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Using Gamification to Build a
Passionate and Quality-Driven Software
Development Team
Applying game design techniques can increase software quality and
motivate employees to improve the complex software development
process across the lifecycle.
Executive Summary
More than 70% of Global 2000 organizations will
have at least one gamified application and 50% of
companies that manage innovation and research
will use gamification to drive innovation by 2015,
according to Gartner research.1
If so, this means
gamification has transcended buzzword status
and has moved into the mainstream of corporate
computing.
But what is gamification? In simple terms, it is a
fun, outcome-based process of employing “game”
elements and techniques to engage employees,
reward and recognize individuals and keep people
motivated to achieve end results. Gamification is
evolving, however, and in many pundits’ minds
will play a key role in managing innovation — both
internal and external — for many organizations.
The reason? Organizations are challenged to
effectively engage employees and customers to
achieve basic business goals. Using points, levels,
rewards, badges, etc. to incent performance and
honor accomplishments, is seen as a powerful 21st
century way of stoking the competitive nature of
human beings — particularly millennials who have
grown up in a digital world where gaming is often
the rule not the exception.
To properly leverage gamification, organizations
must first understand basic game mechanics that
successfully engage employees. For starters, many
of these concepts can be applied in non-gaming
situations throughout the company’s business
model. For companies starting to gamify activities,
the first design point is to identify ways to motivate
participants to achieve key goals — and those
goals should align with the company’s business
objectives. For starters, we suggest gamifying
project management, innovation, the software-
development training process and delivery.
Gamification can start with internal as well
as external initiatives. Internal gamification
processes are aimed at keeping employees
greatly satisfied and excelling in creating quality
work products. External gamification is aimed at
maintaining a happy customer base and in turn
achieving business goals.
This white paper discusses the process and
framework of gamification and proposes an
approach for applying game mechanics and
dynamics in software development and delivery
models. It looks at why gamification is necessary,
examines realistic processes to be followed on
• Cognizant 20-20 Insights
cognizant 20-20 insights | february 2014
2
the ground and identifies the key benefits to be
reaped, supported by case studies from projects
we have implemented. We will also explain
how game design techniques can be used in
non-gaming environments that not only engage
and motivate employees, but also improve
customer satisfaction and engagement, gleaned
from our client interactions.
Why Gamification?
Most organizations are challenged to understand
business initiatives or employee behavior
changes that can affect the achievement of
long- and/or short-term goals. Moreover, gaming
techniques, although in vogue as a result of the
digital revolution, are not really new. In fact, many
organizations already have reward systems to
recognize their employees’ work (i.e., “Employee
of the Month/Year”) and thereby increase
employee engagement and motivation levels.
Once the basic definitions are understood, orga-
nization need to ask the following questions:
•	What are the problem areas?
•	Why should we invest in gamification?
•	How can business use gamification to engage,
foster collaboration among and motivate
employees?
In the traditional feedback cycle, employees often
wait a year for their performance to be recognized
by management. By changing existing protocols
and processes, organizations can enable fast
and meaningful feedback, accelerating employee
growth and learning. This is important for orga-
nizations seeking to build or extend momentum.
Sadly, in many businesses short-term goals are
unclear, particularly as the business environment
evolves, making change inevitable. Moreover,
rules often lack transparency; rewards and recog-
nition are rarely given to participants who excel
across functional areas throughout the year.
Long-term goals are often more focused, but
companies need to work to establish small wins,
intermediate milestones and a drive to master
new skills to keep employees motivated and
contributing business value. To extend com-
petitive advantage, they need systems to enable
employees to earn rewards and respect within
their peer groups, as well as to validate their skills
and the abilities of others. The key is to create
competition in a scalable, automated way that
can be used to drive repeatable results. Driving
competition, collaboration, networking and
knowledge-sharing among employees is critical
to achieving long-term organizational goals.
cognizant 20-20 insights
Figure 1
Gamification: What Is It?
Gamification
Playful
Designing
Toys
Play
Games
PartialWhole
(Serious)
Games
gamification = gam(e) + -ification
• applying game-design thinking to non-game applications to make
them more fun and engaging
3cognizant 20-20 insights
Successful software development and mainte-
nance projects are typically advanced by collabo-
ration, effective teamwork, active participation,
enthusiasm and quality deliverables. Challenges
normally arise on software quality, meeting per-
formance benchmarks, on-time delivery with
improved quality, innovation, value-adds to cus-
tomers, etc. Managing employees’ behavior and
motivation levels is yet another challenge for IT
organizations. Utilizing gamification techniques
as part of the software development process can
assist in dealing with some of these challenges,
particularly motivationally oriented ones. Gami-
fication brings the process of applying game
mechanics and dynamics into software develop-
ment and the delivery model. Game mechanics,
including elements such as points, scoreboards,
levels and challenges, can drive developers to
outperform the competition, hit personal and
professional achievements, gain rewards and rec-
ognition, track progress and feedback, find ways
to express themselves and improve their motiva-
tion levels.
Gamification can be implemented in many
software development and maintenance activities
such as on-time delivery, performance improve-
ment, code quality, requirement management,
defects fixed during maintenance and knowledge
management. To achieve delivery excellence,
most companies have a business strategy in place.
But most realize they have to go the extra mile
and engage customers and employees through
the power of gamificaton.
Gamification Tools and Framework
As noted above, gamification uses game
mechanics such as points, collaboration, fun,
challenges, levels, Leaderboards (or scoreboards)
and rewards to engage employees and drive their
behavior. Game dynamics include those things
that make people love games — including compe-
tition, rewards, recognition, status, self-expres-
sion and altruism. By enabling reward systems
and increasing game levels, organizations can
continuously engage employees to achieve short-
or long-term organization objectives.
Organization or project teams should use a
framework to facilitate the process of gamifi-
cation. This means employing game designers
who use various strategies and frameworks to
create new games, provide more attention to
defining game rules, bring out various levels to
challenge employees, offer attractive reward
mechanisms, etc. Gamifying business activities
requires a clear and transparent process to track
the progress, provide real-time feedback and also
recognize employees whose talents distinguish
their performance.
