Gamification, according to Duggan, is “taking techniques that make games engaging and addictive and applying them to things that are not games.” In particular it’s about providing rapid non-financial recognition and rewards to reinforce positive behaviors. As Aristotle put it: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Deloitte had a challenge. They had designed a leadership training curriculum for senior executives that they knew had a positive impact in those that went through it. But there was no structured way to encourage executives to start and complete the program. So Badgeville put a series of gamified elements – badges, leaderboards and status symbols – in place for participating in and completing courses that everyone could see. By doing this, time to certification for participants reduced by 50 percent.
According to Duggan, the magic is in identifying the behaviors to encourage and then setting up rule systems to recognize them. In employee-facing programs, this can be driving collaboration, increasing training and compliance efficiency or improving general productivity across enterprise applications.