This document discusses using games to promote innovation in business contexts. It begins by providing background on the gaming industry and market. It then explains that games can be used to optimize collaboration, enable ideation, provide business insights, and make learning fun. Several case studies are presented that show how companies have used innovation games to understand customers, discover unmet needs, build consensus, and gather feedback. Specific games discussed include My Worst Nightmare, Spider Web, Speed Boat, Buy a Feature, and 20/20 Vision. The document argues that innovation games provide value by helping organizations know their customers, find unspoken needs, build trust with stakeholders, and validate requirements.

1. Agile Innovation Games
The seriously fun way to do serious work – seriously
Feb 2013
Nadeem Ulla Khan

2. Agenda
• The Industry
• The Market
• Understanding the Market
• Games + Business
• Why do we need them
• My Worst Nightmare
• Value add
• Case study
• Other Innovation Games
• References

3. The Industry
Source - http://www.esrb.org

4. The Market
Source - http://www.theesa.com

5. Understanding the market
Why do people play games?
• Be more cognitive (knowledge gathering)
• Solving the unsolvable
• Be more competitive
• Self actualization (to realize ones potential)
• Socially intrigued
• Work better as Teams
So, can we use this in business ???
Lets explore…

6. Games + Business = Innovation Games
Developed by Luke Hohmann:
Goal Innovation
Business
Game Collaboration
Strategy

7. Using games in business – Innovation Games
Innovation Games surface out these
through effective collaboration
Circle of Knowledge

8. Innovation Games help in …
Optimizing collaboration
Enables Ideation
Deeper Business Insight
Strengthening the customer-vendor bond
Making learning fun

9. My Worst Nightmare
How it works
The game has 3 parts:
1. Depict by drawing
2. Derive mitigation plans
3. Presenting it to the audience

10. My Worst Nightmare
1. Depict by drawing
You will be given a scenario. The need is for you to role-play.
On the given White Sheet, you need to “depict by drawing” what
could be your worst nightmare in the context of the given scenario
Please discuss within the team then draw them on the sheet
Allowed to be creative, use the given sketch pens

11. My Worst Nightmare
2. Derive mitigation plan
Once every ones nightmare is drawn on the sheet, the team needs to
prioritize them and also jot down a mitigation plan to avoid the
nightmare.
3. Present it to audience
Every team gets 5 minutes to present their case to the entire
audience. The team needs to elect one presenter who will present the
teams case to the entire audience

12. My Worst Nightmare
Scenario:
 Imagine you are a part of the team that has just won a contract to
create a travel portal for a US firm
 Your team is well equipped to handle technical challenges,
however this will the first time that the team will be working on
Distributed model.
 Assume that the Architect and the Product Owner sits at the
client location in US and the rest of the team is in Bangalore
 Now, think of the worst nightmare that you can imagine which
will fail the project.
 Draw them on the given White Sheet, be creative

13. My Worst Nightmare
Scenario:
 Once done drawing
 Together as a team, write down what would be your
mitigation strategy where by the team can avoid the
nightmare
 Then, elect a presenter and then present

14. My Worst Nightmare
What did we learn from this?
 Bubbles up hidden fears
 Makes the expectation EXPLICIT
 Ensure the team arrives at a common
working agreement
 Uncover obstacles right from the word “Go”
 Plan for risk management earlier in the cycle
Where can we use this exercise?
 When you are forming a new team (To Arrive at your team charter)
 When you want to surface out team problems
 As Business, you want to revise your business strategy (Elicits current problems, then plan to mitigate)

15. Value-add of using Agile Innovation Games
• Know your customer
• Discover unspoken needs
• Learn what you shouldn’t build and why
• Build consensus (Get every one on the same page)
• Foster trust relationship
• Share tactical knowledge/experience
• Validate requirements (Offering = Customer business needs)
…all of this while you are having fun 

16. CASE STUDY

17. Case Study - 1
Name of the client Qualcomm (QWBS)
Is a world leader in 3G and next-generation mobile
technologies.
Problem Statement Lacked voice of the customer, unable to find what the
customer wants
Innovation Games Spider Web, Product Box, Start Your Day
Result • Numerous enhancements to existing products
• Discovery and adoption of new marketing messages
Source: http://www.enthiosys.com/

