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Introducing gamification to increase staff involvement and motivation when conducting software process improvement initiatives in small-sized software enterprises

DOI:10.1049/iet-sen.2018.5246
Authors:
Garcia Ivan at Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca
Garcia Ivan
Carla Pacheco at Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca
Carla Pacheco
Jose A Calvo-Manzano at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Jose A Calvo-Manzano
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Abstract and Figures

Small-sized software enterprises have tried for years to make major changes to improve the software development process and, consequently, the quality of their products. Many small companies are focusing their efforts on conducting software process improvement initiatives to mature their software processes and to deliver products on time and on budget. Nevertheless, these initiatives are not always successful because human factors are still difficult to control leading to a high failure rate due to a lack of involvement and motivation. Gamification can be used to motivate staff and increase participation and commitment to improve the chances of success when a software process improvement initiative is conducted in these companies. In this study, a gamification strategy was designed to add game-like elements into the GamiSPI tool for supporting software process improvement activities. Significant research has been carried out, but our approach aims to apply gamification in a distributed way by enabling employees from different enterprises to share information and knowledge, combine efforts, support communication, and collaborate with others towards common improvement goals. The effects of gamification were assessed using quantitative and qualitative methods to show that this strategy can increase the involvement, motivation, and ambition of the participating staff.
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IET Software
Research Article
Introducing gamification to increase staff
involvement and motivation when conducting
SPI initiatives in small-sized software
enterprises
ISSN 1751-8806
Received on 27th June 2018
Revised 2nd October 2018
Accepted on 28th May 2019
E-First on 27th June 2019
doi: 10.1049/iet-sen.2018.5246
www.ietdl.org
García Ivan1 , Pacheco Carla1, Calvo-Manzano Jose Antonio2
1División de Estudios de Posgrado, Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca, Oaxaca, Mexico
2Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Informáticos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
E-mail: ivan@mixteco.utm.mx
Abstract: Small-sized software enterprises have tried for years to make major changes to improve the software development
process and, consequently, the quality of their products. Many small companies are focusing their efforts on conducting software
process improvement (SPI) initiatives to mature their software processes and to deliver products on time and on budget.
Nevertheless, these initiatives are not always successful because human factors are still difficult to control leading to a high
failure rate due to lack of involvement and motivation. Gamification can be used to motivate staff and increase participation and
commitment to improve the chances of success when an SPI initiative is conducted in these companies. In this study, a
gamification strategy was designed to add game-like elements into the GamiSPI tool for supporting SPI activities. Significant
research has been carried out, but the authors’ approach aims to apply gamification in a distributed way by enabling employees
from different enterprises to share information and knowledge, combine efforts, support communication, and collaborate with
others toward common improvement goals. The effects of gamification were assessed using quantitative and qualitative
methods to show that this strategy can increase the involvement, motivation, and ambition of the participating staff.
1 Introduction
Nowadays, small-sized software enterprises are playing an
increasingly crucial role in countries’ economies which are
characterised by attempts to rapidly acquire market leadership in
new market segments through innovation. Thus, in order to achieve
this goal, small companies around the world have placed a lot of
emphasis on software process improvement (SPI) over the past few
years. Moreover, they are trying to maintain their position as the
dominant force of the worldwide software industry [1–3]. In fact,
most software products commercialised by big software companies
are dependent on third-party components and other forms of
collaboration that involve the participation of different small-sized
software enterprises around the world [4].
Small-sized software companies are increasingly concerned
about continuously improving their work practises with the aim of
efficiently developing higher-quality software products. Thus, SPI
is considered one of the most important fields of software
engineering because it aims to improve a company's software
process by identifying any issues and inefficiencies and then
devising and implementing solutions. Unfortunately, the
implementation of SPI initiatives in software companies is plagued
by factors that frequently lead to failure. Additionally, the related
risks are compounded when the initiative is conducted in small
companies that often lack experience and skills in the field of SPI
[5].
