In 1964 the world learned that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. It was not the first time a key principle of gamification was said out loud, but it might well be the catchiest. In 2019 tidying up has changed hands from Mary Poppins to Marie Kondo, but the idea that making a task enjoyable makes it more likely to be done has been embraced by the business world — and cybersecurity training.
Merriam-Webster defines gamification as "The process of adding games or gamelike elements to something (such as a task) so as to encourage participation." And for many responsible for turning new hires from security vulnerabilities into security assets, it's a key strategy in keeping them focused on their training.
"There are numerous studies that show that gamification not only increases engagement but it increases learning retention," says Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) cybersecurity awareness manager Laurel Chesky. She says that HPE has increased the degree to which it uses gamification in cybersecurity training because it has seen positive results with the technique.
Within HPE, Chesky says, there is mandatory basic cybersecurity training but much more training is available on an optional basis. "We want them to come and engage with us and consume the common-sense information," she says. "If we aren't doing that in a fun and engaging way they simply won't come back to us. So we have to do that through gamification."
How to Keep the Fun Factor Up
Moving training to a gamified basis can be effective but, like anything, it can become rote and ro ..
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