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I have a theory about this stuff. Some programmers who need to "blow off" a day here or there spend it by lounging around on the sofa playing video games. I don't mean to rag on gamers because I'm one myself, but the point is I'm fascinated by the fact that many video games are also "mental challenges" that are similar in several ways to computer programming and use similar parts of the brain. What factor(s) then make the game-play enjoyable while the heavy-lifting dev-work feels sometimes more tedious ? Maybe there is a way to adjust our methodology to feel more game-like, relaxing, and fun. I think I've actually stumbled upon a way to do this, allow me to explain: If you start to read about the statistics around social dynamics in MMORPG games then certain things fall out of the data, and game makers have picked up on these ideas and used them to make their games more fun and addictive, and I think these same insights can be applied to organize software development. Lets start with World of Warcarft. The statistics prove that World of Warcraft is a highly addictive game for many diverse people, but almost everyone agrees that if you were to join an empty server you would find that it's not an addictive game in one player mode. If you take this a bit further and say.. "ok, now you're on a server with other people, but you're not allowed to join a group, but you are allowed to conference with several players, exchange weapons and loot, and message individual players. Well I think in this scenario people would agree that the game does indeed become more fun, beacause now it's social, but yet it's not as much fun as regular WOW. I'll just cut straight to the point: Pair-programming is more fun even when it's done remotely, because it's like real-time grouping in World of Warcraft. The problem is, just like in World of Warcraft not every group that you join will be fun! The enjoyability of a particular group will depend on both the obvious factors such as the weapons, experience, and spells that the other members bring to the table, but also certain social factors which are perhaps more philsophical in nature and therefor difficult to talk about briefly. I think that there is real hard evidence that this strategy works, and because of this it's actually the gold standard for the world's leading web-dev consultancies, at least in the Rails space which is my center of gravity. examples (in no particular order):
http://pivotal.io/labs/process
https://thoughtbot.com/
https://hashrocket.com/
https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/effective-navigat... |
Speaking as a gamer, it's escapism. If my brain is so busy trying to solve the mental challenge on the screen (or in front of me as a board game), all other thought get pushed out and I'm not thinking about them. If I didn't have a sufficient mental challenge in front of me, then my subconscious would spend time working on those things.
Also, it's low stakes, so I don't have to be stressed out while I'm engaged in it. I'm not being judged on how well I do, or even that I solved the problem at all, I know I can put down the game whenever and no one cares. This is why I don't think gamifying work is too useful in the long run, because deep down we know we're expected to solve those problems and get results.
So yeah, gaming is essentially my alcohol, and part of the reason why I don't feel the need to drink or take drugs all that often (besides caffeine and aspirin).