According to Sulayman et al. [6], many researchers are
focusing their attention on developing approaches to simplify the
execution of SPI activities and avoid obstacles that can negatively
affect the success rate of an SPI initiative in small-sized software
enterprises. Some of these new approaches are related to human
factors (e.g. lack of staff involvement in SPI activities,
inexperienced staff involved with SPI initiatives, poor motivation
to participate in SPI activities, difficulty to include best practises or
lack of role definition). These obstacles are impeding the adoption
of the SPI philosophy among many software companies [7]. All
these issues underline the need to develop specific approaches and
solutions that facilitate the effective and timely adoption of SPI
initiatives by these companies.
Significant work has been carried out on how to simplify the
adoption of SPI activities in software companies. The so-called
‘lightweight’ SPI approaches, process modelling approaches,
assessment techniques, improvement frameworks, and others have
been put forward to help small-sized software enterprises
implement process improvements. These approaches are
commonly based on critical improvement issues, tailored to cost/
time/resource constraints and consistent with their particular needs.
According to Pino et al. [8], these research papers have focused
their efforts on adapting and using SPI models or activities and
how to guide and prioritise SPI efforts in small- and medium-sized
software enterprises.
However, it is usually more difficult for small-sized enterprises
(SEs) to effectively conduct an SPI initiative to achieve a better-
maturity level when compared with medium-sized ones. First, there
are fewer experience reports for small enterprises. Second, it is
very difficult for a manager to be dedicated to processing
improvement in a small-sized software enterprise, in addition to
their daily activities. Finally, there is a common perception among
these companies that SPI activities are too difficult to follow [9].
Moreover, little research has been carried out with the aim of
implementing innovative approaches to strengthen the human
factors that positively influence the success of SPI adoption in
small-sized software enterprises. These human factors include: (i)
collaboration among small companies interested in SPI sharing
resources and strategies to increase the improvement success rate,
(ii) the promotion of strategies to gain support from the company
teams while staff involvement and motivation are enhanced, (iii)
training and mentoring in the SPI field, and (iv) prior socialisation
of staff with new activities imposed by an SPI expert.
With this aim in mind, research by Falessi et al. [9] has
recommended that any improvement effort in small companies
must consider human factors such as a shared vision, openness,
flexibility, and creativeness to help improvement staff effectively
communicate with the rest of the company about what to do, how,
and when. Therefore, the human factors involved in these tasks
should be considered when small companies want to successfully
IET Softw., 2019, Vol. 13 Iss. 5, pp. 456-465
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2019
456
... Likewise, researchers argue that the mere implementation of gamification mechanisms does not automatically lead to improved HR practices and tools (Hamari et al., 2014;. Instead, the current literature emphasizes the need to consider employees' characteristics and the need for meaningful gamification design (i.e., that evokes intended behavior) (Georgiou et al., 2019;Ivan et al., 2019;Sailer et al., 2013;. ...
... Rather, current literature suggests that meaningful gamification design (i.e. that evokes intended behavior) considers the employees' characteristics and needs (e.g. Georgiou et al., 2019;Ivan et al., 2019;Sailer et al., 2017;. Hunicke and colleagues (2004: 5) confirm the centrality of human-centered gamification design by suggesting, "by understanding how formal decisions about gameplay impact the end user experience, we are able to better decompose that experience, and use it to fuel new designs, research and criticism respectively." ...
... Moreover, numerous scholars have stressed the importance of designing games through iterative approximation and continuous improvement (e.g. Georgiou et al., 2019;Ivan et al., 2019). Hence, most researchers working in the area of gamification in HRM agree that gathering feedback on gamification environments from as many individual employees as possible, and adapting the design likewise ensures an ever-increasing effectiveness of the use of gamification (e.g. ...
