Innovation Games

Luke Hohmann has got me going on his Innovation Games® ideas. I sat down with him over coffee a few weeks back. He wanted to talk about using the games not just for product management but adapting them for use in outbound sales and marketing efforts. The idea has really resonated with me. 

The games are a natural fit for classic PM's who want to interact with existing users to identify pain points and prioritize lists of future features. They are a better vehicle than classic customer advisory boards and focus groups. Or perhaps its more accurate to say they are a better way to handle your CABs and focus groups than traditional questionnaires, usability tests and 'open discussions'. The games take advantage of a social sigma like process to improve products through social feedback. You might say that companies can use things like Twitter, UserVoice or Get Satisfaction to replace their electronic suggestion box (suggestions@email.com or feedback@email.com), while Innovation Games® can replace stuffy survey's, questionnaires and stale CABs with real social interaction that matters.

The next leap as Luke was describing it to me is to use the games proactively for sales and marketing. Taking the games beyond the classic PM realm.

I'm going to attend the a CSPO class with Luke and Mitch Lacey here in a few weeks, they're going to play a few of the games in the class. I'm looking for as much exposure to them as possible. Coming up on April 7th, I'm going to run one of the games, along with Jeff McKenna at the Bay Area Tech Day for Serena Software. We're going to use the Speedboat game with attendees to identify pain points in our customer relationships and establish a benefit to solving each.

Comments

[Patchen Noelke]

Thanks Luke, ® added. See later this month.

[Luke Hohmann]

Patchen, my goal is to get the entire *world* going on Innovation Games (smile). A minor edit request - Innovation Games is a registered trademark -- please remember to use the "Circle-R", or (R), when referring to the games.

See you at our CSPO class in a few weeks!

Regards,

Luke Hohmann
www.innovationgames.com: The seriously fun way to do serious work -- seriously.
Follow me on twitter at lukehohmann