The project manager should clearly identify the
business problem, define rules and goals to incor-
porate the game features used in work activities,
reward and recognize the desired behavior, track
progress and establish feedback loops to achieve
the organization or project-specific business
objectives. Well-designed games challenge
players, encouraging them to move to various
levels and unleash passion and commitment until
they complete all levels.
The gamification process has a framework of
points, feedback, leaderboards, badges, rewards
and levels for players to see their progress and
compare their performance with others to achieve
the organization’s long-term goals (see Figure 2).
Lessons Learned
In 2012 Gartner predicted that by 2014 over 80%
of current gamified processes will fail, primarily
due to poor design, improper rules and poorly
defined goals and reward mechanisms.2
The
simplest way to overcome failure is to understand
the problem better, know your audience, define
rules and establish goals representing business
objectives. These steps enable gamification to
be implemented in ways that educate employees
about the process of playing the game and
thereby achieving the organization or project-
specific business objectives.
Figure 2
Gamification Tools
Measurement
Badg
es
Goals
Rules
Rewards
Leaderboards
Gamification
Tools
Real-Time
Feedback
cognizant 20-20 insights 4
Figure 3
The Essential Elements of a Gamification Framework
Gamification Tools
and Framework
Description
Set Goals
The goals layer is where the organization or project team plans and communi-
cates goal objectives to employees. Define clear goals and well-defined rules of
play to ensure employees feel empowered to carry out their defined objectives.
Enable the process to set milestones that can be achieved in a short timespan
to make regular progress.
Simplify the gamification process for employees and specify the goals and
rules about what they can and cannot do in the game, define the points table
to know the scores and list the game levels. Gamification focuses on business
goals, rules and feedback mechanisms used by both the employees and the
organization.
Set Rules
Define a simple set of principles that can be interpreted easily. Communicating
the rules is a critical task in defining and deploying a game. Rules define limits
on players to accomplish the goals.
Rewards
The rewards system is a very critical part and big motivation for a project
team that needs to be addressed by the manager. Employees feel very good on
completion of the assigned tasks but at the same time they become motivated
to achieve new rewards or awards in bigger forums.
Leaderboards/
Scoreboards
In typical game design, players know where they stand in the game and also
other players’ status. A sense of progress is very important even if it’s small,
as it is critical to keep employees motivated and highly engaged. Employees
in an organization want to know how they are doing and expect a system in
place to share feedback frequently in the areas they need to focus on. It is
the organization’s or project manager’s responsibility to track progress and
communicate feedback and areas of improvement to employees in an easily
digestible format. Set up a series of small wins to engage employees and keep
them motivated to achieve long-term goals.
Real-Time Feedback
We get instant feedback while we play games. Positive feedback energizes
players; negative feedback enables players to focus on their improvement
areas and perform better.
Currently, many employees receive feedback annually; organizations should
change the system to share real-time feedback frequently with employees to
improve their delivery excellence. Timely feedback is essential for employees
to focus on the improvement areas. During the gamification effort, the project
team should determine the metrics to be tracked and update the leaderboard
on a regular basis with an analysis of the metrics against benchmarks. This
process helps employees to understand their progress and the work needed
to achieve the defined goals. The feedback to the employees should be in real
time and suggest to them if they need to change their behavior to perform the
assigned tasks.
Measurement
The project team should define the metrics that can be utilized during the
gamification effort to see the team progress toward its goals. During the gami-
fication process, there may be situations or events requiring a change in the
defined metrics and elements. The process should be flexible enough to accom-
modate such changes and communicate the same to employees.
Badges
The organization faces a challenge in identifying employees’ strengths and
expertise. This is crucial for the organization in order to achieve the long-term
goals by assembling great teams. Employees need identity in the workplace —
i.e., reputation, certification, achievements, etc. This shows individual ability
and demonstrates mastery of skills and accomplishments. Badges solve this
problem and help employees to earn rewards, skills and validation.
cognizant 20-20 insights 5
For starters, point systems and rules should be
transparent to employees. During one gamification
effortforaclientinthelegalsoftwareproductdevel-
opment space, we encountered confusion about
the game rules and point system. Rules defined
in the gamification effort were not explained
properly to employees, which led to confusion. Due
to this confusion, only a few employees were happy
when the results were announced and rewards and
badges were bestowed. Transparency in commu-
nication about the rules and points system and
educating the entire team on the process before
kick-starting gamification is critical. Draft a clear
communication plan and make it transparent with
employees during the effort; this can ensure com-
munication with meaning for all.
Things may go wrong if the actual business
problem and customer demands are not
addressed as part of the gamification process.
Therefore, organizations need to elevate their
understanding by conducting employee surveys
and make the required improvements in their
next gamification endeavor. Finally, gamification
should be created to enhance organizational fun,
collaboration and competition where employees
will be motivated and recognized with rewards
for interacting with one another to achieve the
business goals.
Ready, Set, Go
The use of gaming elements such as badges,
levels, points, rewards, etc. can help to identify
and recognize employee talents and achieve-
Quick Take
Gamification has a potential market in assisting
project teams to deliver quality software that
exceeds customer expectations and meets their
business objectives. As such, it is a tool to enable
enhanced collaboration, communication and
knowledge capture and retention.
•	Employee adoption and mastery of new
skills/technologies: Developers will be skilled
and masterful in new technologies along with
defined processes during the gamification run.
The drive to master new skills is an essential
motivator for employees and improves their
engagement. Gamification can help generate
new product/process ideas and solutions and
discover experts and information quickly and
easily.
•	Employee motivation: Running gamification
contests improves employee motivation and
will be seen as a talent recognition tool.
•	Employee collaboration: Gamification helps
team members stay connected with others in
the team and be more sociable.
•	Employee retention: Announce attractive
rewards and a recognition program that
encourages and motivates employees to attain
business goals. This increases the chance to
retain employees.
•	Rewards and recognition: It gives employees
greater motivation as they receive appre-
ciation, respect, rewards and recognition
throughout the gamification contest.
•	Track progress and feedback: Gamifica-
tion allows employees to keep track of their
progress and obtain real-time feedback — i.e.,
they will not have to wait for yearly progress
assessments. Understanding employee
expertise is crucial for a company to build a
passionate team and maximize value for both
employees and the organization.
•	Productivity improvement: Improve con-
sistency and quality by providing real-time
feedback and metrics on performance versus
benchmarks and let employees know how their
efforts compare to their past performance.
