You've learned about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, plus the three key drivers: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Now let's practice identifying these patterns in real engineering team scenarios.
The better you get at spotting motivation types, the more effectively you can lead each developer.
Engagement Message
Which motivation type do you think is hardest to recognize in others?
Type
Swipe Left or Right
Practice Question
Identify whether each scenario shows intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. Swipe each example to the correct category.
Labels
- Left Label: Intrinsic
- Right Label: Extrinsic
Left Label Items
- Lisa debugs late into the evening because she's fascinated by the root cause analysis
- Mark volunteers for the microservices migration because he wants to learn distributed systems
- Sarah optimizes database queries because she takes pride in system performance
- Tom researches new frameworks because he's genuinely curious about better solutions
Right Label Items
- Alex only works overtime during release crunch when compensated
- Jamie completes code reviews to avoid getting flagged in team metrics
- Pat pursues AWS certifications only for salary increases
- Chris attends sprint planning because story point estimates are tracked
Type
Multiple Choice
Practice Question
Rachel constantly asks for complex technical challenges, reads system design blogs in her spare time, and stays late to refactor legacy code. Her primary motivational driver is most likely:
A. Autonomy - she wants independence B. Mastery - she wants to get better C. Purpose - she wants meaningful impact D. Extrinsic - she wants external rewards
Suggested Answers