18. Case Study - 2
Name of the client Aladdin Knowledge Systems
A company that produced software for digital rights management and
Internet security.
Problem Statement Required to understand customer and map their
product road map
Innovation Games Speed Boat, Buy a feature
Result • Built a help-tutorial for their customer so as to
engage the customer in using the product more
efficiently
• Surface out other product problems and injected
them in the product roadmap
Source: http://www.enthiosys.com/

19. Case Study - 3
Name of the client Wyse Technologies
Is a leading manufacturer of thin client hardware and
software as well as desktop virtualization in Cloud Client
Computing.
Problem Statement Wanting to use new and creative ways to gather
customer feedback on their products
Innovation Games Spider Web, Speed Boat
Result • Able to receive rich and useful feedback from clients
• Surfaced out key strategic and product level decisions
• Brought out future product road maps
Source: http://www.enthiosys.com/

20. Case Study - 4
Name of the client VeriSign
A company that operates a diverse array of network
infrastructure.
Problem Statement Unable to prioritize 46 proposed improvement projects
($10 M backlog)
Innovation Games Buy a feature
Result • Fathomed collaboration globally
• Able to arrive at consensus as an organization
• Selected the top 7 projects out of 46 as a team
Source: http://www.enthiosys.com/

21. Case Study - 5
Name of the client Emerson Climate Technology
A global manufacturer of heating, ventilation, air
conditioning and refrigeration solutions for residential,
industrial and commercial applications.
Problem Statement Better understand complex product relationships to
create a larger solution footprint
Innovation Games Spider Web, Speedboat
Result • Incorporated results into strategic plans for products
over the next 2 –3 years
Source: http://www.enthiosys.com/

22. Case Study - 6
Name of the client San José residents, neighbourhood association leaders
and the youth commission.
SME answered relevant questions.
Problem Statement Find ways to prioritize key budget issues:
• Raise Taxes
• Cut Programs
• Increase Efficiency
Innovation Games 20/20 Vision, Prune the product tree, Buy a feature
Result • Reduction of Fire department staffing
• Reduction in Police department staffing
• Delays in libraries and elimination of services
• Identified key proposals and planned for funds
Source: http://www.innovationgames.com/

23. Case Study - 7
Name of the client Valtech India.
Problem Statement Valtech India went through a merger. Due to the merger
a few challenges were surfaced:
• Employees were hesitant to open up with the
management
• Employees trust in the organization was almost
depleting
• Unable to maintain transparency as earlier
Innovation Games Speed Boat
Result • Addressed 394 employees in 23 sessions over 2
months
• 195 issues raised, 166 closed immediately
• Surfaced transparency
• Regained Trust
Source: http://www.valtech.co.in

24. Innovation Games to explore
20/20 Vision Rank a list of choices.
Buy a Feature Prioritize features.
Give Them a Hot Tub Generate your crazy ideas and let your customers determine
just how crazy those ideas really are!
Me and My Shadow Watch your customer use your product on their terms, not yours.
Product Box Ask your customers to design a product box for your product.
Prune the Product Tree Build a product according to your plans.
Remember the Future Are you asking your customers the right question?
Show and Tell Ask customers to tell you about the results that they can
produce with your product.
Speed Boat Identify what customers don’t like about your products or
services.
Spider Web Clarify the operating context for your products and services.
Start Your Day Understand how and when your customer uses your product.
The Apprenctice Understand your customers' needs so well that you can envision
solutions to problems customers may not realize they have!

25. References
• http://innovationgames.com/
• http://www.esrb.org/about/video-game-industry-statistics.jsp
• http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2011.pdf
• http://www.nearsoft.com/blog/innovation-games.html
• http://www.itbusinessedge.com/
• http://allgamesofchance.com/psychology-of-games.htm
• http://www.alionscience.com
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation_game#A_description_of_inno
vation_games
• http://tastycupcakes.org/
• http://www.uie.com/

26. Feedback

27. Thank you
Nadeem Ulla Khan (ATS Team)