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A firm's entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is its propensity to act proactively, innovate, take risks, and engage in competitive and autonomous behaviors. Prior research shows that EO is an im-portant factor for new ventures to overcome barriers to survival and fostering growth, measured by annual sales and employment growth rates. In particular, individual-level EO (IEO) is an important driver of a firm’s EO. The firm’s ability to exploit opportunities appearing in the mar-ket and to achieve superior performance depends on the employees’ skills and experiences to act and think entrepreneurially. The main objective of this dissertation is to investigate how and when employees engage in entrepreneurial behaviors at work. Building on three essays, this dissertation takes an interdisciplinary approach to employee entrepreneurial behaviors in new ventures, encompassing both entrepreneurship and gamification research. The first main contri-bution proposed in this field is a more nuanced understanding of how employee entrepreneurial behaviors help young firms cope with growth-related, organization-transforming challenges (i.e., changes in organizational culture that accompany growth, the introduction of hierarchical structures, and the formalization of processes). When new ventures grow, employees’ IEO tends to manifest in introducing technological innovations and business improvements rather than in actions related to risk-taking. Second, this dissertation reveals the relevance of self-efficacy for entrepreneurial behaviors and explores how gamification can enhance employee entrepreneurial behaviors in new ventures. Based on these findings, this dissertation contributes to EO research by highlighting the role of IEO as a building block for EO pervasiveness. This research further develops our knowledge on the use of gamification in new ventures. This cu-mulative dissertation is structured as follows. Part A is an introduction to the study of entrepre-neurial behaviors. Part B contains the three essays.
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Thesis
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Spiele wie Candy Crush Saga gehören zu den derzeit populärsten Spielen weltweit. Trotz einfacher Aufmachung sowie monoton und repetitiv wirkender Aufgaben üben diese Spiele regelmäßig eine große motivationale Wirkung auf Menschen aus. Es ist daher nicht verwunderlich, dass ebenso außerhalb von Spielen regelmäßig Gestaltungselemente aus Spielen angewendet werden, um für unterschiedliche Zwecke eine ähnliche motivationale Wirkung bei Menschen hervorzurufen. Eine derartige Praktik wird üblicherweise als Gamification bezeichnet. Auch Unternehmen, die permanent nach neuen Möglichkeiten suchen, bestehende Prozesse zu unterstützen, haben in Gamification ein Potenzial für verschiedene Unternehmensbereiche erkannt. Ein vielversprechender Bereich ist dabei ein Wissensmanagement. Für ein systematisches Wissensmanagement ist ein kontinuierlicher Wissenstransfer zwischen Mitarbeitern eine wesentliche Voraussetzung. Eine oft fehlende Bereitschaft bei Mitarbeitern zum Wissenstransfer stellt für Unternehmen jedoch eine besondere Herausforderung dar. Diese fehlende Bereitschaft ist in vielen Fällen motivational bedingt und erscheint daher vielversprechend für einen Einsatz von Gamification. Üblicherweise werden in Unternehmen bereits Wissensmanagementsysteme zum softwaregestützten Wissensmanagement genutzt. Gamification ist dort in der Regel nicht eingebunden. Wie Gamification bei in Betrieb befindlichen Anwendungssystemen nachträglich verwendet werden kann und welche Auswirkungen eine Verwendung von Gamification dort hat, ist bisher weitestgehend unklar. In der Arbeit wird daher grundlegend untersucht, wie Gamification im Wissensmanagement unter Zuhilfenahme von Wissensmanagementsystemen verwendet werden kann. Dazu werden vier Studien durchgeführt. Mit den Studien werden zwei zentrale Schwerpunkte betrachtet. Zum einen, wie Gamification in einem Wissensmanagementsystem im Unternehmenskontext nachträglich zielgerichtet eingesetzt und realisiert werden kann (Umsetzung von Gamification in einem Wissensmanagementsystem). Zum anderen, wie sich eine Nutzung von Gamification in einem Wissensmanagementsystem auf Anwender auswirkt (Wirkung von Gamification in einem Wissensmanagementsystem). Die Studien werden teilweise bei einem Technologiekonzern durchgeführt, bei dem ein individuell angepasstes Groupware-basiertes Wissensmanagementsystem auf der Basis von Microsoft SharePoint 2013 verwendet wird. Dieses vorhandene Wissensmanagementsystem stand für Untersuchungen zur Verfügung. Explizite Elemente von Gamification waren in diesem Wissensmanagementsystem zu Beginn der Arbeit nicht vorhanden. 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... Furthermore, when self-assessment for nurses was gamified, Orwoll et al. (2018) found it positively influenced engagement and even eventually reduced the infection rates among their patients by 48%, which, in turn, could prevent deaths. Lastly, when gamification was integrated into a software process improvement initiative, the employees involved perceived that the gamified elements increased their motivation and task involvement (Ivan et al., 2019). ...
