Archive for September 2nd, 2010

• New Offering – Innovation Games®

  Date: 2010.09.02 | Category: Agile, Collaboration, Design Excellence, Games, Innovation Games, Product Owner, Scrum, Tools, Voice of the Customer | Response: 1

  On May 6^th and 7^th, I attended an Innovations Games^® consultant’s class hosted by Luke Hohmann.  Innovations Games^® are collaborative games designed to help business people develop and prioritize new product ideas.  In the context of Scrum, these games are tools the Product Owner and product designers can use to engage the customers and different business stakeholders in defining the requirements for a product and thinking about product roadmap and multigenerational release plan.  Not a lot is written about the “fuzzy front-end” for Scrum teams and Innovations Games^® fill that significant gap in way that is consistent with the Scrum values and principles.

  It was quite instructive to hear about the games and how they work from Luke.  From the different case studies discussed, we really illuminated the dynamics involved with selecting the right game for problem.  In addition, a few of my misunderstandings about the purpose of the games and how they are played from reading the book were cleared up as well.  What I liked most about the class was in addition to talking about the games, we played a lot of them in the course of two days.

  1. Remember the Future (played)
  2. Prune the Product Tree (played)
  3. Speed Boat (played)
  4. Product Box (played)
  5. Buy a Feature (played)
  6. 20-20 Vision (played)
  7. Show and Tell (played)
  8. The Apprentice
  9. Start Your Day
  10. Spider Web
  11. Me and My Shadow
  12. Give Them a Hot Tub

  Below are pictures of the Product Box I created for Look Forward Consulting announcing the new service available.  I look forward to using these games more and helping Scrum teams with improving prioritization and collaboration with their customers.