My Innovation Journey

8 steps to improving your facilitation of online Innovation Games®

Recently, I facilitated an online Innovation Game®. The technology just worked and I was really happy with how it turned out. I did a little retrospective and recalled 8 things that I did to make the experience better. Here they are.

1. Write down the question you are trying to answer. You've absolutely, without a doubt, unquestionably got to understand and be clear about the question you're trying to answer. Make this the first thing you do in planning for your game. Reserve one entire page in your planning documents and write it down. I use my favorite 36pt font and make it the first page of my prep documentation. I don't allow myself to get into the fun part before completing this step. Tip:  The Innovation Games(R) site has a set of tools and templates to help you plan.  Here's the link.

2. Start out with a simple, universally understood image or graphic. The next step in the planning process is to start developing your visual collaboration image. My general rule of thumb is the simpler the image is, the better. My last game was about soccer so I started out with a soccer field. Even if you've never played soccer, odds are that you know what a soccer field looks like. You can identify where the goals are and where the out-of-bounds lines are. Paying notice to these simple but important details can become vital metaphors that will guide your participants to provide more insight and make your game results even better. In the next step you will use this image as the base for your visual collaboration "canvas". Tip: If you're good at sketching, you can draw your own graphic or you can find royalty free images on the web for very cheap.

3. Paste your image into PowerPoint and resize it – right away. Right now, the Innovation Games® site works best with images that are exactly a ratio of 94.13% width to height. Don't worry; you don't have to bust out the calculator. Fortunately, there's an easy way to achieve the optimal ratio for your image right in PowerPoint. The Innovation Games® site looks really good with images that are 546 pixels wide by 580 pixels high. After you paste the graphic in, go up to the Picture Tools – Format tab. You'll see a couple fields to enter the image dimensions (in inches). To get the right ratio, I just enter in 5.46" x 5.80" and voila, you have a canvas to work with! Tip: If you're image looks too weird for your liking because of the aspect ratio, you can search out other ones but in my case I didn't worry about this. The point was, it looked like a soccer field and that's what I wanted.  Additional Tip:  Invest $49 in the Snag-It program from Techsmith.  You can use it to easily capture your PowerPoint graphic and save it in png format for uploading to the Innovation Games site.

4. Enhance your canvas using simple shapes. You want to guide your participants to give you the insight you're looking for without skewing their contributions. To do this, I try to use very simple arrows. Here's the graphic I ended up with. I added a simple arrow on the left hand side that represents a "rise in popularity level". I also added some logos (Tip: check on copyright usage first) and added a callout to give the participants a tip on the kinds of things that would be in that zone. I'm not sure if this really helped but it's something I did.

5. Treat your graphic regions like metaphors. I used the metaphor of "Attacking" equal to "Rising in Popularity". I named my layer that way to avoid confusion during game play. Here's a snippet of the game play interface. Players saw this during the game. I wasn't able to take a screen capture of the game setup that shows the outline of the regions but just by reading the names of the regions and layers, you can probably guess where the regions are located on the soccer field. I named them in such a way that gave the players vital in-game understanding. I think this helped avoid confusion about what the regions mean to the players.

6. Be creative but pick powerful symbols for your item images.  I used soccer balls as well as yellow and red penalty cards for my item images.  The concepts of scoring goals (with soccer balls) and being penalized (with yellow or red cards) has a strong base for understanding and are also quite inspiring for the game players.  I can tell you that in the Innovation Games(R) software, these images are best when sized 27 pixels by 27 pixels square.

7. Develop a script. I've facilitated a few online games now and I have a pretty good template that I use. The soccer game that I facilitated really seemed to go well. Click here to get the script I used.

8. Go agile on your facilitation and hold a retrospective. Here's a copy of the result of the game I facilitated. One of the things that I thought would happen but didn't is that players would put penalty card items in the attacking zone. There was one but I think the strength of the penalty metaphor was too much of a stretch to understand that you cannot make progress by having a penalty when you're attacking. The game turned out fine but I think the next time I'll probably make my item graphics even simpler.

Hope you enjoyed this and found it useful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Innovation Games® Visual Collaboration Script for Facilitators

I recently facilitated an Innovation Game® to gain some fresh insight into a question that my company is always seeking an answer to.  How do people value (or not value) working with direct writers vs. independent agents when they buy insurance.  For being the first time that I ever facilitated a visual collaboration game, I thought it went really well. 

