Session Slides for Product Camp Toronto 2011 on using Innovation Games to engage with Customers and Stakeholders to build innovative and valuable products. Many thanks to Luke Hohmann at Innovation Games Company for sharing the slides.

1. Market Research with Innovation Games OR EFFECTIVE COLLABORATION WITH CUSTOMERS AND STAKEHOLDERS Agile/Lean Coach, Consultant & Trainer Innovation Games Facilitator michael.sahota@agilitrix.com @MichaelSahota

2. New Product Development Is Innovation. Can you see elements of the “Agile Manifesto”?

3. Yup. External Collaboration is Essential Expanding the Innovation HorizonIBM Global Business Services

4. Really… external collaboration Internal Collaboration External Collaboration – Twice as Much!

5. 5 Let’s Find Out Who You Talk With Draw a circle. Write your name in the center of the circle. Write the names of people you collaborate with at work around the circle. Draw the web of these relationships as you see it. Use different line weights and colors to represent good/bad communication. Spider Web

6. 6 What are their Organizational Roles? Replace the names of the people with their organizational roles (marketing, sales, etc.). Spider Web

7. So? Who do you talk with? What do you talk about? Is it working for you?

8. Collaboration DOES Need Tools Same Time Different Time collocated distributed

10. online or in-person

11. within or across organizational units

13. And yes, it is FUN Chat log extracts from three games played to prioritize a product backlog.

14. Innovation and Collaboration Goals Improve Marketing Messages Prioritize Project Portfolio NPD Manage strategic roadmaps. Identify New Products Identify Product Enhancements Determine Product Interactions Train Sales Teams Prioritize Epics NPD

15. Solving Specific Problems With Specific Tools

16. Envisioning Remember the Future Understand shared steps for mutual success. Product Box Set a vision for your product with customers.

17. Relationships and Use Spider Web Understand complex relationships from your customers’ point of view. Start Your Day Know how the when influences the how.

18. Hidden Needs and Problems Show and Tell Understand usage from your customers’ point of view. Speed Boat Understand the problems your customers are facing.

19. Prioritization 20/20 Vision Understand customer benefit priorities. Prune the Product Tree Develop great roadmaps. Buy a Feature Use a virtual market to prioritize key features.

21. Add current ideas from your roadmap as leaves and apples.

22. 5 to 8 stakeholders shape the “growth” of your offering.

23. Captures very rich information about perceptions of the future, timing of new concepts, balance, and relationships among ideas.Understand the evolution of your offering.

24. We need 4-8 volunteers with computers connected to the internet to play online. Lookup my tweet for the link to the game. (I’m @MichaelSahota) Enter any name you like. Use your real email so you can get back into the game if there’s a problem. If you don’t have a computer, follow along on the big screen or better yet, join in with someone who has a computer. Let’s PlayBuy A Feature online!

25. To Summarize…. The foundation of innovation is understanding your customer’s problems. Innovation Games® are seriously fun techniques to collaborate with your customers. You can do this. Lots of people are here to help.

26. resources Book Free Online Games http://innovationgames.com/ Training in Toronto Nov. 21/22