... or the practical use of motivation and crowdsourcing

Hi, Habr! Every day we discuss hundreds of topical topics such as: GTD , project management , staff motivation, teamwork and other management topics. There is always someone to ask and what to read: a lot of articles, a lot of textbooks, literature and other things. In the end, man: " You get paid! ". Accordingly, a completely different topic that has become very relevant at the time of IT development is the motivation of people who get nothing for their work, or, as it is now fashionable to say, crowdsourcing . About this and let's talk further ...

Drivers and Pathogens

Encouraging people to do better and more efficient work is, and so is, a problem, not to mention a situation where they are not paid a penny for it. In this world, material buns are becoming intangible, now they have learned to do two things: to motivate right now and in the future (for the future).

With the first situation (motivation now), everything is simple - let's say your father tells you today (5-year-old child) that if you keep yourself quiet today and go to bed early, then tomorrow he will bring you a toy. With the second (in the future), it is a little more difficult, although this is the same thing, only in this case the father (tomorrow) brings home a new toy, and nails it with a nail to the ceiling, and the child rushes around, realizing that he will get it only when he grows half a meter. , after 5 years, because father says - now you grow up and get a toy.

Today there is a very fashionable word “start-up”, but believe me, when I was creating the project, I could not even suspect that this might be so called. It was all quite simple - there were two guys who had a burning idea, which could make people a little happier when they were spending dreary everyday life (hereinafter, it’s about a computer game, a network shooter-shooting game).

I believe that the principles described do not depend on the type of game, and the ideological content of the principles will not change when the game changes.

We were ready to invest in it exclusively in the time-cost basis. For myself, everything was clear and laid out on the shelves. When you implement your idea, your project, you do not need motivation, you already have it. This is an intrinsic motivation (see Figure 1), created by the content of the activity, project, idea, etc.

Figure 1. Intrinsic motivation, example: daily exercise
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We are still not gods, and we understand that in order to create something worthwhile a team is necessary , sometimes a very large team. The team will give life to the project. This is the same as trying to grow a 100 hectare garden alone. Yes, of course, you can spend at first several years on automation, build communications, equip all with the latest technology, create robots, etc., and then sit on the verandah with the iPad and control the fertilizer process, watering, planting cuttings, treatment and everything else. But let's go back to earth, we must start it here and now, otherwise tomorrow someone else will do it instead of you ...

Of course! To care for the garden, we can recruit a dozen good Samaritans. Only now it is impossible to pay these people (they are the most merciful and disinterested), and you need to motivate somehow (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Unmotivated Samaritan

What united us in choosing a useful pastime was one thing - the desire to relax after our favorite game. Games can be different, and the key feature in this particular case was that the game should is always there is almost always one administrator (moderator), who has the opportunity to punish the player violating the rules. Access to the server is possible at any time of the day (we have a round planet), which requires not a small number of administrators, and with an increase in the number of servers, the proportional growth of Samaritans was necessary. To ensure popularity it is necessary to cover most of the time the server has at least one administrator. Of course, everyone knows various methods of reducing the number of helpers (anti-cheat plug-ins, own distribution, etc.), but “at the start” it greatly increases the entry barrier, the additional potential difference, which is so difficult to jump over to undefined users.

Step One: Hierarchy and Ranks

First, friends always come to the rescue (“ Aha! Why not without them?” ). However, the portal quickly gained popularity, the number of servers increased, therefore attendance grew, and the number of "anti-observers" of the rules of the game grew as well. The presence of such players suppresses the desire to play the rest - in the end in a few minutes the server is empty, the karma is lowered, the bottom line of the rating. Sadness

This is the same as the guys gathered in the courtyard to play "shooters" with toy pistols, and then Bob came in with a "vent", and after a few minutes, the guys ran away. Vasya was left alone, went to shoot from sadness chickens on de_italy pigeons.

Figure 3. View of the right game.

Having seen enough of this case, we ran to post announcements about recruiting administrators to the group. at the entrances on your own forum, in the game, etc. However, it immediately became clear (now it seems ingenious, and then it seemed so obvious as two and two) that the influx of new people with the same rights with existing administrators would demotivate the “old-timers” even more. In addition, over the past three months, the Samaritans' motivation has already begun to fall to the level of the chair. The solution was simple, to build a hierarchy of ranks or, as now, in the management of staff it is fashionable to use the word “ grade ”.

