motivation

What If I Don’t – A Decision-Making Framework

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Dont What If I Don 8217 t 8211 A Decision Making Framework

I want to discuss one of the decision making frameworks I use day to day. Unlike many, this takes a deliberately negative look at decision making. Rather than a lot of these things that look at “Imagine and manifest, if you want it, it will happen” or “Think of the good things that will happen if you do this now, rather than later”, this flips it and says “What if I don’t do this, what are the consequences and knock on effects”.

As an example of the two different ways of looking at a problem, let’s take my daughter tidying her room.

“What if I do tidy my room”

  • Mum and dad will be happy for the next day or two.
  • I get to have friends over whilst it is tidy
  • I can find things
  • I can have new things as there will be room

“What if I don’t tidy my room”

  • Mum and Dad will be angry every day that my room is not tidy
  • I can’t have friends over
  • I can’t find things
  • I can’t have new things, there is no space
  • It will get worse and worse and may become a health hazard

Now, on the surface, these seem just like a mirror image, but there is an interesting difference. Not tidying the bedroom has longer lasting negative effects than tidying the room has positive. Mum and Dad will be happy for a day or two if the room is tidy, not being tidy will lead to them being angry every day that it is not tidy. You get instant gratification and a short gain, but nothing much more, versus short term and long term losses.

what if i don’t?

There is also a little bit of irrational logic going on here, Loss Aversion. We are much more affected by the thought of losing something than we are by gaining something. Losing £10 is much more painful than winning or finding £10 is joyful and the pain lasts longer.

This is why free trials are such an effective way of increasing subscribership, even though they look like a loss maker. Once a person has become used to the service (for instance Spotify), the pain of losing it after the trial period has ended outweighs the inconvenience of paying after the trial.

In our example of tidying the bedroom, the fear of not being able to have friends over or have new things is much more salient than the inverse, because it feels as though they are losing something.

It is a subtle, but very effective change in thinking, don’t consider what you will gain by doing something, think of what you could lose if you don’t.

Do I answer this email now or later?

If I answer it now, it is done and the client is happy.

If I don’t, it sits there pushing other work back, costing me more time later. The client is unhappy, my project manager is then made aware and is also unhappy. My boss gets a nudge from the project manager and they are unhappy. The manager then has a go at me, so I am unhappy and in trouble.

So whilst the benefit seems minimal, the client is happy, and the unintended consequences of not replying to that email are far worse over time!

5 Common Mistakes in Gamification and How to Fix Them – The Science of Gamification

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Gamification is becoming more and more prevalent in the software industry. Many businesses are integrating game mechanics into their customer loyalty programs, websites, and other digital products to drive engagement and increase the adoption of various features. However, while gamification has become commonplace as a trend, it’s not that easy to implement correctly. Many organizations make mistakes when incorporating gaming elements into their products. Let’s take a look at some common pitfalls and how you can avoid them when implementing gamification strategies in your own organization.

After you’ve done the research, you need to make sure that you incorporate it into your gamification strategy. You want to make sure that you tailor the gaming experience to each one of your personas. You need to engage your users on an individual level. That’s why it’s crucial to take your user research and make it the core of your gamification strategy. You need to make sure that you incorporate elements of your customers’ lives into your game mechanics. That’s the only way to make sure that they are truly engaging.

Lack of User Research

Before you even begin to think about incorporating gaming elements into your platform, you have to conduct thorough user research. User research is at the heart of any good design process, and gamification is no exception. If you fail to conduct proper user research, you are almost guaranteed to make mistakes in your gamification strategy. The process of defining your customer personas and conducting user interviews is essential for uncovering the core needs and desires of your target audience. You need to understand who your customers are, what their goals are, and what drives them. You want to identify the motivations that drive your users to take certain actions, so that you can use gamification to engage them on a deeper level.

Overuse of Extrinsic Rewards

Many organizations begin the implementation of gamification by focusing on extrinsic rewards. While this might be a good approach to engage users and get them invested in the platform, it can quickly become too pushy and annoying. If you rely on extrinsic rewards, you’ll find yourself in a situation where you have to keep on adding new rewards. Once customers have earned all of the rewards on your platform, they’ll have no reason to continue engaging with it. It is crucial to also embed intrinsic rewards into your gamification strategy. Intrinsic rewards are things like progress, accomplishment, and skill development. You want to make sure that your users are not only engaged, but motivated by the process of engaging with your platform.

