Assignment

Individual

D3392– Ir. Togar A. Napitupulu, MS., MSc., Ph.D

Session 5
Tobe SubmittedWeek (i+1)th

MGMT 8047–Advanced Topics in MIS

 Make summary of the second article discussed in class – not the one
discussed in depth or detail – in each session, maximum two pages.

 Provide comments, in particular how the article can be further

expanded or extended or applied to a different setting in order to write
another new article based on the article.

 You only need to do this for four (4) articles of your choice out of ten
(10) articles covered in all sessions.

 If you choose article from session i you should submit the summary in
session (i+1), the week after; except if the article is from session 10. For
this, you should submit the summary during exam period or submit to
the secretary at the 8th floor during exam period.

MGMT 8047–Advanced Topics in MIS

 More and more people seem to be peddling gamification in the enterprise, and it’s
working. An increasing number of companies are “gamifying” their processes, or want
to. For many, the solution to re-engaging employees and improving employee training
lies in gamification.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned. Maybe I’m too old to fully appreciate the power of games. But
I think we need to use gamification with a lot of caution.

Gamification is the process of using game mechanics and game thinking in non-gaming
businesses to engage users and to solve problems.

But gamification isn’t just about turning everything into fun and games. Three elements
are at work in gamification:

A. Game mechanics

These are the elements of the game itself: the characters, setting or environment, the goal
or mission, and the obstacles. It also includes things like how the user gets feedback on
their game performance (such as collecting points, lives or hearts), reward systems, and
the like. These are the game elements that will initially hook the users.

B. Reputation mechanics

These elements have to do with how users gain status in the game, such as game levels
and user ranks. Moving up confers benefits, such as unlocking new worlds or earning
bonus items.

MGMT 8047–Advanced Topics in MIS

C. Social mechanics

These elements allow users to interact with each other in the game, share information
about each other’s progress, and even play with or against each other.

These three mechanics, working together, are said to have immense benefits to the
enterprise.

At its core, gamification is about engaging people on an emotional level and

motivating them to achieve their goals. One way to motivate people is to present them
with compelling and personalised challenges; encourage them as they progress through
levels, and get them emotionally engaged to achieve their very best. This all sounds very
good, but I strongly suspect that implementers will place more focus on aspects of the
technology and the mechanics of gamification applications than engaging with potential
users. After all technology is relatively simple to understand whereas people are far more
complex. The long and painful history of failed projects usually stems from the tendency
to focus on technology first and people (users) second.

I’m also sure there will also be some amazing success stories, where gamification
has delivered better user engagement, increased employee satisfaction and advocacy, or
opened up opportunities for innovation, but this will depend largely on how willing the
industry is to share good practice. And only time can tell whether or not these desirable
behaviour changes are sustainable over the long term.

MGMT 8047–Advanced Topics in MIS