If there is one bit of advice I would share with other Innovation Games® enthusiasts when they're preparing for a visual collaboration game, it's that they should definitely prepare a script for themselves that they can copy/paste into the chat window when they're facilitating the game.  I had a script prepared ahead of time and it really came in handy.  I allowed me to keep the flow of the conversation going as if I were up in front of the group at an in-person event with all the participants eyes on me. 

Here's the script I used for my game.  I am writing this blog entry with a somewhat fuzzy memory (the game was several weeks ago) so if I scabbed one or two lines from a game that I participated with another facilitator, please forgive me (I was grabbing lines that I thought made points clear).  At any rate, feel free to use this and tweak it for your needs.  If you have any thoughts on how to improve scripts in general, give a shout out in the Innovation Games® forum.

Download the text file of the script I used

SCRIPT

Direct Writers vs. Independent Agents
====================================
Thanks for coming everybody.  I appreciate your time today and I hope you enjoy the experience. 

Well, let's get started.

I work for an property and casualty insurance company (not life or health) and I want to better understand some things going on when you buy insurance.  I need your help.

When the game starts, you'll see an image identifying three separate zones.

1.  When you are thinking about buying insurance (for whatever reason, e.g. prices went up, unhappy w/ claim result, etc.)

2.  When you are shopping for insurance

3.  When you already have insurance and plan to stay with your current insurance agent/company.

For the purposes of this game, you can consider buying personal lines insurance (i.e. Homeowners, Boat, Motorcycle, Auto, etc.) or commercial lines insurance (i.e. Liability, Fire, Businessowners, Workers Comp, etc.).

I'm going to assume everyone can relate to personal lines insurance.  If you can't relate to commercial lines don't feel like you've got to comment on it.

What I want you to think about is when you buy insurance, what things about the experience adds/subtracts from the VALUE that a direct writer (like Progressive or Geico) versus an independent agents brings to the table.

When you see the image, take a minute or two to examine it.  If there's something you don't understand, ask the question in the chat window. 

There will be smiley faces and frown faces in the upper-left corner.  For things that ADD to the value, use a smiley.  For things that SUBTRACT, use a frown. 

Ok, I'm going to start the game.  Your screen will automatically switch to a new look.  See you inside.


Other Helpful Script Items
====================================

Since everyone shares the same set of apples, you will need to collaborate with your fellow players.

You’ll find that the tree has some initial apples to help get you started. You can move these around to where you like them.

You can even delete them by moving them off the game board.
       
To give you feedback on where the apples are placed, we have created some layers and regions.

These are initially hidden, but you can see the layers and regions by clicking on the layers and regions tab in the upper right during the game. 

My job is to answer your questions during the game and help move things along.

We’ll start as soon as more participants arrive.
       
If you have questions on how to play the game please review the information at https://innovationgames.com/content/docs/HowToPlayPTPT.

Direct Writers vs. Independent Agents

Scenario

As a carrier that does business with over 900 independent agents in six Midwestern states, my company is very interested in anything that adds value to the independent agent model.

To understand what people see as the advantage (as well as what they see are disadvantages) to working with independent agents, I planned a visual collaboration event using the Innovation Games® platform.  I wanted to explore their thoughts and gain fresh insight into the value of the independent agent versus the direct writer.  The game was played by four people and facilitated entirely online.

Creating this visual collaboration event involved the following steps:

1. Defining the specific question/problem that needed to be understood. 
2. Constructing a custom image that supported understanding of the questions and that would form the backdrop for the visual collaboration
3. Uploading the custom image and setting up the game details at www.InnovationGames.com
4. Facilitating the game
5. Processing the results of the game (i.e. what will I do with the results?)

What Question/Problem Needed to Be Understood?

At various stages in the relationship between a policyholder and their agent or carrier, I want to better understand what the value of independent agents are (that represent multiple carriers) versus direct writers (e.g. Progressive, Geico, etc.)  I came up with three different stages that a policyholder might be in during their relationship with their respective agent or carrier.

1. Thinking of Shopping for Insurance
2. Actively Shopping
3. Staying with Current Insurance Agent or Carrier

Constructing an Image

I have a tablet PC and it comes loaded with Microsoft Windows Journal software.  I could have created the image using that but I chose to use PowerPoint because of the ease of creating and resizing shapes.  I can also easily paste in images from the web into PowerPoint to enhance the look of the graphic.  There’s also a fantastic program called Snag-It that I used frequently to capture parts of my screen to enhance visual communication.

Here’s the image I created.  This is my visual collaboration “blank slate” and it would be the foundation for the visual collaboration event that players would eventually interact with by placing informational "items" on top of it.  The blue rounded rectangles represent the three different stages.  The left column is for direct writers and the right column is for independent agents. The arrows at the bottom represent the degree of value of the items to be placed by the players.

