Data Gamification: No, not Angry Birds

Are you spending a lot of your time gaming your life away?  Maybe a little Angry Birds, FarmVille, World of Warcraft, or even Half Life.  Lets shift that energy over to your enterprise information management practice.  Whatever it is that makes gaming so enticing is what we should be bringing to the table to govern data. This is where gamification comes in to play.  For those that do not know what gamification is, gamification involves applying game design mechanic to applications to make them more fun and engaging.  

So Alan, how do we accomplish that?  Well, it is actually pretty easy.  

Step 1 - Monitoring

When shopping for an enterprise information management platform, you need to make sure you have the full package.  More often than not, organizations procure tools for profiling, cleaning, and mastering data but forget to make sure that the tool includes monitoring the data governance cycle.  How would you know that your data is improving if you are not monitoring?  

Step 2 - KPI and Goals

Now that you are monitoring your data, you need to think hard and fast at what your KPIs and goals really are.  The impact of your data quality must be quantifiable.  Don't fall in to the trap of cleaning your data for the sake of cleaning your data.  Look at your business processes and analyze where the true data management cost centers are.  Prioritize these cost centers and you will have your KPI and goals for the enterprise information management practice.

Step 3 - Gamification

Now that the KPIs and goals are established, let’s make this fun.  Look at the goals and cut them in to bite sized milestones.  For each milestone, make sure you provide a reward.  You might think this can be costly, but that is just not true.  You don't have to throw a lot of money in.  As a matter of fact, money doesn't always make us happy.  A badge or a leader board (playing on the human ego) can actually make us happier.  All we are really asking for is some street cred.