The Challenge: Microsoft has myriad language localization needs for its many products, and ensuring that translations were accurate and made sense was a huge challenge for just one team.

1. Microsoft Case Study
Gamification in Employee Engagement

2. Prepared By
Manu Melwin Joy
Assistant Professor
SCMS School of Technology and Management
Kerala, India.
Phone – 9744551114
Mail – manu_melwinjoy@yahoo.com
Kindly restrict the use of slides for personal purpose.
Please seek permission to reproduce the same in public forms and presentations.

3. Microsoft
• The Challenge: Microsoft has
myriad language localization
needs for its many products,
and ensuring that
translations were accurate
and made sense was a huge
challenge for just one team.

4. Microsoft
• Gamified Solution: Microsoft built a
“Language Quality" game, which
involved a very simple Silverlight
application that let users view
screens to check for language
accuracy. Microsoft included
intentionally poor translations to
make sure its employees were
actually paying attention.

5. Microsoft
• Results: 4,500 users reviewed
500,000 screens to correct or
improve translations based on
their native languages.
Microsoft Japan actually took a
company-wide day off to play
the game and ended up
winning the leaderboard.

7. Microsoft
• The Windows Language
Quality Game is a
serious game to ensure
the translation quality of
software.

8. Microsoft
• Players help verify and correct
the translations of software into
their own language. The game
not only encouraged people to
contribute to it by making it
fun, but also channeled civic
engagement by allowing
everyone to help make
Windows a better product.

9. Microsoft
• Ross Smith is the Director of
Test at Microsoft, and he has
been in the software industry
for over 20 years. He has 5
software patents, and he is
one of the authors of, “The
Practical Guide to Defect
Prevention.”

10. Microsoft
• He is currently researching the
impact of games and social
networking tools on management
education and requisite skills for
new managers. His work led to the
creation of 42projects, which is an
experiment that uses trust as the
basis for promoting individual
confidence, risk-taking, and
creativity.

12. Microsoft
• His work on productivity gaming for
next-generation employees and
management initiatives is a great
example of how gamification has
changed the professional landscape.
Such an example is the Windows
Language Quality Game, which was a
successful initiative to find a cost-
effective and fun way to increase the
quality of the native language versions of
Windows.

13. How Microsoft Leads with Gamification
• Ross understands the shifting
demographics of the workforce and
believes that companies need to
redefine how work “works”. The
future generation of employees,
Gen Y, has grown up with
technology integrated into their
daily lives, effectively changing the
way today’s world communicates,
prioritizes, and produces.

14. How Microsoft Leads with Gamification
• Gen X managers need to
understand how to bring out the
creativity of Gen Y’s unique
talents rather than inhibiting
possible risk-taking. To improve
upon management and
innovation, Ross Smith
created productivity games.

15. How Microsoft Leads with Gamification
• Productivity games are a subset
of serious games, and they
incorporate using game elements
to boost engagement and
creativity of otherwise dull or
difficult tasks. Ross believes that
games and collaborative play
help motivate and make work
fun.

16. How Microsoft Leads with Gamification
• His theory is that collaborative
play builds trust among the
players, and that trust leads to
greater experimentation. A
higher degree of
experimentation leads to
creativity, innovation, and
increased personal satisfaction.

17. How Microsoft Leads with Gamification
• In a highly competitive
business environment,
composure is needed at all
levels to ensure a high quality
product and quality of life for
employees. Composure starts
with trust, and trust can be
built with productivity games.