This document provides an overview of innovation games as a method for product development and customer insights. It discusses how innovation games involve dividing customers into teams to create mock product boxes, presenting their ideas, and voting. This allows companies to understand customer needs, priorities for features, and experiences. Examples of roles, materials, and processing results are also outlined. The goal is to generate feedback through a fun activity to help create better product roadmaps.

1. innovation game
Learn what your customers want from your product
Productbox

2. What we doAt Cytech

3. What we doWe build software products for telecoms focusing on quality and efficiency
3
mCore
Modular software platform for
Mobile Marketing, Messaging
and Payments
Dashboards
Business Intelligence and
Analytics platform for
Telecoms
ProSMS
Web SMS Software for SMEs in
Greece and Romania

4. What we achievedWe managed to expand to 15 counties with almost the same team size
4
Thailand
Mobile Marketing
Runs successful campaigns
for big retailers
Mobile Payments
Offers an alternative and
modern way to pay via mobile
Norway
SMS Wholesale
Transports huge
volumes of SMS
Brazil
Kenya
S.Arabia
Ghana
Greece
VAS and PSMS
Runs VAS for social media
and int'l football clubs

5. 5
2014
2015
2010
CI/CD
• Automated testing, integration
and delivery
• Release every two weeks
• Installations update in 1 day
Cloud
• High Availability, Fail over, no
hardware maintenance
• Release every month
• Installations update takes 3-4
days.
SaaS
• Common Infrastructure with no
real automation
• Release every two months
• Installations update takes a week

6. How we did itWhat really helped us expand to more and bigger customers all over the world maintaining our flexibility
6
2014
2015
2010
K8s
CI/CD
Cloud
SaaS
2017

7. workshop
overview
7
 presentations
and takeaways
 playing the game
Duration: 30 - 40 min
 the product box
Rules and Tips
 introduction to
innovation games

8. understanding customers need
8

9. understanding customers need
9

10. Observation and asking why makes you
find out what people really do and want
10
v
People do not always do
what you tell them to do.
People do not always do
what they think they do.
People do not always do
what you think they do.
People do not always do
what they say they do.

11. customer insight
Choose the right knowledge to
understand what is the need, the
pain and the problem your
customer has
information
Initially processed raw data
mostly not correlated or
related
knowledge
Extra processing on information
so to make the right relations
and learn your customer better
11

12. innovation games
A suite of customer centric games to obtain as much data-driven insight as
possible
12

13. innovation
games
13
A suite of customer centric
games to obtain as much data-
driven insight as possible
feedback
Customers play a set of directed
games as a means of generating
feedback about a product or
service.
origin
Innovation games refer to a
form of primary market
research developed by
Luke Hohmann

14. accomplish
many
different
goals
14


Effectiveness
Improving Sales and
Marketing effectiveness

Opportunities
Discovering new
business opportunities
 Relationships
Improving Customers
Relationships
Roadmaps
Creating Product Roadmaps

15. innovation
games

16. innovation
games

17. innovation
games

18. innovation
games

19. product box
Identify the most exciting features
19

20. Product
box
At a glance
20
prioritisation
Discover how your
customers/users
think/prioritize
features

need
What your customer/
users want to “hear”
from your product/
service

consumer XP
Leverage your
customer’s collective
consumer
experience


21. 
TEAMS
Participants are
divided into multiple
teams of 5-6 ppl

CREATION
Teams are given a blank
box & stationary and are
asked to create the box
to sell the product that
they would buy

TIME-BOXED
Time-box the
product box creation
activity to 20-40 min

PRESENTATION
A representative tries to sell
the product to the
audience by explaining all
that is illustrated on the
box

VOTING
Participants vote for
the best product box
excluding their own
Product
box
How it is played
21

22. preparing
the
game
22
preparing the
observation sheets
ensuring that all
material is present
preparing tables
finding the right
customers

23. Roles
23
OBSERVER
Observes and records reactions of other
teams, during the Product Boxes
presentations; post processes the data
Facilitator
Explains the game, set the rules,
helps teams, keeps time
PLAYERS
Customers/users in groups of max three/
four people

24. Product boX material
24
Box
One blank white or other
colour product box for each
team
sample
Two or three sample boxes
other
Coloured markers, crayons,
pencils, pens, glitter glue,
stickers

25. Processing
results
1st step processing
25

BENEFITS
Statements related to a
benefit

FEATURES
Statements related to a
feature
 LABELS OR SLOGANS
Messages, statements,
titles, quotes, phrases

OBSERVATION SHEETS
Prepare the observation
sheets

26. Processing
results
2nd step processing
26
Recognition
Adoption
Technology
Price
Value
Community
User experience
Support

27. learn from
the masters
27
• Features
• Taglines
• Security issues
• Payments
• Benefits
• Value
• Need/Insight
• Reasons to believe
• Acknowledgements
• Associations/
Certifications
• Technology
• The brand
• The company
• Cases


29. 29

30. Vagelis Antoniadis
Contact me on
30
www.cytechmobile.com
twitter.com/vanton_
www.linkedin.com/in/vanton
vanton@cytech.gr
www.cytechmobile.com
Science and Technology Park of Crete, Heraklion, Greece
Phone: +30.2810.314127 - Email: info@cytechmobile.com