I linked to one article as an example, a couple more below.
I keep seeing superficial, positive coverage about this system and it has been bothering me for awhile because it seems like an awful idea. Sure reward your most talented personnel but also only rewarding what you can measure, especially in war is a horrendous idea in my opinion…
Rewarding and valuing only what you can most easily measure is a reliable route to self imposed disaster and ineffective optimization.
This system goes a long way towards over-emphasizing drones as well to a degree that is dangerous to good doctrine, any impact that isn’t neatly quantifiable like a drone clip becomes a liability and blindspot to this approach it seems to me.
What about units that aren’t getting enough support and resources to be effective? Does rewarding them less make them more effective…?
Certainly empowering soldiers to get the equipment they want and are requesting is great, but the idea of making this like Call Of Duty is weird to me where only the people currently experiencing success are rewarded, it will breed toxic institutions obsessed with maximizing gain to the exclusion of all else like those that are strangling the US.
I am sure I am getting an incomplete picture, but it seems worrying from what I can see.
Yes, but I’m not sure it will be to the same extent.
I think gamifying the setup leads to internal competition that will push them harder to make sure there is evidence of their results. That may have them make questionable decisions that they wouldn’t otherwise, if they didn’t need the evidence dog their efforts.
Additionally, I suspect the public points system cuts back on disgruntled-ness, as units can easily see how they compare to others. It also allows them to see who to talk to, to see how to improve their results.
So, pros and cons to the gamification, but I think the pros are going to win out. I doubt that’s a good thing though…