Poorly Defined Success Criteria

Along the same lines, you should make sure that you define your success criteria. In fact, you should probably do that before you even conduct the user research. You need to understand what success looks like for your organization. What are the desired outcomes of your gamification strategy? This can be done in a variety of ways. For example, you can take your core customer personas and define success for each persona. You can also take your key performance indicators and define success for each one of them. Another thing you can do is to take your core values and make sure that gamification aligns with them.

No Clear Objectives

Another thing that businesses often forget is that they need to make sure that the objectives they are trying to achieve with gamification align with their overall business goals. You don’t want to simply implement game mechanics because they’re currently trending or because it seems like a cool thing to do. You should approach gamification with a strategic mindset and make sure that it’s worth your while. That’s why it’s essential to make sure that your gamification strategy aligns with your overall business objectives. You want to make sure that your objectives are clear and that game mechanics are the best way to achieve them. If you’re struggling to find the right objectives for your gamification strategy, you might want to consider using the 10x Rule. It is a rule that many companies use to prioritize their key initiatives in terms of growth.

No Continuous Measurement and Analysis

You also need to make sure that you are continuously measuring and analyzing your gamification strategy. You need to make sure that you have dashboards that allow you to track your progress and make changes as necessary. That’s the only way to make sure that your gamification strategy is working. That’s how you can avoid making mistakes when implementing gamification strategies in your organization. Making mistakes is inevitable when you’re trying new things and making big changes. That’s why it’s important to learn from your mistakes and make corrections when necessary. Now that you know about some of the most common mistakes in gamification and how to avoid them, you can implement game mechanics more effectively.

By the way, this was written entirely by AI using writesonic.com – Let that sink in a moment!

This was an experiment to see how well the AI works and to be honest it is pretty good and convincing. It does plagerise a little it seems, but I wonder if that is because the links that are flagged as plagerised were also generated by AI?

Here is what https://www.check-plagiarism.com/ has to say

Sources Similarity

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The RAMP to Fun

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A while back I started talking about FUN again. In that post I mentioned the RAMP to Fun, but never actually posted it! So here it is in full PowerPoint diagram glory 😀

RAMP to Fun

This is obviously based on my RAMP, but also on some research I did a long time ago on what people find fun.

5 Groups of Fun

The idea is that you need to include elements, mechanics and concepts that people will find fun – even if these do not look fun to you on the surface. As they all hook into core intrinsic motivators – some will find them fun! The more you can link together and embed – in a way that is sympathetic and sensible to the design, the better.

A bit more depth

Relatedness

  • Family
    • Create experiences that allow a player to include their loved ones.
  • Fellowship
    • If creating experiences with loved ones is not possible, create environments that lead to strong feelings of fellowship and belonging.
  • Competition
    • Competition can create string feelings of kinship as you challenge others with similar interests. There is a reason elite athletes are friends with other elite athletes – shared experiences.

Autonomy

  • Exploration
    • Encourage looking around by making the players environment interesting.
    • Provide subtle signposts that the eagle eyed might follow.
  • Discovery / Curiosity
    • Support exploration by including surprises and goodies that can be discovered as a result of a curious mind!.
  • Creativity
    • Provide opportunities to allow players to be creative, either in their problem solving or by providing tools to directly affect the world around them.

Mastery

  • Learning
    • The first step to mastery, is having something to master. Be it direct teaching, or trial and error leading to reward and mastery.
  • Challenges
    • Don’t make it too easy, create obstacles, provide challenges and encourage failure with solid feedback.
    • Achievement feels more intense if worked for.
  • Progression
    • Create progression paths, where new skills are acquired and required for success.
    • Give clear feedback to help measure progress.

Purpose

  • Goals / Narratives
    • Create clear reasons why you are expecting your players to engage.
    • Why are they there, what do they need to do, how will it lead to some greater meaning?
  • Collaboration
    • Allow players to work together towards a common goal and shared purpose.
    • Reward overall teamwork and individual contributions.
  • Care-taking
    • Provide ways for players to look after others, influencing and protecting them.
    • Let players become teachers, helping others learn from their skills.

The Dark HEXAD – Star Wars has inspired a new HEXAD!

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I was having a think about the User Type HEXAD and it occurred to me that I have never considered Star Wars and how that might fit the HEXAD! You know, as you do 😀

As I did so, I was reminded of the fact that when I started building the user types, I used to split based on whether they interacted with people or a system AND if they acted on people or the system – I.E. imposed themselves on them rather than working within them.  This got me thinking about light and dark side HEXAD types. If you have seen my DODECAD you will know that there are actually 12 types in my overall taxonomy – but I really like this idea of a Dark HEXAD!