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... Consequently, the necessity to come up with new explicit techniques and tools to develop BOS such as patterns for design, security approaches, development procedures, special programming languages, assurance metrics was recognized [39]. These new techniques and tools to develop BOS are considered to be the new branch of SE known as BOSE [7][8][9][10][11][12]. BOSE was created as a new research field to handle the particular requirements of BOS with its development in 2017. ...
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Software process improvement has been through many discussions in the past few decades with relation to the software development alterations. Blockchain-oriented software has been getting more popular, and many recent scholars discussed the suitability of traditional software engineering for the new kind of software. However, the suitability of the current SPI for blockchain-oriented software has not been discussed yet. This paper aims to define the Blockchain-oriented Software characteristics that differentiate it from the traditional software. A literature search was performed considering the studies published up to the date on IEEE Explore, Springer, ACM, ScienceDirect, ProQuest, Web of Science, and emerald insight. A total of 103 studies were found, and only 49 relevant studies met the inclusion criteria. A thematic analysis was performed with an inductive approach to identify 46 distinctive Blockchain-oriented Software characteristics. This result shows the necessity for researchers to devise specific SPI to develop blockchain-oriented software to address its distinctive characteristics, which affect its development and projects. Finally, a new stream for SPI is recommended here to cover Blockchain-oriented Software Process Improvement.
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... Furthermore, when self-assessment for nurses was gamified, Orwoll et al. (2018) found it positively influenced engagement and even eventually reduced the infection rates among their patients by 48%, which, in turn, could prevent deaths. Lastly, when gamification was integrated into a software process improvement initiative, the employees involved perceived that the gamified elements increased their motivation and task involvement (Ivan et al., 2019). ...
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... Herranz et al. [14] defined a gamification framework for deployment SPI efforts to increase motivation in software employees. García et al. [15] designed a gamification strategy to support SPI activities. With this initiative, employees from different companies were encouraged to share information and collaborate in achieving common improvement goals. ...
Design of a gamification strategy to intervene in social and human factors associated with software process improvement change resistance
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Abstract Best practices of software development and software process improvement (SPI) are people‐centred. Both have a high level of influence of social and human factors inherent to the individuals involved in these processes. At the same time, software process improvement is inherent to the change of the conditions and the behaviour of individuals. In this work, the authors show the results of applying a deductive approach for a method based on gamification and social and human factors to influence the productivity of the software development team. The results show that it is possible to abstract all the design aspects of an existing strategy called Interplanetary Mission and identify the social and human factors involved in change resistance in SPI initiatives. The strategy execution results show that gamification strategies could help to mitigate change resistance in SPI initiatives for software development teams and their productivity, understanding this term in software engineering context as the ratio between output and input within the software development production process.
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... Some other SPI models based on agile can be found in [9] and [10]. Gamification SPI models taking advantages of the promising gamification concept were presented in [11] , [12]. The technological advancements such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain have been merged in some SPI models like those found in [13] and [14] to enhance the product quality to reduce the time and cost of software projects development Usually, the literature review is the start point of the scientific investigations, while detection, assessment, and interpretation of all the related studies to a specific topic are called systematic literature review (SLR) [15]. ...
