Playing is the most original form of human learning, and gaming brings a new way of problem solving to the business world. Gamification is all about taking the features that make games so engaging and applying them in other kinds of activities. There are many ways of gamifying the work environment.
Let's take a look at some common techniques we used at Mighty Block to have fun while achieving goals while working.
But first, What does a gamification activity have to have?
There are many different features that can be applied to gamify an activity such as:
- The use of rewards, points and achievements to motivate the team to reach a certain goal or to participate in a specific activity.
- Badges that reward players for achieving something important
- Leaderboards that show how players stack up against the competition
- Missions that help employees make meaningful decisions in a gaming environment
- Checkpoints that mark progress toward a goal
Gamification used to generate team bonding
In 2022 the Mihgty Bloclk team grew very quickly. We celebrated our first anniversary in July, doubling the headcount from January.
There were a lot of questions about the new team members: their roles, objectives and also their experiences.
So we decided to help the team get to know each other better, but how?
One of the first workshops took place in July 2022: For the very first time the team was all together. Before the workshop, we asked the team for a picture from their childhood. However, they did not know the objective of it. With these pictures we made a big mural and numbered each of them.
The team playing
Upon their arrival on the first day, they found the mural and then we set the game's rules:
- Everyone has to write on a doc which picture corresponds to which member of the team
- Then we reveal the correct name of each picture
- If they guess correctly, they get 1 point
- The player with most points wins a reward
It was a very special event because the team not only had a fun time, but was able to share more about their personal lives.
It was a moment where we could move from our professional mindset and connect from a personal point of view.
Gamification used to Learn - Defi challenge
As we are on a mission to bring Web3 products to the masses, the team should have experience using the most used tools because their knowledge helps us to build better products. We realised that we had a gap to fill in this field so the team created the "defi challenge"
The main objective was to learn about Decentralised Finance, and have fun! The challenge has 2 levels and each one has specific goals such as: Download and install Metamask , obtain a token using a Decentralised Exchange or Mint an NFT using a marketplace, open a lend/supply position and stake a coin.
The competitor that saves more gas (expressed in ETH) receives a Gas Saver badge. Also, there is a special mention for the Gas Guzzler
At the end of the first edition, we got great insights:
Level 1 was completed by 100% of the participants and they acquired knowledge of: Web3, decentralised protocols, NFTs platforms and token management.
100% of the level 2 participants acquired knowledge of: lending/staking, complex DeFi protocols and operations with NFTs.
Possible Web3 projects were identified as a result of the experience during the challenge
Gamification used to create a shared purpose
In this article, we talked about how we design some Mighty Blog culture elements (Edgar Schein). As we described, to design our core values we created a fictional scenario in order to introduce the team in a creative way.
We imagine an unreal situation where we need to clone 3 people from the team to achieve a big goal.
With a description of the team characteristics we wrote a very long list of abilities, capabilities, highly valued skills and this was the base for the core value design.
The gamification in this example was to set up an unrealistic environment, with us as players or main characters in a big story. We use Storytelling with the purpose of engaging the team in the activity: creating the culture elements.
Playing a game together to define our core values was key to establishing our culture. When we talk about having a "white belt attitude" or being "team players", we know exactly what we mean because everyone on the team was involved in its creation and development.
Finally: don't forget to have fun
The success of the gamification method is that people have fun while achieving another objective at work. Several investigations highlighted the importance of fun and laughter. For example, it improves short term memory, reduces stress and protects against heart disease.
"Focusing on the good isn't just about overcoming our inner grump to see the glass half full. It's about opening our minds to the ideas and opportunities that will help us be more productive, effective and successful at work and in life", says The Happiness Advantage author Shawn Achor, an expert on happiness psychology.
We can conclude that having fun has a lot of benefits for our wellness, and it has a huge impact on our company culture, so let's encourage ourselves to start gamifying our day-to-day.
No comments:
Post a Comment