New Version of Our Plan for 201X Online!

I just updated the Our Plan for 201X page with the new version of the game. The game is now complete with printable handouts and facilitator sheets. Go check it out! Continue reading →

Game In Progress: Our Strategic Plan For 201X (ver. 4)

This is a game about strategic planning in software product development. People have different words for this kind of planning activity: product portfolio planning, project portfolio planning, strategic planning, product strategy, yearly planning etc. I made first three versions of this game with the name Project Portfolio Planning game at the Play4Agile 2013 unconference. I … Continue reading →

Product Portfolio Planning Game, playtest #3

At the recent Play4Agile 2013 unconference, during the span of 24 hours (which included 7 hours of sleep), I made the alpha playtest version of this game. In this blog post I share the game as it was in the third play test version at 10:30 on monday 25th of February 2013. My objectives in designing this game are: to illustrate the problem of lacking a clear and shared business strategy and having a transparent and shared way to evaluate business value in the context of different needs of different business units when deciding what to build next … Continue reading →

How to Design and Playtest Your Games? (version 2.0)

We have various frameworks and processes that deal with the problem of designing interactive products and services in a customer-centric way: design thinking, user experience design, user-centric design, customer development etc.

The empirical game design framework is based on validating the design in practice. We define clear goals for the game and the solution to reach that goal emerges during the process. The practical work involves making and playtesting game prototypes based on the current vision of the game, called the game concept. Each play test attempts to validate the prototype against one facet of the goals we have set.

The goals specify the gameplay experience we strive for – in playtests we validate whether the current concept reaches those goals. This goal-oriented empiric validation process ensures that we have more knowledge to refine the game concept to better reach our goals after each iteration. This makes the framework empirical and well-suited for game design.

However, games are unique in terms of design: they pose a second-order design problem. On one hand the properties of a game that makes it great can only be assessed by playing the game. On the other hand the designer cannot directly influence the gameplay experience — she only has access to the mechanics and the interface of the game.

That is why we need a unique design framework for game design for effectively designing games. The empirical game design framework is my proposal for such a framework. Continue reading →

Onwards With the Customer Development Game Design

Yesterday I ran a little validation experiment over on Twitter and Google+: I could use a new game to show how and why #LeanStartup and #CustomerDevelopment work. Please RT if you agree. — Antti Kirjavainen (@anttiki) July 18, 2012 The result was fairly positive. Even though I did not get a ton of RT’s or … Continue reading →

So what happened to First Scrum?

I had targeted the first prototype test of First Scrum, my online game to support learning of agile principles and practices for people new to agile on their own, to Play4Agile 2011. I set up a short session to demo the game. I talked a little about my goals for the game, in short a … Continue reading →

How to Design and Playtest Your Game Concepts

Game design is unique as a design task. The properties of a game that makes it great can only be assessed by playing the game. The designer cannot directly influence the gameplay experience. That is why it is recommended to design games in an iterative fashion — to make a prototype of the design and to playtest it. Continue reading →