Oliver Klee
The TYPO3 Motivation Research Team was founded in late 2021 and has seen a very active 2023 in its work. By presenting the team at several barcamps and conferences, the team grew by three new members (which in itself was very motivating!).
A Broader Mission
The team updated its mission to better reflect current modes of team collaboration. Many barcamps and code sprints have returned to being held on-location rather than remote, so we updated our mission from “support motivation for online community activities” to “support motivation in community team activities, both on-site as well as online”. This matches well with the team’s research, which concluded that the principles of motivation psychology are universal and not specific to online or on-site work.
Motivation Through Game Mechanics
While studying research on motivation psychology and gamification, the team heard of the EMPAMOS research project at the Nuremberg Institute of Technology. The project analyzes games for motivational elements that can systematically be applied in non-game contexts to increase motivation. For the motivation research team, after studying gamification and self-determination theory, the EMPAMOS method was the logical next step. It allowed the team to build motivation tools in a very structured, productive way.
Learning and Levelling-Up
To level up the team’s skills with this method, three team members attended the first EMPAMOS workshop in order to learn the basics of the approach. Also, two team members attended the EMPAMOS barcamp to present the team and to learn about the latest research.
The team also conducted a community survey on what motivates and demotivates the community members.
After evaluating the results from the survey, the team has identified the first three areas to focus on:
- Appreciation; getting positive/constructive feedback; quick results & successes
- Ability to resolve conflicts or address problems
- Learning and growing; solving problems; trying new things; curiosity
Testing Motivation Tools Across TYPO3 Teams
Using the EMPAMOS method, the team has now built sets of tools to increase motivation in three specific contexts:
- Address and resolve conflicts in teams.
- Help open-source projects get more code reviews and make the review queue less intimidating.
- Facilitate learning and personal growth in projects to avoid stagnation and boredom
At this point, the Motivation Research Team is beta-testing these tools in collaboration with the TYPO3 community teams and will publish them to be publicly available soon.
Get in Touch
If you are part of a team (be it a TYPO3 community, some other volunteer team, or a work team) and you would like to try out some of these tools, please drop the TYPO3 Motivation Research Team a line. We love seeing our tools in action, and we appreciate your feedback on them.
Let’s stay motivated!
