using buy a feature online

Using the Innovation Game® Buy a Feature

To Prioritize Really Important Stuff

Luke HohmannFounder and CEO

The Innovation Games® Company

Twitter: #innovgames

Agenda

• What’s are Innovation Games®?• What’s Buy a Feature?• How does it work?• How can I play?

What Are Innovation Games®

Innovation Games® are serious games that solve a wide range of product strategy and management problems across the market lifecycle.

They are played: •with customers & internal stakeholders•online or in-person•within or across organizational units•in single or multi-game formats

What Makes Innovation Games® Unique?

• Relaxed, “collaboratively competitive” structure– encourages teamwork – increases sharing of information– and is competitively fun

• Games utilize verbal, non-verbal, written, visual and spatial forms of communication which create rich, nuanced information.

• Strong foundations cognitive psychology & organizational behavior research.

We can collaborate & innovate(better) through serious games

Not Humor Like Joke

Not Silly Like Water Park

More LikeSettlers of Catan &

EuchreMeet Business

Not Work(Leisure)

Pleasure

Work

Play

Not-Play

External GoalsInternal Goals

Not-P

leasure

Adapted from http://it.coe.uga.edu/~lrieber/resources/blanchardmodel.gif

Do you like to do yard work?I’m not a fan of gardening, so I’m putting trimming the ivy, so I’m putting that here.

I do like to play card games! I love playing games at work!

As a small business owner, I know I have to do my bookkeeping. But it is work.

Why are you talking games? I’ve got work to do!

StrategicAccount Managers

(SAMA)

Corporate / Portfolio Strategists

(PDMA, Phase-Gate)

Agilists(CSM, POs)

Market Researchers

(QRCA)

Corporate Innovators

I need to prioritize my sales engineers so

that they are working on the best deals!

I need to prioritize

my backlog.

I need to engage my global technical workforce in

selecting the best new ideas.

I need to research market

preferences.

Our gate reviews are taking too long. We need to get the

right people involved – faster!

Yup. You’ve got

important stuffto prioritize.

You can do this through games.

Buy a Feature: A collaborative prioritization game!

• 12-20 items described in terms of benefits and costs

• 5 to 8 players given limited budget

• Purchased items represent the priorities of the team

• Chat logs shape resultsA Game ToPrioritize Stuff

And yes, it is FUNV1-388 Luke Did you enjoy this experience?V1-388 Toni Yes - fun!V1-388 Greg Sure.V1-388 Greg I enjoyed it.V1-388 Vladimir thanks for the chance. B)V1-393 Luke Did you enjoy the experience? Would you be willing to play again in the

future?

V1-393 Tom yes, and yesV1-393 Mike Yes -- it was funV1-393 Sarah DefinitelyV1-393 Dominic Yes, and I think VersionOne are getting great info here

V1-393 Patrick I would be happy to play again.V1-394 Luke Team, are you now satisfied with your bids?V1-394 Mike YES!V1-394 Rene yupV1-394 Andre Indeed.V1-394 Jim I want more money!V1-394 Andre It was hard. But lots of fun. And yes, I want more money too - do you

take credit cards?

V1-394 Mike hahahaV1-394 Mike ok, gotta go guys.... it was fun

Chat log extracts from a game played to

prioritize a product backlog.

Ian Culling, VersionOne CTO says:

“The basic prioritized results

held surprises”

“The rich information captured during the

game helped us understand the basis

for that prioritization”

“The conclusions and recommendations derived

from the results were incredibly insightful.”

“Our customers really enjoyed the experience and appreciated the opportunity

to have influence on our roadmap and priorities – in

an hour or less of their time.”

Let’s create a pair of Internet-Enabled Sunglasses!

Corporate Innovators

We assume you’ve played Innovation Games® like Prune the Product Tree to identify cool new concepts. Now, we need to prioritize them!

Buy A Feature Online - Preparing

A list of features with prices. This example is for product concepts for a pair of internet

sunglasses

“Shirt Sizes” help you quickly price your

features – or you can enter a price directly!

Playing the GamePlayers are listed along the

top with their budget

Player bids.

Highly desired items are purchased.

The chat facility helps players negotiate about the items they desire.

Buy A Feature Online - Results

Results of many games played,

sorted by number of times

purchased.

Many Ways to Play: Parties, Galas, and Tournaments

What is it? Who plays? Facilitated? Number of Items?

Number of players?

Party A “dinner party”.

You select and control participants

Yes 12..20 5..8

Gala An “open seating event”

Random participants based on a shared URL

No 12..20 9+In groups of 5..8

Tournament A combination of parties!

You control and select participants

Yes 20+ Based on num of items & num of tournaments

Tournament Structure

15

15

7

745

15

14 7

7

14 7

1

2

3

4

5

List of projects

14 Each dark square represents one game

7 Each light square represents the “winning” projects

Play many tournaments to control for “bracket

strength”.

Tournament Case Study: VeriSign Global Customer Support

Context 46 projects ranging from small to very large.

Problem The VeriSign leadership needed to quickly identify the high-priority, most globally supported projects.

Engagement

Profile

VeriSign project managers prepared the portfolio for the games. Enthiosys structured the process into three tournaments involving ~60% of the 200 person global customer care organization and facilitated the games.

Results • Very clear separation of the “winning” projects – the original list of 46 was prioritized to the top 5 projects

• High degrees of collaboration – even when collaboration was not required to purchase an project!

• Participant chat logs provided detailed explanations behind the bidding – the meaning behind the choice.

• Participants considered the process fun.

Getting Started

Sign up for a free account: www.innovationgames.com

Play games.

Enjoy the results.

Tell me how you want to use Innovation Games® online and I’ll send you a Luke Hohmann discount to try out our system!

Thank You

Innovation Through Understanding®

Luke Hohmann

Founder & CEO

The Innovation Games® Company

cell: (408) 529-0319

lhohmann@innovationgames.com