•	Customer satisfaction: Gamification can
improve the quality of customer care. When
employees are engaged and committed, their
quality of work improves.
•	Drive competition: Create healthy competi-
tion and collaboration among employees in a
scalable and automated way to drive repeatable
results.
Organization Benefits
cognizant 20-20 insights 6
ments. The organization should focus on the
areas to engage and encourage employee col-
laboration as a community.
Sustaining developer interest in a long and monot-
onous process can be challenging, raising obsta-
cles to rewarding and recognizing performers. To
overcome this, organizations must:
•	Accelerate the feedback cycle.
•	Establish tangible goals and level the playing
field.
•	Identify challenges and create meaningful
rewards.
Gamification brings a mindset shift to employees
and motivates them to continuously perform
better throughout the year. Peer pressure kicks
in and facilitates a faster feedback cycle that
shares achievements and improvement areas
with employees.
Gamification helps us to deliver quality software
that exceeds client expectations and fulfills their
business requirements. It also can be leveraged
in employee learning and training programs and
innovation initiatives. Gamification techniques
and frameworks can be applied in both application
development (AD) and application value manage-
ment (AVM) projects, as highlighted below.
Gamification in Delivery Model:
Case Studies
Bugs Premier League: Improving
Defect Closure Rate
•	Background: One of the leading global
providers of legal information and services
solutions to professionals had encountered
a major challenge in controlling production
backlog defects. The count was growing, with
an average of 40 to 50 new defects every week.
The assigned maintenance team did not have
enough bandwidth to address the backlog as
a result of constant inflows. Given resource
bandwidth constraints and business stakehold-
er dependencies, the weekly defect outflow has
been drastically reduced. Due to high defects
inflow every week and clarification dependen-
cies with customer SMEs and project stakehold-
ers, the backlog defects count surpassed 500.
Customer budget constraints made it difficult
to add more positions to control the incoming
defects and reduce the backlog count. Our
management was concerned about the rising
backlog numbers every week. Developers
appeared to lack the motivation to go that extra
mile to fix the backlog defects.
•	Goals: Reduce backlog maintenance defects
count from 500+ to fewer than 50 defects in a
three month time frame.
•	Leaderboard: We published a dashboard to
the bug fix team on a weekly basis to show
the progress of defect fixing, featuring a trend
chart and announcement of top developers of
the week (along with their photos and scores).
•	Solution: We rolled out a Bugs Premier League
(BPL) gamification contest, similar to an Indian
Premier League (IPL) cricket series (with names
and captains), to reduce the backlog mainte-
nance defect count. The objective of this con-
test was to engage both development and main-
tenance teams to reduce the backlog defect
count within three months. The game elements
involved distributing orange caps to bug bust-
ers (employees who fixed the most defects),
purple caps to bug crushers (teams that fixed
the most defects) and green caps to backlog
controllers (employees from the maintenance
team who fixed the most defects) along with the
weekly publication of winners and the top five
contenders. This encouraged the team to break
out of the silo and fix more production defects
in a shorter period. The defects have now been
reduced to double digits. The maintenance
team’s responsibility is to control the backlogs
by fixing all the incoming defects the same week
they are identified to ensure no spillovers are
added to the backlog list. Weekly rewards and
recognition are given to developers and module
leads based on the bug fix league scores.
•	Benefits:
>> Resolved 800+ defects in a 10-week time
frame; defect backlog count was reduced
to double digits from 500 (baselined at the
start of the contest).
>> Developers controlled the backlogs by fixing
all incoming defects in the same week.
>> Increased defect fixing rate by more than
75%.
>> Increased employee motivation and engage-
ment, with many of them now going the ex-
tra mile to clear out backlog defects.
>> Improved customer satisfaction and their
confidence in our team as a result of our
gamification effort.
3Curve Contest: Improving Code Quality
and Performance
•	Background: Cost of quality was high, as nearly
20% of our effort was spent on reviewing code
cognizant 20-20 insights 7
Figure 4
The Bugs Premier League
BUGS PREMIER LEAGUE: Gamification
Severity Score/Points
Sev 1 100
Sev 2 50
Sev 3 25
Sev 4,5,6 10
SMASH BUGS ACROSS THE BOUNDARY AND WIN EXCITING PRIZES
Scores for Severity
Royal Shepard
TOC Risers
Retriever Riders
Search Super Kings
Rolling Out Bugs Premier League (BPL) Contest to
reduce maintenance backlog count from 500+ to less than 50
• Fixing SEV 2 defects takes priority – Do not fix other severity defects until the SEV 2’s are cleared.
• Fix/analyze other module defects only after clearing their module backlogs.
• Start fixing SEV 3 defects only after bringing down SEV 2 backlog count to 0.
• Bonus points will be awarded to whoever fixes/analyze the other module defects.
• Status update must be shared with Maintenance Lead on a daily basis.
BPL Team
Mr. BugBuster – Associate who fixes the most number of defects.
Bug Crushers – Team fixes the most number of defects.
Backlog Controller – Maintenance team associate who fixes the most number of
defects.
Bug Crushers of the Tournament – Recognize team who fixed most no. of defects during
tournament duration.
BugBuster of the Tournament – The associate who fixed most no. of defects during tourna-
ment duration.
Best Backlog Controller – This award goes to maintenance team associate who fixed most
no. of defects during tournament duration.
BPL Tournament Awards
BPL Weekly Awards
BPL Rules League Duration : April – Jun 2013
Trophy
W
AH
Points Certificates
Surprise Gifts
Rewards and Gifts
Figure 5
Bugs Premier League Leaderboard
BUGS PREMIER LEAGUE: Content Services
SMASH BUGS ACROSS THE BOUNDARY AND WIN EXCITING PRIZES
BPL Weekly Awards (Week 15-July 5th to July 11th) Backlog Trend Chart
Current League Toppers
Orange Cap
Praveen 2025
Sreelakshmi 1748
Chenna 1225
Pattabi 5100 TOC Risers 9420
Search Super Kings 2955
Retrieve Riders 2112
Royal Shepards 860
Praveen 4450
Leon 3475
Points Green Cap Points Purple Cap Points
BugBuster Leon — 50 points
Buglog Controller Pattabi — 275 points
Bug Crushers TOC Risers
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
492492 492
492
492
492
492
492
492
492 492 492 492
492 492 492
49 49 49 49 49 49 49
49
49
49 49 49 49 49
49 49 49 49 49 49 49
49
49
49 49 49 49 49
cognizant 20-20 insights 8
and test cases. Performance bottlenecks were
identified later in the systems development
lifecycle (SDLC), and the cost to fix emerging
performance issues was high and impacted our
release schedule. Code quality was not easily
measured. More defects arose from the system
testing cycle as test cases were insufficient.
