Express Computer: Gaming for Product Development
Gaming for Product Development
Serious gaming can help solve some of the complex problems related to product development like understanding customer requirements, writes Varun Aggarwal
One of the biggest challenges in software product development is to understand customer requirements. Though it may sound simple the fact is that most customers are not aware themselves as to what they want from a product—this entails re-engineering, re-designing and re-architecting the entire product to ensure that it meets the customer’s ‘actual’ requirements. Think about the time and money that is wasted in this entire process.
Product development companies have been looking out for tools to simplify this process of determining product requirements and what came to their rescue were some simple concepts derived from gaming.
According to Forrester Research, serious gaming provides an alternate way to collect and analyze product requirements. An increasing number of companies are using serious games to inform product decisions. At the same time, a small number of serious gaming vendors have emerged, providing both training and tools. Serious games can circumvent many of the traditional problems with figuring out product requirements, including collecting sufficient information from customers, partners, and internal stakeholders to make product decisions. Not only are the games relatively lightweight exercises, but they also offer a lighter touch to resolve many debates over product decisions.
In 2007, Luke Hohman, Founder and CEO, Enthiosys, published ‘Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play’, a book outlining a series of games that product planners or managers could leverage to understand customer needs, requirements, product use, and what they want going forward. One of those games—Buy a Feature—was released as an online application in 2008. Designed to understand customer needs and requirements, the game is simple enough: Customers or internal teams receive some money and a list of potential features for a product, and they must negotiate among themselves to purchase the features that they collectively deem important.
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12 Jan 2009 | Source: Express Computer
