How to Level Up the Crowd: Crowdsourced Consulting and Gamification

I played my first videogame, Super Mario Bros., when I was five years old. I remember the excitement and frustration of playing and finally beating Super Mario Bros., and I have been a gamer ever since. I have watched the evolution of videogames from the side-scrolling NES games to the life-like virtual environments of the current generation of games. Over the last five years, I have watched another trend in game development take place, but it has not been in the videogame industry. I have watched the development of gamification technology as an analyst at the crowdsourced consulting firm Wikistrat.

Crowdsourcing can only work if crowd members are motivated to participate. To that end, Wikistrat uses a gamification system to reward analysts with points for their work. Analysts can accumulate points by writing forum posts, commenting on other analysts’ forum posts, or suggesting ideas for new projects. By accumulating these points, analysts can earn prizes, increase their rank, and earn the chance to work on more projects. To many gamers, Wikistrat probably sounds like another role-playing game (RPG). In RPGs, players gain experience points (XP) by completing assignments, and players can level up when they accumulate enough points, which will reward the player with new abilities in the game.

Gamification can be a very powerful motivational tool if designed correctly. How should gamification systems be designed? Well, what makes a good game? A good game should have a clear method of progression. A game’s difficulty level should progressively increase, not suddenly spike. Finally, the game should proportionally increase the rewards for the player as the difficulty increases. Games should not give miniscule rewards for completing monotonous tasks, a practice gamers call grinding. The player should feel like they are growing more powerful and skilled as they progress through the game, which motivates them to keep playing. A gamification system should exploit the basic human need to grow, improve, and compete to motivate people to participate.

Gamification can also clarify the roles that different employees play at a consultancy. To use RPGs as an example, several standard classes exist in most RPGs: “the fighter,” “the wizard,” and “rogue/assassin.” Players will choose a character from a class with special abilities and skills. As the players progress through the game, they will increase the abilities associated with their class as they complete quests/missions. Obviously, each class has strengths and weaknesses, so teamwork is necessary to ensure victory.

In crowdsourced consultancies, crowd members will have special skills that are best applied to certain tasks. Some crowd members are excellent at analysis and writing, and some crowd members might be great at recruitment or sales. As with RPGs, crowdsourced consultancies should create different classes based on the tasks and roles needed, and the gamification system should be designed around the requirements of each class. For example, standard classes for a crowdsourced consultancy could include recruiter, analyst, salesperson, and translator. An analyst would earn points by writing reports or posting comments on project forums. A salesperson would earn points by selling reports or finding new clients. A translator would earn points for translating reports, or they could earn points for translating posts on project forums so that analysts with different language skills could clearly communicate. Firms can use this class structure to define the roles crowd members play at the firm and reward crowd members for completing the different tasks associated with each role.

Finally, the rewards must be meaningful. I cannot stress this enough! At crowdsourced consulting firms, crowd members are not like regular employees. They do not need to give two weeks’ notice to quit; they simply need to quit logging into the website. If the rewards are meaningless, I can practically guarantee that the most skilled and talented crowd members will leave first. Crowd members need to see tangible rewards for their work. One option is to tie any pay for a project directly to the gamification system. For example, each class could receive a percentage of the profits from the sales of a report or the fees from a client. The percentage each class receives would be further divided between each crowd member depending on how many points they accumulated for the project. Firms could also reward participants that score above a certain threshold with bonus pay, or the person with the highest score for a given period could receive a promotion or some other material incentive. Whatever incentives a firm chooses, the gamification system should encourage initiative and participation in all classes.

While Wikistrat uses its own custom-made gamification system, gamification software is readily available to any start-up consultancy. Mambo is a great company for new consultancies. Mambo’s software is highly modular, and it can be programmed to track whatever metrics your consultancy wants to track. For example, each employee creates a single profile for the gamification system, and consultancies can use this software to track all the different types of work and assignments employees complete for the firm. Employees can earn points for completing different tasks (e.g., writing reports, selling products, finding new clients, etc.), but they can also earn achievements for completing more difficult tasks or reaching milestones with the firm (e.g., winning prestigious industry awards, getting a big grant, work anniversaries, etc.). Bunchball is another gamification software company. According to the demo video on their website, Bunchball software integrates directly into “learning management systems, CRMs, content management portals, and collaboration tools,”  and it tracks employee performance to provide feedback and rewards in real time. Mambo and Bunchball are far from the only gamification software out there, so new consultancies do not need to reinvent the wheel and create their own gamification systems.

A well-designed gamification system is essential to define crowd members’ roles, assign tasks, track performance, give feedback in real time, and to distribute meaningful rewards to incentivize continued participation. If a gamification system is poorly designed, crowd members will simply stop working with that consultancy. Remember, a crowdsourced consultancy won’t work without the crowd, so crowdsourced consultancies must carefully design their gamification software and integrate it into their online platforms.