•	Goals: Showcase delivery excellence with
respect to code quality, performance improve-
ments and on-time tasks completion.
•	Leaderboard: Published weekly to the team to
show the progress of release deliverables and
announce top developers of the week along
with their photos.
•	Solution: Implementation of SONAR — an open-
source code-analysis tool for improving code
quality — and customization to include cus-
tomer-specific coding standards. Integration
of niche technology rules and code coverage
under the one roof of SONAR. Automated
evaluation of code using SONAR and a report
sent to developers via e-mail to take appropri-
ate actions and fix all violations. Use of perfor-
mance driven development (PDD) to identify
and fix performance bottlenecks in the coding
phase of the project. Recognize and reward
developers and module leads each week based
on the progress shown along these parameters.
•	Benefits:
>> Cost of quality was reduced 75% by auto-
mating the code quality checks and code and
test coverage.
>> Development and integration of niche tech-
nology’s rules with SONAR brings more con-
trol over defect leakage.
>> Easy monitoring of the progress through au-
tomated scripts to run based on the current
version of the source control system.
>> Reduction of performance-related issues at
the later stage of the development cycle.
Figure 6
3Curve Gamification Contest
3Curve Contest: Gamification
Trophy
W
AH
Points
Certificates
Criteria Sev1 Defect Sev2 Defect Sev3 Defect
Introduce new SONAR violations -50 Points -30 Points -10 Points
Fixing existing SONAR violations 30 Points 20 Points 10 Points
Fixing defect raised by SME or
onsite Team – INT/CERT cycle
30 Points 20 Points 10 Points
Defect fixed by development
team – INT/CERT cycle 25 Points 15 Points 5 Points
Defect raised by testing team –
INT/CERT cycle
-50 Points -30 Points -10 Points
Criteria Points
Meet performance KPIs 50 Points
Deviation or performance degradation -20 Points
Code Quality – Points Table
Performance Measurements – Points Table
Features/Tasks Completion – Points Table
On time task/feature completion 20 Points
Delay/incomplete feature completion -10 Points
Rewards and Gifts
Launching gamification contest for release deliverables –
encourage team members to showcase their excellence in code
quality, features completion & performance improvements.
The winners are announced every
Friday afternoon:
•Best module for the week
•Best developer for the week
The contest is measured under
three parameters:
•Code quality using SONAR
•Features/tasks completion on time
•Performance improvements
using PDD
At the end of the release, best devel-
opers and best modules and most
valuable player awards will be
announced.
Criteria Points
cognizant 20-20 insights 9
Figure 7
SONAR
Integration
• Development and integration of niche technology rules with SONAR brings more
control over defect leakage.
• Cost of quality was brought down by 75% by automating code quality checks
and code and test coverage.
• Performance driven development (PDD) process was incorporated to address
performance hotspots during development cycle.
• Reduction of performance-related issues in the later stage of development.
• Effective usage of TFS Urban Turtle to track the development task status and
timely feature completion.
• Innovation Café portal encourages creativity among associates and
recognizes out-of-the-box thinking.
• This portal helps associates to log their ideas, conduct depth rating and select the
best innovation and top ideators.
• Providing interface to upload the generated ideas into iSpace portal.
• Defect Tracker pulls down the open defects from the system and circulates the
dashboard via e-mail to the development team.
• Associate takes an action based on the published dashboard and starts to fix the
defects accordingly.
Maintenance
DefectTracker
Innovation
Cafe
Urban
Turtle
Performance-Driven
Development
Cost of
Quality
Performance
On-Time Delivery
Innovation&
ThoughtLeadership
Backlog
Reduction
Gamification Tools and Measurements
Figure 8
75%
<50
$1.6M
4.0
Cost of Quality Employee Motivation & Satisfaction
Innovation Value
Backlog Tickets
Performance Fixes Effort
•Reduced cost of quality –
75% reductionin CoQ.
•Fully automated – integrated
SONAR dashboard.
•9.75 – Highest Codenizant
Score – among the Java proj-
ects at Cognizant level.
DELIVERY
HIGHLIGHTS
200
hours
•80% improvement on
performance fixes effort.
•APDD – performance
driven development used.
•Proactive measures to
identify & fix performance
bottleneck in dev. cycle.
•> 190 rewards & recognitions – regular floor
meet, leaderboard, badges, Wah! points.
•Improved employee motivation as they
receive appreciation, respect and R&R
throughout the gamification contest.
•400+ ideas from 90 associates.
•Implementing ideas worth
$1.6 million.
•100% innovation index –
in less than 6 months.
•30+ tools implemented.
•Declining backlog tickets –
<50 tickets pending.
•Increased customer satisfaction.
Delivery Excellence Achievements Post-Gamification
About Cognizant
Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process out-
sourcing services, dedicated to helping the world’s leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in
Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry
and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 50
delivery centers worldwide and approximately 171,400 employees as of December 31, 2013, Cognizant is a member of
the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing
and fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow us on Twitter: Cognizant.
World Headquarters
500 Frank W. Burr Blvd.
Teaneck, NJ 07666 USA
Phone: +1 201 801 0233
Fax: +1 201 801 0243
Toll Free: +1 888 937 3277
Email: inquiry@cognizant.com
European Headquarters
1 Kingdom Street
Paddington Central
London W2 6BD
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7297 7600
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7121 0102
Email: infouk@cognizant.com
India Operations Headquarters
#5/535, Old Mahabalipuram Road
Okkiyam Pettai, Thoraipakkam
Chennai, 600 096 India
Phone: +91 (0) 44 4209 6000
Fax: +91 (0) 44 4209 6060
Email: inquiryindia@cognizant.com
­­© Copyright 2014, Cognizant. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission from Cognizant. The information contained herein is
subject to change without notice. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.