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Studies have been conducted in Software process improvement (SPI) for decades. These studies discussed different aspects related to SPI like small and medium enterprise (SME), critical success factors, and gamification. Some researchers conjectured that typical SPI is progressively put into the backdrop. Nevertheless, no methodical study was found utilizing bibliometric analysis of the SPI studies to further explore the related research in this domain. This paper presents a summary of the SPI recent studies collected from "Web of Science" database. VOSviewer was used with bibliometric analysis technique to visualize the literature contained in our study scope. As a result, six clusters were found converged on these fundamental thematic sections: SME, Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), critical success factors, Agile, gamification, and knowledge management. Recommendations are provided in this paper for future research on SPI based on the present gaps. Serving as R&D guidance to the SPI research community.
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Gamification for Software Process Improvement. A practical Approach
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Full-text available
  • Apr 2019
Gamification is a research field that is intended to increase motivation, so it is especially indicated in human capital intensive environments such as the software industry. Within Software Engineering, one of the main issues regarding software process improvement (SPI) is personnel motivation in specific SPI initiatives. These issues are stronger in small and medium software development companies where employees have to deal with the pressure of deadlines and occasional work overload. To address the adoption of SPI initiatives, the researchers implemented a defined gamification framework for deployment in SPI efforts in order to increase motivation among software workers and to enhance SPI results. The framework was rolled out in a small Spanish software development organisation, which is conducting internal SPI initiatives. To validate the effectiveness of the implemented framework, a controlled experiment was carried out in which an experimental group adopted SPI improvements using a gamification approach. The implementation results show that the application of the framework does not increase personnel motivation in SPI tasks although it contributes to enhancing the SPI tasks performance. This study discusses the limitations and recommendations to implement appropriately the SPI-gamification framework in the scope of small and medium software development companies. © 2019 Institution of Engineering and Technology. All Rights Reserved.
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Agile Software Process Improvement: a Collaborative Game Toolbox
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 2019
Software development organisations are interested in adopting new agile methods and techniques. However, they often do not have the time and resources to explore available approaches or to customise them to the current situation at the project or organisational levels. As software companies are usually dealing with significant pressure and have to demonstrate productivity, time for software process improvement (SPI) is very limited. Using serious collaborative games can be helpful for the deployment of certain best practices recommended by agile methods. With the objective of facilitating SPI in organisations, the authors propose a ready-to-use collaborative game toolbox that is oriented for practical use in project team meetings. The set of collaborative games included in the toolbox have been designed for agile teams, regardless of the maturity level, to innovate and improve communication and cohesion, and to bring business value out of agile ceremonies. © 2019 Institution of Engineering and Technology. All Rights Reserved.
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How to design gamification? A method for engineering gamified software
Article
Full-text available
Since its inception around 2010, gamification has become one of the top technology and software trends. However, gamification has also been regarded as one of the most challenging areas of software engineering. Beyond traditional software design requirements, designing gamification requires the command of disciplines such as (motivational/behavioral) psychology, game design, and narratology, making the development of gamified software a challenge for traditional software developers. Gamification software inhabits a finely tuned niche of software engineering that seeks for both high functionality and engagement; beyond technical flawlessness, gamification has to motivate and affect users. Consequently, it has also been projected that most gamified software is doomed to fail. This paper seeks to advance the understanding of designing gamification and to provide a comprehensive method for developing gamified software. We approach the research problem via a design science research approach; firstly, by synthesizing the current body of literature on gamification design methods and by interviewing 25 gamification experts, producing a comprehensive list of design principles for developing gamified software. Secondly, and more importantly, we develop a detailed method for engineering of gamified software based on the gathered knowledge and design principles. Finally, we conduct an evaluation of the artifacts via interviews of ten gamification experts and implementation of the engineering method in a gamification project. As results of the study, we present the method and key design principles for engineering gamified software. Based on the empirical and expert evaluation, the developed method was deemed as comprehensive, implementable, complete, and useful. We deliver a comprehensive overview of gamification guidelines and shed novel insights into the nature of gamification development and design discourse. This paper takes first steps towards a comprehensive method for gamified software engineering.
