaging and increase
performance
What’s all the hype about?
Gamification is a new management technique proven to enhance
performance across organisations, including projects and programmes.
It is based on the use of gaming principles to harness the competitive
nature of human beings, increasing engagement and performance.
Do you manage or work as part of a project or programme team? In a
challenging economic environment do you ever wonder how to motivate,
engage, encourage innovation or build a sense of team?
If you have answered ‘Yes’, read on to understand how we can use
Gamification to help you.
Gartner states, ‘gamification is positioned to become a highly significant
trend over the next five years’ and that, ‘By 2014, more than 70 percent of
Global 2000 organizations will have at least one “gamified” application’.
Our Project & Programme Leadership (PPL) team has cut through all the
hype around gamification, to tell you what it’s all about, what the key things
are to look out for and how to practically apply gamification to your projects
and programmes to help you increase engagement and drive success.
Gamification candirectly benefit ProjectManagement:Earlier sight of risks & issues – with the
whole team engaged to consider, identify and
raise risks & issuesCost reduction – due to more accurate and
regularly maintained cost trackers and forecasts
Enhanced knowledge management – where the
review and upload of documentation is recognised
Higher productivity and lower attrition –
due to introduction of competition andpositive team moraleHigher adoption of your technology
investments post-go live – as there are
greater incentives to participate
12 3
GAMIFICATION

2. 1: Picking the right method
Where we’ve already done this:
1. A major UK retail company – in running their PMO, we
wanted to encourage participation with a risk & issue
management process that we introduced. By applying a point
system to introduce competition, we realised an 80% increase
in compliance with the process and on-time response rates.
3. Internally – we implemented a new social media tool,
designed from the ground up to harness the collective
knowledge of over 1,500 people using gamification techniques,
such as badges to reward contribution, ‘likes’ to identify useful
documents to improve the search capability, and leaderboards
to rank involvement. In two months, this has become the
primary channel for sharing global expertise, eliminating
the dependency on mass email communication.
3: Applying to typical programmechallenges
1. Programme planning – Has your programme experienced
a poor understanding of plans due to the inadequatereview, challenge or buy-in during the planning process?
Gamification techniques, such as badges and ‘hidden
rewards’, can encourage early participation, in addition to
introducing competition around forecast vs. actual planning
timescales and costs will drive up critical input and buy-in.2. Benefits realisation – Have you witnessed an insufficient
focus on programme outcomes throughout the lifecycle?
By introducing a leaderboard to your quarterly-programme
communications, you can track benefits or outcomes with
corresponding incentives relating to their timely-achievement
(points). Gaming techniques reward early engagement to the
process and increase awareness thereafter as teams (and
individuals) compete for accurate measurement and tracking.3. Governance – Do you spend too much time in ineffective
meetings due to low attendance or poor agendas? A
gaming mechanism can be developed around key focus and
improvement areas. By implementing a meeting participant
voting method, leaderboard and points system, you can
reward the meeting of the week and share best practice.
Leaderboards
By accumulating points
or recognition, employees
can advance through the
ranks and be recognised
by their teammates for
high performance
Challenges
Specific tasks can be
set with rewards or
recognition to those who
finish most quickly or
effectively
Points
Points measure
achievements in relation
to others and work
by keeping a person
motivated to achieve the
next reward or level
BadgesAccumulating a certainamount of points maywarrant virtual badges oractual awards. It’s a way torecognise employees forgoing above and beyond
Levels
Levels can show
where people stand
relative to each other
For more information, contact charles.vivian@northhighland.com
Tower house 10 Southampton street Covent Garden London wc2e 7ha
t: 0207 812 6460 f: 020 7240 0873 www.northhighland.uk.com
2: Following North Highland’s
top 5 gamification rules
1. Align the game to your project and
programme objectives
2. Clearly articulate rules that can be
understood and prevent manipulation
3. Make games simple and SMART
(Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Relevant and Time-bound)
4. Feed back to participant(s) regularly to
let them know how they’re progressing
and keep the game alive
5. Tailor the game to your project and
programme culture, to encourage
individual and team participation -
but do not force!
to participant(s) regularly to
and keep the game alive
Enough of the theory already
So how does it work in practice? What are the characteristics of Gamification and how can it be applied to real project and
programme management scenarios? At North Highland, we use this as a technique when delivering projects and programmes
for our clients to positive effect: Here’s how:
About North Highland
North Highland is a global consulting company
with a proven record of enabling great returns
on our clients’ investment. Our high-calibre
consultants offer deep experience and expertise
across many diverse industries and service
areas. We specialise in solving tough business
challenges, being easy to work with, and
nurturing long-standing relationships with the
most recognisable brands in the world.
At North Highland, one of our core services is
project & programme leadership (PPL), which is
about defining an organisation’s optimum change
portfolio and helping them deliver against it to
realise their strategic aims
Ask any of our clients and they’ll tell you.
2. A global travel company – as an agile ‘scrum master’
delivering a major programme, we wanted to increase the
accuracy of our work package time and cost forecasts. By
implementing a voting game with playing cards, we witnessed
an increase in participation, challenge and awareness of each
work package, resulting in engagement of project members
and a reduction in plan slippage by 50%.