About the Author
Senthil Rajamarthandan is a Senior Manager within Cognizant’s Advanced Solutions Practice. He has
more than 16 years of service delivery experience with a key focus on global project and service delivery
management, with an emphasis on P&L and delivery management in North America. He is currently
responsible for program and solution delivery of an online legal research application developed by a
leading U.S.-based legal information services provider. He has delivered large critical programs successful-
ly for Fortune 500 organizations across multiple segments. He holds a B.E. (electrical and electronics) and
a master’s degree in business administration from ICFAI university and is a certified Project Management
Professional (PMP). He can be reached at Senthilkumar.Rajamarthandan@cognizant.com.
Footnotes
1	
Gartner Press Release, “Analysts Explore the Role of Enterprise Architects in Gamification,”
http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1629214.
2	
Gartner Press Release, “Gamification Trends and Strategies to Help Prepare for the Future,”
http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2251015.

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Using Gamification to Build a Passionate and Quality-Driven Software Development Team

  • 1. Using Gamification to Build a Passionate and Quality-Driven Software Development Team Applying game design techniques can increase software quality and motivate employees to improve the complex software development process across the lifecycle. Executive Summary More than 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application and 50% of companies that manage innovation and research will use gamification to drive innovation by 2015, according to Gartner research.1 If so, this means gamification has transcended buzzword status and has moved into the mainstream of corporate computing. But what is gamification? In simple terms, it is a fun, outcome-based process of employing “game” elements and techniques to engage employees, reward and recognize individuals and keep people motivated to achieve end results. Gamification is evolving, however, and in many pundits’ minds will play a key role in managing innovation — both internal and external — for many organizations. The reason? Organizations are challenged to effectively engage employees and customers to achieve basic business goals. Using points, levels, rewards, badges, etc. to incent performance and honor accomplishments, is seen as a powerful 21st century way of stoking the competitive nature of human beings — particularly millennials who have grown up in a digital world where gaming is often the rule not the exception. To properly leverage gamification, organizations must first understand basic game mechanics that successfully engage employees. For starters, many of these concepts can be applied in non-gaming situations throughout the company’s business model. For companies starting to gamify activities, the first design point is to identify ways to motivate participants to achieve key goals — and those goals should align with the company’s business objectives. For starters, we suggest gamifying project management, innovation, the software- development training process and delivery. Gamification can start with internal as well as external initiatives. Internal gamification processes are aimed at keeping employees greatly satisfied and excelling in creating quality work products. External gamification is aimed at maintaining a happy customer base and in turn achieving business goals. This white paper discusses the process and framework of gamification and proposes an approach for applying game mechanics and dynamics in software development and delivery models. It looks at why gamification is necessary, examines realistic processes to be followed on • Cognizant 20-20 Insights cognizant 20-20 insights | february 2014
  • 2. 2 the ground and identifies the key benefits to be reaped, supported by case studies from projects we have implemented. We will also explain how game design techniques can be used in non-gaming environments that not only engage and motivate employees, but also improve customer satisfaction and engagement, gleaned from our client interactions. Why Gamification? Most organizations are challenged to understand business initiatives or employee behavior changes that can affect the achievement of long- and/or short-term goals. Moreover, gaming techniques, although in vogue as a result of the digital revolution, are not really new. In fact, many organizations already have reward systems to recognize their employees’ work (i.e., “Employee of the Month/Year”) and thereby increase employee engagement and motivation levels. Once the basic definitions are understood, orga- nization need to ask the following questions: • What are the problem areas? • Why should we invest in gamification? • How can business use gamification to engage, foster collaboration among and motivate employees? In the traditional feedback cycle, employees often wait a year for their performance to be recognized by management. By changing existing protocols and processes, organizations can enable fast and meaningful feedback, accelerating employee growth and learning. This is important for orga- nizations seeking to build or extend momentum. Sadly, in many businesses short-term goals are unclear, particularly as the business environment evolves, making change inevitable. Moreover, rules often lack transparency; rewards and recog- nition are rarely given to participants who excel across functional areas throughout the year. Long-term goals are often more focused, but companies need to work to establish small wins, intermediate milestones and a drive to master new skills to keep employees motivated and contributing business value. To extend com- petitive advantage, they need systems to enable employees to earn rewards and respect within their peer groups, as well as to validate their skills and the abilities of others. The key is to create competition in a scalable, automated way that can be used to drive repeatable results. Driving competition, collaboration, networking and knowledge-sharing among employees is critical to achieving long-term organizational goals. cognizant 20-20 insights Figure 1 Gamification: What Is It? Gamification Playful Designing Toys Play Games PartialWhole (Serious) Games gamification = gam(e) + -ification • applying game-design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging
  • 3. 3cognizant 20-20 insights Successful software development and mainte- nance projects are typically advanced by collabo- ration, effective teamwork, active participation, enthusiasm and quality deliverables. Challenges normally arise on software quality, meeting per- formance benchmarks, on-time delivery with improved quality, innovation, value-adds to cus- tomers, etc. Managing employees’ behavior and motivation levels is yet another challenge for IT organizations. Utilizing gamification techniques as part of the software development process can assist in dealing with some of these challenges, particularly motivationally oriented ones. Gami- fication brings the process of applying game mechanics and dynamics into software develop- ment and the delivery model. Game mechanics, including elements such as points, scoreboards, levels and challenges, can drive developers to outperform the competition, hit personal and professional achievements, gain rewards and rec- ognition, track progress and feedback, find ways to express themselves and improve their motiva- tion levels. Gamification can be implemented in many software development and maintenance activities such as on-time delivery, performance improve- ment, code quality, requirement management, defects fixed during maintenance and knowledge management. To achieve delivery excellence, most companies have a business strategy in place. But most realize they have to go the extra mile and engage customers