A Gamification Approach for Distributed Agile Delivery

Abstract

Large organizations need to be nimble in delivering software solutions for meeting rapidly changing business requirements and technology landscape. Following Agile principles of software development is a natural choice. However, to truly leverage the power of Agile, big organizations need to be able to utilize distributed teams effectively. Agile relies hugely on shared context and awareness among team members and this can become a stumbling block among such geographically dispersed teams. Moreover, in such large projects there is a need for incentivizing quick delivery of user stories so that the teams have a constructive sense of competition and are recognized in-process. Here, we describe a gamification based approach which promotes quicker completion and acceptance of user stories in such distributed Agile projects. Our approach captures important events from the development environment and then helps create project-wide awareness regarding the progress of different teams. A model of earning revenue for faster delivery of user stories is used to determine the leading team at the end of each sprint. This approach has been implemented in an Agile process guidance and awareness workbench that we are piloting within our organization.