Skip to main content
Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - 2:45pm - 3:45pm
Projects & Teams
BW9

Gamification and Arbejdsglæde (Danish: Work Gladness/Joy)

You get paid for doing that? Is it possible to both work and have fun in a large corporate setting? Can joy be made part of the workplace? For the past few years Ryan Kleps and his colleagues have been conducting an informal social experiment using gamification (before they knew it had a name) in their corporate training modules to encourage participation, engagement, and enjoyment. Along the way they discovered that what they were doing was not only an effective training method, but that it had actual formal names associated with it―gamification and arbejdsglæde, a Danish word for work gladness/joy. The results of their “experiment” exceeded their expectations, but there were some failures and obstacles along the way which impeded their progress. Ryan relates some of his favorite stories from the journey, highlighting and illustrating the transferable brain-friendly techniques used for the past five years in Boeing IT.

Ryan Kleps, Boeing IT

Ryan Kleps has been involved in various aspects of Information Technology for more than thirty years. During his career, Ryan has looked for opportunities to make his and others’ work more enjoyable. In 2008, he developed a unique gamified approach to training which he and his colleagues have used to train more than 2,000 people in agile software development practices within Boeing. Ryan has presented at the GSummit 2014 San Francisco, several Boeing conferences, and at Rally’s AgilePalooza.

read more