and employees through the power of gamificaton. Gamification Tools and Framework As noted above, gamification uses game mechanics such as points, collaboration, fun, challenges, levels, Leaderboards (or scoreboards) and rewards to engage employees and drive their behavior. Game dynamics include those things that make people love games — including compe- tition, rewards, recognition, status, self-expres- sion and altruism. By enabling reward systems and increasing game levels, organizations can continuously engage employees to achieve short- or long-term organization objectives. Organization or project teams should use a framework to facilitate the process of gamifi- cation. This means employing game designers who use various strategies and frameworks to create new games, provide more attention to defining game rules, bring out various levels to challenge employees, offer attractive reward mechanisms, etc. Gamifying business activities requires a clear and transparent process to track the progress, provide real-time feedback and also recognize employees whose talents distinguish their performance. The project manager should clearly identify the business problem, define rules and goals to incor- porate the game features used in work activities, reward and recognize the desired behavior, track progress and establish feedback loops to achieve the organization or project-specific business objectives. Well-designed games challenge players, encouraging them to move to various levels and unleash passion and commitment until they complete all levels. The gamification process has a framework of points, feedback, leaderboards, badges, rewards and levels for players to see their progress and compare their performance with others to achieve the organization’s long-term goals (see Figure 2). Lessons Learned In 2012 Gartner predicted that by 2014 over 80% of current gamified processes will fail, primarily due to poor design, improper rules and poorly defined goals and reward mechanisms.2 The simplest way to overcome failure is to understand the problem better, know your audience, define rules and establish goals representing business objectives. These steps enable gamification to be implemented in ways that educate employees about the process of playing the game and thereby achieving the organization or project- specific business objectives. Figure 2 Gamification Tools Measurement Badg es Goals Rules Rewards Leaderboards Gamification Tools Real-Time Feedback
  • 4. cognizant 20-20 insights 4 Figure 3 The Essential Elements of a Gamification Framework Gamification Tools and Framework Description Set Goals The goals layer is where the organization or project team plans and communi- cates goal objectives to employees. Define clear goals and well-defined rules of play to ensure employees feel empowered to carry out their defined objectives. Enable the process to set milestones that can be achieved in a short timespan to make regular progress. Simplify the gamification process for employees and specify the goals and rules about what they can and cannot do in the game, define the points table to know the scores and list the game levels. Gamification focuses on business goals, rules and feedback mechanisms used by both the employees and the organization. Set Rules Define a simple set of principles that can be interpreted easily. Communicating the rules is a critical task in defining and deploying a game. Rules define limits on players to accomplish the goals. Rewards The rewards system is a very critical part and big motivation for a project team that needs to be addressed by the manager. Employees feel very good on completion of the assigned tasks but at the same time they become motivated to achieve new rewards or awards in bigger forums. Leaderboards/ Scoreboards In typical game design, players know where they stand in the game and also other players’ status. A sense of progress is very important even if it’s small, as it is critical to keep employees motivated and highly engaged. Employees in an organization want to know how they are doing and expect a system in place to share feedback frequently in the areas they need to focus on. It is the organization’s or project manager’s responsibility to track progress and communicate feedback and areas of improvement to employees in an easily digestible format. Set up a series of small wins to engage employees and keep them motivated to achieve long-term goals. Real-Time Feedback We get instant feedback while we play games. Positive feedback energizes players; negative feedback enables players to focus on their improvement areas and perform better. Currently, many employees receive feedback annually; organizations should change the system to share real-time feedback frequently with employees to improve their delivery excellence. Timely feedback is essential for employees to focus on the improvement areas. During the gamification effort, the project team should determine the metrics to be tracked and update the leaderboard on a regular basis with an analysis of the metrics against benchmarks. This process helps employees to understand their progress and the work needed to achieve the defined goals. The feedback to the employees should be in real time and suggest to them if they need to change their behavior to perform the assigned tasks. Measurement The project team should define the metrics that can be utilized during the gamification effort to see the team progress toward its goals. During the gami- fication process, there may be situations or events requiring a change in the defined metrics and elements. The process should be flexible enough to accom- modate such changes and communicate the same to employees. Badges The organization faces a challenge in identifying employees’ strengths and expertise. This is crucial for the organization in order to achieve the long-term goals by assembling great teams. Employees need identity in the workplace — i.e., reputation, certification, achievements, etc. This shows individual ability and demonstrates mastery of skills and accomplishments. Badges solve this problem and help employees to earn rewards, skills and validation.
  • 5. cognizant 20-20 insights 5 For starters, point systems and rules should be transparent to employees. During one gamification effortforaclientinthelegalsoftwareproductdevel- opment space, we encountered confusion about the game rules and point system. Rules defined in the gamification effort were not explained properly to employees, which led to confusion. Due to this confusion, only a few employees were happy when the results were announced and rewards and badges were bestowed. Transparency in commu- nication about the rules and points system and educating the entire team on the process before kick-starting gamification is critical. Draft a clear communication plan and make it transparent with employees during the effort; this can ensure com- munication with meaning for all. Things may go wrong if the actual business problem and customer demands are not addressed as part of the gamification process. Therefore, organizations need to elevate their understanding by conducting employee surveys and make the required improvements in their next gamification endeavor. Finally, gamification should be created to enhance organizational fun, collaboration and competition where employees will be motivated and recognized with rewards for interacting with one another to achieve the business goals. Ready, Set, Go The use of gaming elements such as badges, levels, points, rewards, etc. can help to identify and recognize employee talents and achieve- Quick Take Gamification has a potential market in assisting project teams to deliver quality software that exceeds customer expectations and meets their business objectives. As such, it is a tool to enable enhanced collaboration, communication and knowledge capture and retention. • Employee adoption and mastery of new skills/technologies: Developers