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Gamification: An Effectual Learning Application for SE
Chapter
  • May 2018
This chapter describes how gamification is a technique which is used to bring the gaming methods and elements into the working environment of the company to make the allocated tasks more interesting for the user. Gamification helps in improving the performance, interest, involvement and motivation towards a specific goal. In software engineering, while applying gamification, all the software projects are made into challenges that require certain skills to get fulfilled with the integrated effort of the working team. This chapter will introduce the structure of the gamification application used in software engineering. A real scenario is presented where the gamification is applied in a company for different working fields like project management, testing and management of requirements. As a result, after applying the gamification technique, the performance has been improved to a greater extent, improved design and increased development effort by the user team. The chapter will bring out the insight of gamification in software engineering and how it helps in creating the intellectual working atmosphere.
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Publication trends in gamification: A systematic mapping study
Article
  • Feb 2018
h i g h l i g h t s • This study presents four big trends and the core literature in gamification. • This publication provides a meta-review of several other literature reviews. • This publication identifies the most common publication venues on gamification. • The study concludes that the most pressing research issue currently is to collect evidence on the practical applications of gamification. • Most common theme in gamification studies currently is education. a b s t r a c t The term gamification and gamified systems are a trending area of research. However, gamification can indicate several different things, such as applying the game-like elements into the design of the user interface of a software, but not all gamification is necessarily associated with software products. Overall, it is unclear what different aspects are studied under the umbrella of 'gamification', and what is the current state of the art in the gamification research. In this paper, 1164 gamification studies are analyzed and classified based on their focus areas and the research topics to establish what the research trends in gamification are. Based on the results, e-learning and proof-of-concept studies in the ecological lifestyle and sustainability, assisting computer science studies and improving motivation are the trendiest areas of gamification research. Currently, the most common types of research are the proof-of-concept studies, and theoretical works on the different concepts and elements of gamification.
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Deploying a Gamification Framework for Software Process Improvement: Preliminary Results
Conference Paper
  • Aug 2017
Gamification is intended to increase engagement and motivation among its users by means of a set of game design elements. This field of study has expanded in popularity in the recent years in several areas needed to improve engagement among their actors. One of this areas is software engineering. This discipline is a human-centric activity needed of motivated engineers performing a wide panoply of tasks. In this scenario, in this paper authors present an effort conducted to deploy a gamification framework devoted to increase engagement among software practitioners in software process improvement initiatives. Preliminary results show both encouraging outcomes and areas of improvement in the implementation approach and in the needed breadth of areas or processes involved in the gamification proposal.
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A Framework for Gamification in Software Engineering
Article
Gamification seeks for improvement of the user's engagement, motivation, and performance when carrying out a certain task; it does so by incorporating game mechanics and elements, thus making that task more attractive. The application of gamification in Software Engineering can be promising; software projects can be organized as a set of challenges which can be ordered and that need to be fulfilled, for which some skills, and mainly much collective effort, are required. The objective of this paper is to propose a complete framework for the introduction of gamification in software engineering environments. This framework is composed of an ontology, a methodology guiding the process, and a support gamification engine. We carried out a case study in which the proposed framework was applied in a real company. In this project the company used the framework to gamify the areas of project management, requirements management, and testing. As a result, the methodology has clearly enabled the company to introduce gamification in its work environment, achieving a quality solution with appropriate design and development effort. The support tool allowed the company to gamify its current tools very easily.
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How to gamify software engineering
Conference Paper
  • Feb 2017
Software development, like any prolonged and intellectually demanding activity, can negatively affect the motivation of developers. This is especially true in specific areas of software engineering, such as requirements engineering, test-driven development, bug reporting and fixing, where the creative aspects of programming fall short. The developers' engagement might progressively degrade, potentially impacting their work's quality.
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