 

Uploading the Image and Setting up the Game

On June 18, 2010, I facilitated the game.  I was the Innovation Games® Featured Facilitator on that day so a few days ahead of that date I logged in to www.InnovationGames.com and set up my game.

The system walked me through configuring my game and uploading the custom image. 

 

Facilitation of the Game

On the day of the game, I clicked on the link to go to the game “lobby”.  I was the first one to log in so all I had to do was wait for the players to show up.  Days earlier, the game was advertised on LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networking sites so all the players I was expecting to come were already signed up and had received notification along with the URL to go to on game day.  As time got closer to the official start of the game, I saw those individuals start to show up in the lobby.  The Innovation Games site is programmed so that you don’t have to refresh your screen.  Their names would appear and they would often say hello in the chat window.  The experience of using the interface is kind of like waiting for someone in a hotel lobby and then when you see them; you walk up to say hello and greet them with a handshake.  The only difference here is that you greet them with a “Hello” in the chat box instead.  (I am excited to see how collaboration technology improves and to see how the programming staff at InnovationGames.com will deliver more functionality.)

Players showed up a few minutes before the game was scheduled to start but before I clicked the button to start the game, there was idle chatting going on amongst the players in the lobby like, “Where are you from?” or “Did you hear that on the news?”  When the time was right, I interrupted their chatting and prepped the players with some information contained in some short snippets of text that I prepared ahead of time that I could just paste into the chat window.  To me, it was kind of like when you have a group of people in a hotel lobby and you have something interesting to say.  If you have a captive audience, the people will all get quiet and listen to what you have to say.  In this case, the players were very polite and stopped their personal chat conversations in the lobby and "listened".  They just read the information that I (as the facilitator) submitted into the chat window every few seconds.  I thought through what I wanted to say ahead of time.  I planned for this as if I were going to speak to a small group of people in a hotel lobby.  It worked pretty well and I’d recommend it to any game facilitator.

Once the game “prep” was over and everyone was ready to start, I clicked the button to start the game.  The screen switched from the game lobby to the screen that showed the image I created.  The players expected this because I told them it was going to happen.  In the beginning, people asked a couple of questions about the image I uploaded.  I was able to answer them pretty easily using chat.  The thought and planning I put into the image ahead of time definitely paid off though because there weren’t many questions.  The image was definitely designed around the problem and not the other way around.  This is a key part of the success of any game. The game lasted for about 45 minutes and there was lively discussion on my topic. 

To summarize the experience, I think I was able to effectively facilitate within the Innovation Games® online framework.  For the most part, I didn’t feel constrained by the system and I think the experience everyone had was pretty good.  I got some experience facilitating and I definitely had a mental breakthrough with visual collaboration.  The best part is that I can totally see how the more I do this, the more great insights I may stumble onto for understanding my specific problems.  I can’t wait to facilitate my next game!

Processing the Results

Here are the results of the game I played.  The image (with all the smiles and frowns) was the “visual” result of the game. In the minds of the players, the smiles and frowns represent the advantages and disadvantages of working with direct writers and independent agents.  As you go further out from the center, a greater degree of advantage or disadvantage is identified.

Even though the game is over, I can go back and view this image for further analysis.  By holding my mouse over the smile or frown I can see the complete text of what the player typed in describing the item they placed.

I haven’t finished my analysis of the results yet but here are some of the key points entered during game play.

• Agents generally insist on face to face meetings (players do not like).
• Agents give you a choice of companies (they like this) while direct writers don’t (they don't like this).
  
• It’s very labor intensive to make changes to their policies with independent agents (don’t like).  With direct writers, it is generally a lot easier and people are able to make changes to their policy online (like).
• People don’t know anyone at the direct writer company (don’t like) and they value the relationship they have with an independent agent (like).

The other part of the result that I got with the game is this Excel spreadsheet that I exported from the InnovationGames.com site.  It contains a complete history of the game play including an entire chat log.  The spreadsheet makes it very easy to sort and filter.

Experience and Follow Up

As a corporate innovator, I gained experience in facilitating the games.  I plan to show these results to my marketing manager to get his input on how we can continue to use this in our organization.  Facilitating a game is not difficult but does require some planning and thought.  You get out of it what you put into it.  I am convinced that if I facilitate enough of these games and get the right people in the room to analyze the results, it will yield a “golden nugget” of information that will give us a deeper understanding of an issue or that we can choose to use to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace.

I recommend Innovation Games® to anyone looking for a way to bring a differentiating factor to their organization.