The document introduces innovation games® as strategic, collaborative tools that enhance product management and prioritization through competitive play involving internal and external stakeholders. 'Buy a Feature' is highlighted as an example of such a game, where players allocate limited budgets to prioritize features based on benefits and costs, yielding insightful results and enhancing participant engagement. The document includes testimonials on the enjoyable experience and effectiveness of the games in driving team collaboration and aligning priorities.

1. Using the Innovation Game® Buy a Feature To Prioritize Really Important Stuff Luke Hohmann Founder and CEO The Innovation Games® Company Twitter: #innovgames

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

3. 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

4. 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.

5. We can collaborate & innovate (better) through serious games

6. Not Humor Like Joke Not Silly Like Water Park

7. More Like Settlers of Catan & Euchre Meet Business

8. Not Work (Leisure) Pleasure Work Play Not-Play External Goals Internal Goals Not-Pleasure 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 .

9. Why are you talking games? I’ve got work to do! Strategic Account 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!

10. Yup. You’ve got important stuff to prioritize. You can do this through games.

11. 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 results A Game To Prioritize Stuff

12. And yes, it is FUN Chat log extracts from a game played to prioritize a product backlog. V1-388 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 yes V1-393 Mike Yes -- it was fun V1-393 Sarah Definitely V1-393 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 yup V1-394 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 hahaha V1-394 Mike ok, gotta go guys.... it was fun

13. 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.”

14. 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!

15. 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!

16. Playing the Game Players 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.

17. Buy A Feature Online - Results Results of many games played, sorted by number of times purchased.

18. 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

19. Tournament Structure Play many tournaments to control for “bracket strength”.

20. 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.

21. 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!

22. Thank You Innovation Through Understanding® Luke Hohmann Founder & CEO The Innovation Games® Company cell: (408) 529-0319 [email_address]