Product Discovery Gamestorming - Having Fun, learning what to build

While learning what product to build, we talk to customers - a lot. And no matter how engaging we think we might be, evaluating processes and drilling into pain points can be a tedious and sometimes delicate process, for both you and the customer. Learn how to introduce gamestorming techniques to your product discovery to create a fun and innovative learning environment.

We dropped a discovery team in the midst of our annual user conference, had a lot of fun with our customers, and pushed the limits of how fast we could learn - 3 days, 100’s of customers - month’s worth of learning.

Transcript

1. PRODUCT DISCOVERY GAMESTORMING HAVING FUN, LEARNING WHAT TO BUILD Scott Bacon - Product Manager @scottjbacon, @workiva September 28, 2015
2. A Celebration of Everything Entrepreneurial in Denver September 28 – October 2, 2015 #DENStartupWeek
3. Title Sponsors
4. Product Track Sponsor
5. PRODUCT DISCOVERY GAMESTORMING HAVING FUN, LEARNING WHAT TO BUILD Scott Bacon - Product Manager @scottjbacon, @workiva September 28, 2015
6. Product Discovery Gamestorming WHAT WE DO... TODAY IS PRETTY COOL Highly collaborative, cloud-based productivity suite for governance, risk, compliance and management reporting
7. Product Discovery Gamestorming WHAT WE DO... CONTINUOUS PRODUCT DISCOVERY Talk to users… Gain deep understanding of problems and validate solutions But what if the problem is… Boring?
8. Product Discovery Gamestorming 1 YEAR AGO... PIVOT SARBANES OXLEY ACT, 2002 Executive management’s fiduciary and legal responsibility to certify the accuracy of corporate financial statements, ensuring corporate and auditing accountability and responsibility
9. Product Discovery Gamestorming GAMESTORMING LEARN HAVE FUN Shift the context boring, tedious, complex problems into a GAME Thanks @jeffpatton!
10. Product Discovery Gamestorming LET’S DO THIS! GAMESTORMING “...games help organizations solve complex problems through collaborative play.” ~Luke Hohmann Resources
11. Product Discovery Gamestorming GAMESTORMING GAMES ARE NOT SIMPLY PLAY • Games have a defined space • Games have boundaries • Games have rules • Games have artifacts • Games have goals • Games have results!
12. Product Discovery Gamestorming GAMESTORMING THINK... DIFFERENTLY Open - Explore - Close (Divergent) - (Emergent) - (Convergent) Thinking
13. Product Discovery Gamestorming GAMESTORMING ENGAGE USERS • Break the routine • Encourage creative thinking • Approach problems from a fresh, different perspective • Have a little fun
14. Product Discovery Gamestorming GAMESTORMING LET’S GET STARTED • Define the problem - focus! • Choose or design the right game ◦ Achieve your goal • Build the “board” and “pieces” • Set the stage and practice • Process the results
15. Product Discovery Gamestorming GAMESTORMING EXAMPLE #1 Product Pinocchio • Your product has come to life! • What am I like? • What are my values? • What is my community? • What makes me different? • What is my fight? Attend the Workshop to Play!
16. Product Discovery Gamestorming GAMESTORMING DESIGN YOUR OWN The Superhero • Imagine your product as AWESOME • What makes me special? • What are my superpowers? • Who is my arch-enemy?
17. Product Discovery Gamestorming USER CONFERENCE - TEC 2014 THE SUPERHERO • Support Binders • Difficult to create, manage and share • How can we make them great?
18. Product Discovery Gamestorming USER CONFERENCE - TEC 2014 THE SUPERHERO Draw Them In Learn / Collaborate Compare / Contrast Dig Deeper Ideate and Dream Like and Rank
19. Product Discovery Gamestorming WHAT NOT TO DO... LESSONS LEARNED Don’t start with this…
20. Product Discovery Gamestorming OTHER THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND... LESSONS LEARNED • Be mindful of time • Be prepared for crowds • Do a dry run, or 2, or 3! • Capture results
21. Product Discovery Gamestorming NOW WHAT? QUESTIONS? JOIN US LATER Gamestorming Workshop: Learn How to Create Better Product Through Collaborative Game Play