will be skilled and masterful in new technologies along with defined processes during the gamification run. The drive to master new skills is an essential motivator for employees and improves their engagement. Gamification can help generate new product/process ideas and solutions and discover experts and information quickly and easily. • Employee motivation: Running gamification contests improves employee motivation and will be seen as a talent recognition tool. • Employee collaboration: Gamification helps team members stay connected with others in the team and be more sociable. • Employee retention: Announce attractive rewards and a recognition program that encourages and motivates employees to attain business goals. This increases the chance to retain employees. • Rewards and recognition: It gives employees greater motivation as they receive appre- ciation, respect, rewards and recognition throughout the gamification contest. • Track progress and feedback: Gamifica- tion allows employees to keep track of their progress and obtain real-time feedback — i.e., they will not have to wait for yearly progress assessments. Understanding employee expertise is crucial for a company to build a passionate team and maximize value for both employees and the organization. • Productivity improvement: Improve con- sistency and quality by providing real-time feedback and metrics on performance versus benchmarks and let employees know how their efforts compare to their past performance. • Customer satisfaction: Gamification can improve the quality of customer care. When employees are engaged and committed, their quality of work improves. • Drive competition: Create healthy competi- tion and collaboration among employees in a scalable and automated way to drive repeatable results. Organization Benefits
  • 6. cognizant 20-20 insights 6 ments. The organization should focus on the areas to engage and encourage employee col- laboration as a community. Sustaining developer interest in a long and monot- onous process can be challenging, raising obsta- cles to rewarding and recognizing performers. To overcome this, organizations must: • Accelerate the feedback cycle. • Establish tangible goals and level the playing field. • Identify challenges and create meaningful rewards. Gamification brings a mindset shift to employees and motivates them to continuously perform better throughout the year. Peer pressure kicks in and facilitates a faster feedback cycle that shares achievements and improvement areas with employees. Gamification helps us to deliver quality software that exceeds client expectations and fulfills their business requirements. It also can be leveraged in employee learning and training programs and innovation initiatives. Gamification techniques and frameworks can be applied in both application development (AD) and application value manage- ment (AVM) projects, as highlighted below. Gamification in Delivery Model: Case Studies Bugs Premier League: Improving Defect Closure Rate • Background: One of the leading global providers of legal information and services solutions to professionals had encountered a major challenge in controlling production backlog defects. The count was growing, with an average of 40 to 50 new defects every week. The assigned maintenance team did not have enough bandwidth to address the backlog as a result of constant inflows. Given resource bandwidth constraints and business stakehold- er dependencies, the weekly defect outflow has been drastically reduced. Due to high defects inflow every week and clarification dependen- cies with customer SMEs and project stakehold- ers, the backlog defects count surpassed 500. Customer budget constraints made it difficult to add more positions to control the incoming defects and reduce the backlog count. Our management was concerned about the rising backlog numbers every week. Developers appeared to lack the motivation to go that extra mile to fix the backlog defects. • Goals: Reduce backlog maintenance defects count from 500+ to fewer than 50 defects in a three month time frame. • Leaderboard: We published a dashboard to the bug fix team on a weekly basis to show the progress of defect fixing, featuring a trend chart and announcement of top developers of the week (along with their photos and scores). • Solution: We rolled out a Bugs Premier League (BPL) gamification contest, similar to an Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket series (with names and captains), to reduce the backlog mainte- nance defect count. The objective of this con- test was to engage both development and main- tenance teams to reduce the backlog defect count within three months. The game elements involved distributing orange caps to bug bust- ers (employees who fixed the most defects), purple caps to bug crushers (teams that fixed the most defects) and green caps to backlog controllers (employees from the maintenance team who fixed the most defects) along with the weekly publication of winners and the top five contenders. This encouraged the team to break out of the silo and fix more production defects in a shorter period. The defects have now been reduced to double digits. The maintenance team’s responsibility is to control the backlogs by fixing all the incoming defects the same week they are identified to ensure no spillovers are added to the backlog list. Weekly rewards and recognition are given to developers and module leads based on the bug fix league scores. • Benefits: >> Resolved 800+ defects in a 10-week time frame; defect backlog count was reduced to double digits from 500 (baselined at the start of the contest). >> Developers controlled the backlogs by fixing all incoming defects in the same week. >> Increased defect fixing rate by more than 75%. >> Increased employee motivation and engage- ment, with many of them now going the ex- tra mile to clear out backlog defects. >> Improved customer satisfaction and their confidence in our team as a result of our gamification effort. 3Curve Contest: Improving Code Quality and Performance • Background: Cost of quality was high, as nearly 20% of our effort was spent on reviewing code
  • 7. cognizant 20-20 insights 7 Figure 4 The Bugs Premier League BUGS PREMIER LEAGUE: Gamification Severity Score/Points Sev 1 100 Sev 2 50 Sev 3 25 Sev 4,5,6 10 SMASH BUGS ACROSS THE BOUNDARY AND WIN EXCITING PRIZES Scores for Severity Royal Shepard TOC Risers Retriever Riders Search Super Kings Rolling Out Bugs Premier League (BPL) Contest to reduce maintenance backlog count from 500+ to less than 50 • Fixing SEV 2 defects takes priority – Do not fix other severity defects until the SEV 2’s are cleared. • Fix/analyze other module defects only after clearing their module backlogs. • Start fixing SEV 3 defects only after bringing down SEV 2 backlog count to 0. • Bonus points will be awarded to whoever fixes/analyze the other module defects. • Status update must be shared with Maintenance Lead on a daily basis. BPL Team Mr. BugBuster – Associate who fixes the most number of defects. Bug Crushers – Team fixes the most number of defects. Backlog Controller – Maintenance team associate who fixes the most number of defects. Bug Crushers of the Tournament – Recognize team who fixed most no. of defects during tournament duration. BugBuster of the Tournament – The associate who fixed most no. of defects during tourna- ment duration. Best Backlog Controller – This award goes to maintenance team associate who fixed most no. of defects during tournament duration. BPL Tournament Awards BPL Weekly Awards BPL Rules League Duration : April – Jun 2013 Trophy W AH Points Certificates Surprise Gifts Rewards and Gifts Figure 5 Bugs Premier League Leaderboard BUGS PREMIER LEAGUE: Content Services SMASH BUGS ACROSS THE BOUNDARY AND WIN EXCITING PRIZES BPL Weekly Awards (Week 15-July 5th to July 11th) Backlog Trend Chart Current League Toppers Orange Cap Praveen 2025 Sreelakshmi 1748 Chenna 1225 Pattabi 5100 TOC Risers 9420 Search Super Kings 2955 Retrieve Riders 2112 Royal Shepards 860 Praveen 4450 Leon 3475 Points Green Cap Points Purple Cap Points BugBuster Leon — 50 points Buglog Controller Pattabi — 275 points Bug Crushers TOC Risers 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 492492 492 492 492 492 492 492 492 492 492 492 492 492 492 492 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49
