Innovation game

The phrase innovation game refers to a form of primary market research developed by Luke Hohmann where customers play a set of directed games as a means of generating feedback about a product or service. The research is primary because the data collected is gathered directly from customers or prospects and is intended to answer a specific research question. (Secondary research is data collected previously by others, usually through primary research, that may or may not address a specific research question.) “Customers” who play innovation games are commonly direct recipients or consumers of a specific product or service. In some cases, though, game players may be any person or system who is or would be affected by a product or service.

Innovation games are directed by a facilitator whose responsibilities include:

The successful operation of an innovation game relies on collaborative play among the participants and a set of observers drawn from disparate functional groups within an organization. For example, a typical game setting for a word processing software might include participants drawn from two or three corporate customers along with observers comprising the product’s quality assurance manager, technical architect, product manager, developer, sales executive, or any one else on the product team. Arguably, the most important observer is the product manager because that person is responsible for acting on the data generated by the game. However, a single observer cannot possible capture all of the nonverbal and nuanced communication that players exhibit, so all observers play a significant and irreplaceable role in the effective utility of the game.

There are at least 12 unique innovation games (and any number of new games derived by combining elements of these 12 games).

While any number or variety of innovation games may be invented, combined, or adapted from other game environments, all such games have strengths and weaknesses that constrain their applicability to specific kinds of problems. These strengths and weaknesses are expressed as six separate dimensions:

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