By Dr.-Ing. Walter Tritt · Three paths, a point account and one dissatisfied customer improving the company from within · First published on scwt.de, edited for GoodPoints.
Luckily, an interested manager recently said - upon seeing how the task exchange works - that he did not understand the diagram. The commercially trained gentleman was unfamiliar with the Petri net principle. His remark is the occasion for this article: here is the working principle, in simple words.
Originally, the working principle was described as a Petri net - a scientific form of process representation, named after Carl Adam Petri. The principle behind it is simple: a process step only happens when all preconditions are met - like an AND gate.
First, a task must exist. When a task has arrived and a system for its valuation is in place - the control parameters given by management - the task is valued. The valued task then moves into the exchange. There it is offered to all specialists who are authorized to work on it.
And now three possibilities arise.
A certain amount of time has passed; the task receives a higher value and is offered again in the exchange. Older tasks rise in priority compared to newer ones. A principle in the interest of customers and the company alike: nothing quietly rots away.
A specialist is free, could take the task - and does not. Perhaps they have an appointment with an authority, visit someone in hospital, or need to pick up their child from kindergarten. The concept optionally provides a moderate point deduction for this.
Honestly: GoodPoints deliberately did NOT build point deductions. In GoodPoints, points are recognition for work done - not punishment for not working. Whoever does not take a task simply gets nothing; whoever takes one gets points. The concept itself calls the exchange a philosophy: which components a company realizes depends on its circumstances. The decision here is clear: recognition instead of threat.
A specialist accepts the task. It disappears from the exchange and is no longer visible to any other specialist. The specialist works on the chosen task, the customer is satisfied - and the specialist receives the task's points on their point account.
What happens with dissatisfaction? The concept knows the optional value deduction. It can feel unfair in individual cases - but it traces back either to one's own misconduct or to a failure of the company, which could hit any colleague just as hard. And first of all, nobody is talking about converting points directly into money.
GoodPoints solves it this way today: full points only come when the work is done to satisfaction - checked by a colleague. Poor work means fewer points. There are never minus points.
Now comes the effect that separates the task exchange from any bonus system. Suppose the customer is satisfied with the specialist's behavior - but not with the spare parts logistics or the company's call handling. If the principle is handled this way, this too reduces the technician's points.
What happens today, without such a principle? A customer voices annoyance about the company's shortcomings to the technician. The technician - still enthusiastic about their company - reports it to their supervisor, hoping it will be fixed. The equally idealistic supervisor urges the logistics manager. He refers to the responsibility of the central logistics department - and if the supervisor keeps pushing, he will be accused of his own shortcomings. Eventually the supervisor drops the game. When technicians complain again, he smooths it over: "Take care of your own job and leave such things to the responsible specialists." The technician becomes a little more indifferent. The complaint has fizzled out.
With the working principle: When customer satisfaction affects the technician's personal point credit every single time, they will not let go. And it does not only concern them alone, but all their colleagues too.
This is the answer to why a company should do this voluntarily: because it is the only honest form of improvement. Complaints that fizzle out in the hierarchy are paid for later - by the customer leaving.
Most people are - with little leeway - woven into webs of regulations, hierarchies, dependencies, contracts. The steamroller of change flattens these rigid structures and threatens the existence of the people bound within them.
The task exchange loosens the web of dependencies considerably, gives the individual person degrees of freedom to develop themselves - and thus secures the survival of organizations through change.
Honestly broken down - in the style of the article Breakfast at Tiffany's:
Already in GoodPoints today: Tasks sit in the exchange with point values, every specialist chooses freely. Full points only with satisfactory work (quality check by colleagues, fewer points for defects). Personal points stay private; only the anonymous comparison is visible.
Not yet active, but intended: dynamically rising point values of older tasks (path 1) - the concept from the 2000 book, laid out in the database, not yet switched on. More in the Tiffany article.
Deliberately not built: point deduction for not taking a task (path 2) and minus points. Points are recognition - a system that punishes can become a weapon. Exactly that is what GoodPoints' technical safeguards make impossible.
See the working principle live - in the demo.
Exchange, take-over, anonymous ranking - no registration, two minutes.
Try it nowConcept: Dr.-Ing. Walter Tritt (KVD Service Management Award 1992) · First published on scwt.de (in German) · Edited for GoodPoints: Petri net explained simply, point deduction labeled as a deliberate non-decision · Built as software: goodpoints.de
© 2026 · Dr.-Ing. Walter Tritt