Innovation Games | 5 Questions For Luke Hohmann

I’ve been blessed over the course of my 12 years in Silicon Valley working for Netscape, AOL and Apple and consulting for countless software and Internet companies to have met many bright, creative and high-impact people.  Today I kick off a new blog series highlighting some of those people.  As Jim Barksdale, CEO of Netscape, would explain: “every great list has either 3 or 5 things on it.  If you got 4 on your list, you either got 1 too many or need to add 1 more.”  I’ve opted for 5 questions on my “list” and blog series!

Luke Hohmann is software product expert, author, coach, entrepreneur, innovator, teacher and friend.    He is the author of “Journey of the Software Professional: A Sociology of Software Development”, “Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions”, and “Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play”.  He is a former faculty member of the UC Berkeley and Santa Cruz (Extensions).  Luke is on the board of the Agile Alliance and is a member of the ACM, IEEE, and PDMA.  Luke is the Founder & CEO of Enthiosys, an Agile Product Management Consultancy.  I caught up with him recently to talk about his latest venture, Innovation Games Online.

1.  What are Innovation Games Online?
Innovation Games® online are web-based versions of some of our most popular games. They provide the same kind rich interaction and collaboration of our in-person versions of the games at a web-scale.

2.  What type of users would benefit from Innovation Games Online?
We see three kinds of users benefitting from Innovation Games® online.

• Market researchers, Product Managers, and Product Owners who want to better understand customer needs;
• Corporate strategists who want to use powerful visual metaphors, such as Collis’s Strategic Sweet Spot or Levitt’s Whole Product Framework to drive decision making;
• Strategic Account Managers who need to manage customer relationships instead of a pipeline of deals.

3.  What’s the most unusual example of someone using Innovation Games Online?
This is a tough question to answer, because our customers keep coming up with increasingly creative and unusual applications. One of my favorites, though, is that the CTO office of a $36B high technology used the games to map out their future project portfolio. In the process, they identified some new opportunities. Another one that is both creative and profound is the work that is being done with the games to strengthen democratic discourse at GamesForDemocracy.org.

4.  What motivated you to start Innovation Games Online?
The initial motivation was provided by Aaron Williams, VP, ES Community & Co-Innovation Engineering, from SAP Labs. Aaron had hired us to do some in-person games with his team and was so impressed with the results that he convinced us to put the games online. And while we’re very proud of what we’ve accomplished so far, we have a long way to go.

5.  How does someone get started with Innovation Games Online?
They should visit www.innovationgames.com and create an account. Basic accounts are free. Once they have an account they can play games with their customers and internal stakeholders. We also offer a variety of training and consulting services to help people leverage the games.