With that in mind, I present the Light HEXAD and the Dark HEXAD

The Light HEXAD

This is the basic HEXAD really, but the Player and Disruptor are a little less evil 😉

  • Socialiser: Lando Calrissian. Whilst he started off using his vast network for less than honorable reasons, he quickly made sure he was using his skills as a crime boss for the good of the rebellion!
  • Free Spirit: Luke. He wants to explore the galaxy! Over time he evolves into an Achiever then finally a Philanthropist as he learns the ways of the force then finally starts to teach them – giving his life to save everyone!
  • Achiever: Yoda, driven by mastery of the force. Obi Wan could also have gone here with strong Philanthropist vibes by the end.
  • Philanthropist: Princess Leia – after all, it all starts with her wanting to save the galaxy.
  • Player: Han Solo. He was driven by rewards, but he tried to choose the path more honourable when it was presented to him (though he did shoot first!). Eventually he evolved into a full on Philanthropist, but he still went back to smuggling!
  • Disruptor: Qui Gon Jinn. Whilst he was a Jedi, he constantly pushed the boundaries of what was considered the rules, eventually going against the order of the council to train Anakin, because he felt the potential for change was greater than the danger he possessed. Yeah…
The Light HEXAD

The Dark HEXAD

Now, as with the Force, there are two sides to every coin and of course, the HEXAD is no different. I thought I would take a look at some of the Dark HEXAD characters – driven by motivations that seem like they are related to RAMP but are actually nothing more than selfish desires!

  • Dark Socialiser: Jabba the Hutt. He used social connections for personal gain (he was a crime lord after all) be it direct rewards, or some sort of control.
  • Dark Free Spirit: Kylo Ren. He pushed the boundaries through exploration and creativity not to improve himself or for the benefit of others, or even for enjoyment –  or for the enjoyment of it, but to gain from it and use what he found and created to destroy.
  • Dark Achiever. Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader sits here. He built his skills in order to dominate, his vision always blurred by the chip on his shoulder, meaning that every gain he made was – at its core – about him, not others.
  • Dark Philanthropist: Well, it has to be Emperor Palpatine. So his desire was to bring peace to the galaxy – by controlling it! Often a Dark Philanthropist will be absolutely certain in their mind that what they are doing is for the greater good, but what they are actually doing is subjugating and bending others to their will.
  • Dark Player: Boba Fett driven by the thought of reward. This could also be early Han Solo, who evolves into a Philanthropist by the end of the series.
  • Dark Disruptor: General Grievous. He spent a lot of his time taking pleasure in the misery of others, creating fear and destruction wherever he went!
The Dark HEXAD

The “Is it a now thing, or a later thing?” prioritisation framework – Beat the Post Christmas Slump

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So, Christmas is done and we are now in that no mans land between Christmas and New Year. No one knows what day it is, what they should be doing or what their next meal might consist of – but know that it is in the freezer and is bit sized.

The next week or so can be really hard to stay focused during as you work in a piecemeal fashion and have slightly less direction than usual. So I thought it was time to just share the basic prioritisation framework I use in my head (which I probably stole from somewhere!). At it’s most simple it asks the question

“Is it a now thing, or a later thing?”

There are factors that can affect the priority as well, moving things more to being a now thing or towards being a later thing. 

Here is a simple example of how you could consider this, a decision tree that asks a few questions to decide if it is a Now or Later Thing

This is a massive over simplification, but it serves as a simple example – not many things actually fall into the Later Thing category! However, it is important to go through a process like this to help decide if you should be doing a thing now or later. So, a client calls and their entire network is down and they are losing billions of dollars a second whilst they wait for you to fix it. That probably sits in the realms of a Now Thing, when you are sat trying to decide if that is more important than playing the latest video game you got for Christmas – or do client work!

A little less obvious, you have this new video game and there is no client work. However, you do have some training that could be done that will make later easier and possible improve your life by learning a new skill. The video game still sits in the Later Thing category.

You’ve done your training, there is no client work to be done and no other priorities you can think of that will impact you if they are left until later…. the video game is going to bring you joy and help reset your brain – it is finally a Now Thing! 

As I say, it is a simplification of the process, you still need to prioritise other work and schedule correctly. I am a fan of the Eisenhower Matrix for this. I have used an image from Techtello here to show you an example – it is very very handy as a way to augment the Now or Later framework!

Eisenhower Matrix https://www.techtello.com/eisenhower-productivity-matrix/

Anyway, I hope this helps a little and gets you back in the swing of things before the New Year!

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