Activity trumps Lecture, every time.
Cross functional teams often struggle to have a shared sense of a problem space. Designers and researchers use frameworks like user journeys and personas to solve for this. Teams praise the praise the presentation then promptly forget it. Complicating this, design /research teams constantly tinker and refine. To outsiders it just makes things worse.
So… Enter the board game
The game was cooked up in a frantic 5 days.
Specifically this game is for a company who sells to users and buyers involved in the first stages of pre-clinical drug discovery. The game represents the content of journeys and personas in a way that lets a team feel and remember thru experience, rather than focus on ‘false details.’ Games can backtrack and circle where journeys tend to make everything a line.
How to Play: For the game, 2-4 teams of 3-4 players compete to prove the viability of a target for creating a new medicine (the underlying journey). Each team represents a pharma. Players choose different roles with different special powers(Personas). The game completes when one team reaches a final square after successfully solving a “invitro” and an “invivo” experimental puzzle. Game-play combines elements of Chutes and Ladders type games with “Clue.” We typically play for about 45 minutes, followed by discussion.
The game arose out of a meta-analysis of existing research, supplementary interviews, and document analysis for the purpose of evaluating the likely market perception and pitfalls of a major new offering. I.e. is the offering a hit or miss, and what might they do to move it closer to hit. I also did the full workup of more traditional personas and journeys.
Did it work?
Users in and out of design retained knowledge about stages and pain points better.
It also helped researchers open up to try different ways to communicate – knowing we have to try and fail if we are to speak with an effective voice.
The cross functional teams of engineers, product managers, staff scientists, and design worked better together.
Engineers better understood the value of some of the big engineering tickets. They also participated more in the life of the product.
Three years later, people still approached me with memories of when they played the game.
— Jeremy
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