Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play

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Core (closest to origin): optimize your current products for current customers (ex. make faster technology) The purpose of this simple exercise is to demonstrate three key principles useful for creativity and idea generation: quantity is a condition for quality; building on the ideas of others; the ideas we come up with are usually all the same. The format is simple, with small groups standing and drawing apples. At the end of the exercise, the whole group reflects and draws out learnings and reflections. One Word Method

The real question is, “how can you get the teams in your organization to not only be more innovative, but to also feel more comfortable sharing their innovations for the benefit of the organization as a whole?” For further organization, you can draw arrows between personas to identify who communicates with whom; doing so will reveal the tangle of relationships originating from the system and bring attention to distant customers who use the output of the product. Play Customer-Centric OnlineSummaries and references of more than 70+ customizable games that are already in use by innovators, entrepreneurs and professional trainers Cover Story is a game about pure imagination. The purpose is to think expansively around an ideal future state for the organization; it’s an exercise in visioning. The object of the game is to suspend all disbelief and envision a future state that is so stellar that it landed your organization on the cover of a well-known magazine Walking Brainstorm the time frame of action: how long after the game completes before the participant expects a product's improvement to reflect the game's results The Creativity Dice #creativity #problem solving #thiagi #issue analysisToo much linear thinking is hazardous to creative problem solving. To be creative, you should approach the problem (or the opportunity) from different points of view. You should leave a thought hanging in mid-air and move to another. This skipping around prevents premature closure and lets your brain incubate one line of thought while you consciously pursue another. Six Words

I use this innovation game with teams all the time as way to clarify their thinking on an issue. A team was having a discussion about the new employee onboarding process and was getting bogged down trying to generate features, workflows and concepts. Giving them 5 minutes to generate and share what the onboarding process should “always be like” and then generating what it should “never be like” made a clear visual word and concept map that sparked features, workflows and concepts more easily. 5. Franken Ideation To work effectively together team members need to build relations, show trust, and be open with each other. This method supports those things through a process of structured storytelling. Team members answer questions related to their childhood, young adulthood, and now; then weave them into a story to share with the rest of their team. Creative exercises for radical planning By helping us change our approach or perspective, these activities can pave the way for innovation and help us reconsider problems or situations effectively. Let’s take a look!GIG was amazing.. the team loved it! Everything was set up and ready for us and all ran smooth - keep doing what you're doing! ” WILEY Additionally, you can invite other customers if they do the same as the person observed. If not, ask them about their alternative way of doing. This lesson encourages teams to use every conceivable idea members offer to reach the target number. This also teaches the value of building on other ideas. 5. iWish

Finding space to introduce more creativity into the workplace yields benefits for both organizations and individuals. Not only can it improve outcomes and create innovation, but it can help managers and employees communicate more effectively and improve job satisfaction too. Innovations need to solve a problem. Participants are asked to individually think of a problem or hassle they know people face. The individuals are then asked to form teams of 3–5 to discuss each of their ideas and decide on one that can best be solved with a phone app. The group is then asked to illustrate the app interface on a large (poster-sized) sketch of a phone to then share with the rest of the groups.Ernest Hemingway’s six-word short story –“For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.” is famous for its ability to cram so much meaning and feeling into an incredibly small space. This creative game invites a group to do the same by trying to encapsulate their ideas or thoughts on a subject into a six-word sentence. Once the brainstorm is done, ask the players to put their notes on the wall. Ask for volunteers to sort the notes into meaningful categories (see Affinity Map). Discuss what these categories might mean for your company and products. Actually, it is a good practice to prepare customers before the game by telling them that some of the features will be “funny” or “outrageous”. Corporate relationships: connections between your company and other companies to identify potential partners then improvement opportunities.

You can work individually to sketch out your initial perceptions, but a diverse team is recommended if you want to broaden your view and map out your landscape of opportunities more accurately.

The purpose of Future Map is to create a shared view of industry trends in the recent past, present, and future. In the workshop, participants map key trends from the past year, the current year, and three years ahead. They then review the map, identify patterns and discuss the relevance of different trends. It is useful for supporting discussion and debate around high-level themes: society, technology, politics, etc. Gap Analysis Players can edit the placement and description of each light bulb, which everyone can view in real time. Use the integrated chat facility and communicate with your players throughout the game to get a better understanding of each move. After the game, the results will be organized in a spread sheet to maximize the benefits of the game. This game should be played with members of both the sales and marketing teams, as it is necessary that they work together to perfect the Commercial Teaching strategy. The marketing team can provide the insight for reps to use as teaching material for their customers, and the sales team can ensure that reps have the skills required to use the insight to its full advantage. Play SAFE-BOLD Framework Online Team games that invite creative solutions are great for bringing a group together in a common purpose while also inspiring new ways of thinking. If the activity also happens to be fun, even better! Physical and/or emotional states: ask for your customers to think about their different physical and/or emotional states when they use your product.