To say it means to make a ladder (see Figure 4) was agreed upon at the “council of elders”, and is presented below:

1. Advanced Players
   a. ISP
   
2. Full administrators
   b. ADMIN
   c. PRO ADMIN
   
3. Experienced administrators
   d. ELITE ADMIN
   e. CURATOR
   
4. Executives
   f. ROOT
   

Figure 4. A well-designed career ladder

For each of the levels were defined their rights, bonuses and buns, to which I would like to strive up the stairs. Undoubtedly, in order for the hierarchy to work, a set of rules was needed, which administrators are guided by in their work, as well as punished and enhanced. The rules should be the same for everyone, any deviation from the rules can bring with them a “riot on the ship” (“ Rudder, don't rock the boat, but!” ), So the leaders firmly fixed them and subsequently always followed the rules (with reference to paragraph) . The rules must also be written in compliance with the balance of their volume, and the subsequent freedom of action when checking, one should never forget items in the style: “The head is always right”, “If this question is not reflected in the rules, the head chooses the penalty himself”. Additionally, I note that because the head was not one: the decision was always taken jointly, under a single agreement and decision.

The emergence of a hierarchy on the one hand provided “protection” for grandfathers, and privileges earned by experience. At the time of introducing rules with ranks, the current list of administrators was ranked according to merit. Each new Samaritan now came to the lower rank and now he needed to go a long way and prove that he deserves the corresponding higher regalia. A great theme is to build a ladder, and people themselves will climb it according to their strengths and ambitions.

The creation of such a hierarchy allowed us to motivate people attracted on altruistic principles actively, responsibly and with their own desire to invest their time in work. It turns out the created external motivation by circumstances beyond the control of the person, which is based on extensive motives that impel the factors of the activity being carried out. These can be motives: duty and responsibility, self-determination, obtaining a higher status, avoiding punishment, approval of other people.

Here it is necessary to understand that, for example, passing a trial period required 20-25 hours of presence on the server per week (it will not work here, idle time is recognized by the internal system and throws out the player). In addition to presence, additional time costs are required associated with interviewing administrators, describing the results of work, processing and posting demo records confirming the validity of the administrator's actions. Cool, yeah? And all this in order to become a full-fledged administrator on the portal. The received first grade must be constantly maintained: at least 10 hours of playing time per week, performance of assigned duties according to rank. The achievement of the next steps is possible only with outstanding results deserved by experience or quality actions.

The creation of this scheme provided not only the motivation and development of the skills of administrators, but also the constant influx of new Samaritans, mentoring and, accordingly, the development of the portal. For 1 year we have grown from 3 to 9 North 24 to 7 and 30-40 permanently working administrators.

Step Two: Increase Responsibility and Feedback Form

Responsibility for their work is a difficult thing, especially in such a team. Despite the graded motivation, control of elders, it is not always possible to objectively verify the legitimacy of the actions of administrators. Perhaps the player was kicked out (banned) from the server due to personal dislike or administrator inexperience ... We did not know how to be here at first (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. The Samaritans loved to roast a couple of chickens for dinner.

Once sitting at a glass of tea on the veranda and glancing at the growing garden and the good Samaritans, we realized that the indicator of the quality of work is the overall growth and development of the garden. But for some reason, some of the trees still die and in their place you have to plant new ones. Having finished our tea, we decided to go down to the garden, and ask the wise ash tree what to do. For ourselves, quite unexpectedly, despite the lack of a given plot in the songs, ash answered us ...

In the form of feedback, on the forum. As you already understood, a special section was created for this, where any person could leave a complaint. All complaints were reviewed by management, with the adoption of decisions according to a set of rules.

Step Three: Who is the best here?

And so, a year has passed since the Samaritans began to care for your garden. Rewarding the best, giving them all sorts of labels, "badges" and all sorts of game bonuses is not the same, and quite happy, like the first time. Some of boredom are replaced by new ones, but about the same situation happens to them. Growth to the level of their incompetence (see Peter Principle ), stagnation at the level of care.


Figure 6. Samaritan for bored with free work

Intangible motivation on the basis of grades squeezed out all its juices, and works idle with the main core of the “warriors”. It is difficult to use the methods of material motivation, everything falls into variable costs: on hardware, the Internet and so on.
The second difficulty that arose, with an increase in the number of servers, was clearly visible favorite and not favorite gaming areas with administrators. First, they solved the problem "in the forehead": new administrators were recruited only on unpopular servers, and the ability to administer all servers appeared only on the third grade. It was a crutch that reduced motivation, because few people wanted to administer an interesting game server. Turnover on such playgrounds was even higher. The ideal situation was when a person comes to the server that he likes (and at the same time he is not popular), such administrators received rapid career growth, due to the lack of competition.

