An overview of how to leverage the online Innovation Game Buy a Feature. You can play Buy a Feature at www.innovationgames.com.

1. www.conteneo.co
Using the Innovation Game®
Buy a Feature
To Prioritize Really Important Stuff
Luke Hohmann
Founder and CEO
Conteneo, Inc.
Twitter: #innovgames

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

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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

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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.

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We can collaborate & innovate
(better) through serious games

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Not Humor
Like Joke
Not Silly Like
Water Park

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More Like
Settlers of Catan &
Euchre
Meet Business

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Not Work
(Leisure)
Pleasure
Work
Play
Not-Play
External GoalsInternal Goals
Not-Pleasure
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.

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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!

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

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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 resultsA Game To
Prioritize Stuff

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

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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.”

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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!

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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!

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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.

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

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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

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Tournament Structure
15
15
7
745
15
14 7
7
14 7
1
2
3
4
5
List of
projects
14 Each dark square
represents one game
7 Each light square represents
the “winning” projects
Play many tournaments
to control for “bracket
strength”.

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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.

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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!

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Thank You
Innovation Through Understanding®
Luke Hohmann
Founder & CEO
Conteneo, Inc.
cell: (408) 529-0319
luke.hohmann@conteneo.co