  • 8. cognizant 20-20 insights 8 and test cases. Performance bottlenecks were identified later in the systems development lifecycle (SDLC), and the cost to fix emerging performance issues was high and impacted our release schedule. Code quality was not easily measured. More defects arose from the system testing cycle as test cases were insufficient. • Goals: Showcase delivery excellence with respect to code quality, performance improve- ments and on-time tasks completion. • Leaderboard: Published weekly to the team to show the progress of release deliverables and announce top developers of the week along with their photos. • Solution: Implementation of SONAR — an open- source code-analysis tool for improving code quality — and customization to include cus- tomer-specific coding standards. Integration of niche technology rules and code coverage under the one roof of SONAR. Automated evaluation of code using SONAR and a report sent to developers via e-mail to take appropri- ate actions and fix all violations. Use of perfor- mance driven development (PDD) to identify and fix performance bottlenecks in the coding phase of the project. Recognize and reward developers and module leads each week based on the progress shown along these parameters. • Benefits: >> Cost of quality was reduced 75% by auto- mating the code quality checks and code and test coverage. >> Development and integration of niche tech- nology’s rules with SONAR brings more con- trol over defect leakage. >> Easy monitoring of the progress through au- tomated scripts to run based on the current version of the source control system. >> Reduction of performance-related issues at the later stage of the development cycle. Figure 6 3Curve Gamification Contest 3Curve Contest: Gamification Trophy W AH Points Certificates Criteria Sev1 Defect Sev2 Defect Sev3 Defect Introduce new SONAR violations -50 Points -30 Points -10 Points Fixing existing SONAR violations 30 Points 20 Points 10 Points Fixing defect raised by SME or onsite Team – INT/CERT cycle 30 Points 20 Points 10 Points Defect fixed by development team – INT/CERT cycle 25 Points 15 Points 5 Points Defect raised by testing team – INT/CERT cycle -50 Points -30 Points -10 Points Criteria Points Meet performance KPIs 50 Points Deviation or performance degradation -20 Points Code Quality – Points Table Performance Measurements – Points Table Features/Tasks Completion – Points Table On time task/feature completion 20 Points Delay/incomplete feature completion -10 Points Rewards and Gifts Launching gamification contest for release deliverables – encourage team members to showcase their excellence in code quality, features completion & performance improvements. The winners are announced every Friday afternoon: •Best module for the week •Best developer for the week The contest is measured under three parameters: •Code quality using SONAR •Features/tasks completion on time •Performance improvements using PDD At the end of the release, best devel- opers and best modules and most valuable player awards will be announced. Criteria Points
  • 9. cognizant 20-20 insights 9 Figure 7 SONAR Integration • Development and integration of niche technology rules with SONAR brings more control over defect leakage. • Cost of quality was brought down by 75% by automating code quality checks and code and test coverage. • Performance driven development (PDD) process was incorporated to address performance hotspots during development cycle. • Reduction of performance-related issues in the later stage of development. • Effective usage of TFS Urban Turtle to track the development task status and timely feature completion. • Innovation Café portal encourages creativity among associates and recognizes out-of-the-box thinking. • This portal helps associates to log their ideas, conduct depth rating and select the best innovation and top ideators. • Providing interface to upload the generated ideas into iSpace portal. • Defect Tracker pulls down the open defects from the system and circulates the dashboard via e-mail to the development team. • Associate takes an action based on the published dashboard and starts to fix the defects accordingly. Maintenance DefectTracker Innovation Cafe Urban Turtle Performance-Driven Development Cost of Quality Performance On-Time Delivery Innovation& ThoughtLeadership Backlog Reduction Gamification Tools and Measurements Figure 8 75% <50 $1.6M 4.0 Cost of Quality Employee Motivation & Satisfaction Innovation Value Backlog Tickets Performance Fixes Effort •Reduced cost of quality – 75% reductionin CoQ. •Fully automated – integrated SONAR dashboard. •9.75 – Highest Codenizant Score – among the Java proj- ects at Cognizant level. DELIVERY HIGHLIGHTS 200 hours •80% improvement on performance fixes effort. •APDD – performance driven development used. •Proactive measures to identify & fix performance bottleneck in dev. cycle. •> 190 rewards & recognitions – regular floor meet, leaderboard, badges, Wah! points. •Improved employee motivation as they receive appreciation, respect and R&R throughout the gamification contest. •400+ ideas from 90 associates. •Implementing ideas worth $1.6 million. •100% innovation index – in less than 6 months. •30+ tools implemented. •Declining backlog tickets – <50 tickets pending. •Increased customer satisfaction. Delivery Excellence Achievements Post-Gamification
  • 10. About Cognizant Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process out- sourcing services, dedicated to helping the world’s leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 50 delivery centers worldwide and approximately 171,400 employees as of December 31, 2013, Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow us on Twitter: Cognizant. World Headquarters 500 Frank W. Burr Blvd. Teaneck, NJ 07666 USA Phone: +1 201 801 0233 Fax: +1 201 801 0243 Toll Free: +1 888 937 3277 Email: inquiry@cognizant.com European Headquarters 1 Kingdom Street Paddington Central London W2 6BD Phone: +44 (0) 20 7297 7600 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7121 0102 Email: infouk@cognizant.com India Operations Headquarters #5/535, Old Mahabalipuram Road Okkiyam Pettai, Thoraipakkam Chennai, 600 096 India Phone: +91 (0) 44 4209 6000 Fax: +91 (0) 44 4209 6060 Email: inquiryindia@cognizant.com ­­© Copyright 2014, Cognizant. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission from Cognizant. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners. About the Author Senthil Rajamarthandan is a Senior Manager within Cognizant’s Advanced Solutions Practice. He has more than 16 years of service delivery experience with a key focus on global project and service delivery management, with an emphasis on P&L and delivery management in North America. He is currently responsible for program and solution delivery of an online legal research application developed by a leading U.S.-based legal information services provider. He has delivered large critical programs successful- ly for Fortune 500 organizations across multiple segments. He holds a B.E. (electrical and electronics) and a master’s degree in business administration from ICFAI university and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He can be reached at Senthilkumar.Rajamarthandan@cognizant.com. Footnotes 1 Gartner Press Release, “Analysts Explore the Role of Enterprise Architects in Gamification,” http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1629214. 2 Gartner Press Release, “Gamification Trends and Strategies to Help Prepare for the Future,” http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2251015.