At what point the next idea was born is difficult to say, but technically it could be implemented much earlier. One day, just a glance fell on the statistics of the players, which was developed in one of the first months of the server launch. The ranking of all players with statistics: the ratio of killings / deaths, accuracy of shots, etc. The beautiful top 10 list attracted his gaze in the hope of finding himself there, and was wildly popular - it was a motivation for the players ... Stop! And where is the same system for administrators? Here it is - a goldmine of competition: rating!

I remember in elementary school, we had that too. The teacher hung the rating of the guys on the speed of reading in the ear, seeing the first time this list, a month later I was in the top-5, and later I constantly fought for the podium with the other clever men.

Comparing yourself with another - there is nothing better for motivating ambitious people. Isn't it true that finding your name in the first line is the satisfaction of the work done, and getting into second place is the desire to work and become the first. Now everything has fallen into place - it remains the case for small, to come up with a method of calculation and submit it to administrators.

Figure 7. Samaritans decide who will rank first in the ranking.

We did not think for a long time, as for the players, the administrators were planned to be evaluated on the basis of their actions. As I said, there were no barriers to solve it, because over the past year, I developed a back-end server administration system, where there were server management entities (their configuration), as well as administrators (rights management, promotion, vacation), etc. How this system worked - this is a conversation for a separate topic (if there are requests, I’m ready to tell). One of the functions of this system was to read in the logs of all actions of administrators on all servers. Definitely, we could determine what and when the administrator did and on which server ...

The model used one of the simplest and most popular in the rating: a weighted score.

Lyrical digression, for lovers of mathematics, a weighted score is considered as follows:
,
Where - weighting factor for each of the actions by the administrator; - point of action of a specific administrator at a certain moment and place of action.

Further, points (weights) for each action (hereinafter, we will say, action points) and various bonus factors were invented. For example, the coefficient during administration: in unpopular administration time (at night), the action score increased by 25%. Later, various bonuses were added: for the popularity of the administration server, for the current rank of the administrator, for passing the trial period and returning from vacation, for the high rating, permanent bans, etc. Limiting conditions were also introduced in the form of a limited rate of surcharge, the lack of a rating of chief administrators, the reference rating of the “autobot”.

And so, back to the "materiel". Due to the changes described above, the formula has similarly changed, now it should reflect all the features:
,
Where - coefficient of bonus points for the time and place of the committed action with a certain score; - total number of actions performed by administrators; - the total bonus point that does not depend on the time and place of the committed action, for example, a premium for the rank; subject to restrictions on .

The rating was considered every day and was updated on a web-page with statistics. Somewhere around one in the morning, the Samaritans fled to find out the top 5, then gathered around the fire and discussed the past day. We displayed statistics for the day, for the week and for the month. Now, every administrator, by the results of the day, saw his position and his score. This created an excellent competitive environment, as well as the possibility of additional evaluation to increase the rank of administrators. In addition, the increase in administrators has become more transparent, because Now it was obvious to everyone why they were leading the rankings. And for administrators, there was an opportunity to achieve an increase due to a good rating, which was provided by the presence of the administrator on the server and his actions.

Figure 8. Example of daily ranking


Of course, we understand that any rating has its drawbacks, therefore it can be “hacked” by approbation, this requires adjusting the coefficients every quarter so that the Samaritans cannot get used to it. In addition, the increase should always be made up of both objective facts (rating) and the subjective opinion of portal managers, player feedback, etc.

Which is coming back

Rise, fall, left step, break, again rise and fall - these are the everyday situations and difficulties that we face in life. The Samaritans, as well as everyone else, dream of a promising and interesting work. If every day the new "challenge" did not fall on them from heaven and did not light their way, they will also leave you, swear, demand something else every day. And you, going out on the veranda in the morning, understand that today 5 people didn’t work again, go print new ads and hang out in the neighboring villages ...

People leave, people come - we invest in their development every day, and we want to see ourselves as smart, brave and ambitious. But most importantly, at one moment to understand what is good for you will never be good for them. And believe me, even if you know the depth of their thoughts and desires (which is impossible in principle), you still will not achieve the desired result. One way out of this situation is to reduce the costs of rotation in the team as much as possible; new employees should receive not only a combat kit of management documentation, but also a senior mentor who will involve and teach, thereby motivating both themselves and the new Samaritan ) (see Figure 10).

Figure 10. Experienced and young Samaritans

PS: If someone is more comfortable reading in PDF, then the file is here .