How to Measure Gamification ROI

An interesting article by GamEffective. It is obvious that Project Management Tools/Techniques are a "must" for measuring ROI in any Gamification roject

Measuring ROI is an elusive task: you have external factors that affect the results; measuring the baseline is a subjective process; forecasting future impact is hard and even calculating the actual investment is a project by itself.

That said, one can measure almost anything (I recommend reading the book ‘How to measure anything’). There are testimonies of increase in sales results after implementing Gamification by 5-15%. But, I believe we need to dive in to understand how to analyze success.

As a matter of fact, we can divide the task into two smaller tasks:

 

Figure 1 - Gamification effectiveness

1. Measuring the effect of Gamification on our target users’ behavior
Gamification design should modify the behavior of our users directly: call to action; goal setting; increasing the efforts or indirectly: improve motivation; team spirit; reduce churn or turnover

2. Measuring the effect of the modified behavior on the business results
We can succeed in designing a great engaging Gamification process, but if it is not aligned properly with the business goals, it will have no meaningful affect. For example, if we reward service agents to shorter service calls and won’t balance it with quality of service, we will promote customer churn.

Here are few tips for measuring:

1. Define the success KPIs
use the current KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) of the business, that are relevant to the process.

2. Compare the KPI performance, before and after the Gamification

3. Compare the KPI performance in correlation with the Gamification activity performance
Ensure the Gamification encouragement goes hand to hand with the business performance. In the graph we can notice that the Gamification (started in January) caused behavior change (activity graph), and then business improvement (KPI graph)

Figure 2 – Gamification activity vs. KPI performance

4.    Measure the balance of different aspects of Gamification in different groups
E.g. : The EU team can react to the Gamification with improving the quality over throughput, while the American team will do the opposite  

5.    Use control groups
Keep few control teams outside the Gamification process, but keep measuring their activity. They will be your best reference for improvement

6.    Run a simulation before you start the implementation
It is better to start with a dry-run of the Gamification rule-set on past-data, in order to create the performance baseline before starting the process

Article Source: http://gameffective.com/index.html

Image Source: http://ibisstudio.com