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Fixing Broke(n) Governments Through Serious Games

Luke Hohmann

Founder and CEO 

The Innovation Games® Company

Twitter: #innovgames

Questions To Answer…

• What is the latest in serious games and what kinds of public problems are they solving?

• Why are games a particularly good tool for budgeting? What leverage do they offer over other alternative budgeting approaches like deliberative democracy, participatory budgeting, or majority voting through polls? 

• How can serious budget games be scaled up? What are the challenges we face in expanding play to thousands or millions?

• How do we interpret the results of budget games and how can elected officials act on these results?

• How do we measure the impact of budget games? What are their long term effects on civic engagement and the financial sustainability of communities?

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Can these citizens…

Fix this crisis?

And restore these dreams?

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Through Games?

Games Solve Problems Through Play

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Interaction Rules

Arbitrary Constraints

Jane McGonigal“Games have

four elements…”

VoluntaryParticipation

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Serious Games are Designed To Solve “Serious” Problems

• Advergames: Get you to buy stuff.

• Edutainment: Get you to learn stuff and have fun. 

• Newsgames: Journalistic games motivated bycurrent events.

• Simulations: Learn / explore. 

• Exergaming:  Get to you to be healthy.

• Innovation Games®: Serious games for strategy, market research, portfolio mgmt. 

And even more…

What Are Innovation Games®

Innovation Games® are purpose‐driven games that solve a wide range of product strategy and management problems across the market lifecycle.

They are played: 

• with customers & internal stakeholders

• In small groups of 5 to 8 people

• online or in‐person• in single or multi‐game formats

Some of our many games..

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Used and Endorsed By:

Manage Strategic

Roadmaps

StrategicPlanning

Determine Product Interactions

DetermineStrategicAccountPriorities

PrioritizeProject

Portfolios

Identify ProductEnhancements

Prioritize Epics

NPD

PrioritizeFeatures

Market Insights

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What was the “real” problem?

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Prioritization Games

20/20 VisionPrioritize desired benefits, values, goals.

Prune the Product TreeDevelop great roadmaps.

Buy a FeatureUse a virtual market toprioritize features, projects, items.

• 12 to 20 items described in terms of benefits and costs

• 5 to 8 players given limited budget and buy what they want

Buy a Feature

Produces these Results

1. …2. …3. …4. …

A list of items ranked by your players. 

The reasons behind the ranking.

Feedback that shapes and improves the items.

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Creating Budget Games From Buy a Feature

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Click on the images to link to PDFs of these documents.

To get money to fund a Proposal…Citizens must reach unanimous agreement on

reduction proposals or new taxes.

2011: Proposals Funded

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Proposals Funded: By Table(total 12 tables)

# %Table

ATable

BTable

CTable

DTable

ETable

FTable

GTable

HTable

ITable

JTable

KTable

LAnti-graffiti 9 75% 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1Branch Libraries 7 58% 1 1 1 1 1 1 1Children's Health Initiative 7 58% 1 1 1 1 1 1 1Christmas in the Park 2 17% 1 1Citywide Traffic Safety Services 5 42% 1 1 1 1 1Crossing Guards 1 8% 1General Code Enforcement 10 83% 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1HNVF Community Based Orgs 2 17% 1 1Holiday Parade 1 8% 1Hub Community Centers 7 58% 1 1 1 1 1 1 1MLK Library 3 25% 1 1 1Park Rangers 5 42% 1 1 1 1 1Park Restrooms 6 50% 1 1 1 1 1 1Pavement Maintenance 10 83% 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1Safe Schools Campus Initiative (SSCI) 8 67% 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1San Jose Best CBO 8 67% 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1Streetlights 7 58% 1 1 1 1 1 1 1Strong Neighborhoods Initiative 8 67% 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Total : 12 5 9 5 10 6 8 10 9 9 15 8

San José citizens chose Pavement Maintence

OVER Libraries. 

Yes, that’s radical.

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Producing a Game… Not Always Fun…

• Planning our 1st game took 3 months

• City staff were very enthusiastic, but it took time and coaching to convert “Reduce police costs by xx% to save $1.2M” to “Eliminate the Police Helicopter Program to save $1.2M”

• Play testing was essential

• Developing brandedmoney was fun

• City provided space

Who Played?San José residents, Neighborhood Associations Leaders and the Youth Commission, carefully balanced across the tables.Subject Matter Experts answered questions.

Who Facilitated?More than 35 trained facilitators contributed >$250K in pro‐bono services over 2 years.

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Key Results?

• The City made many budget choices in alignment with our games

– Reductions in Fire Department staffing

– Reductions in Police Department staffing

– Delays in libraries and elimination of services

– Funding of key proposals

• Citizens loved the process

Pushing The Boundaries in 2012

We tested new taxes(“new revenues”)

We tested “buy one or none”proposals

Each table could add ONE new funding proposal.

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2012 Results Summary: Cost‐Savings and Revenue Generation

Reductions/Cost Savings Proposal Amount A B C D E F G H I J K # of Tables % of Tables

A. 1/4 cent sales tax $     36,000,000  1 1 1 1 1 1 6 55%

B. Shift TOT Arts Funding to General Fund $      2,100,000  1 1 9%

C. Shift TOT Convention Center Marketing Funding to General Fund $      2,100,000  1 1 2 18%

D. Business Tax Adjustment $     10,000,000  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 64%

E. Disposal Facility Tax $      5,000,000  1 1 1 1 1 5 45%

F. Eliminate Overtime for Fair Labor Standards Act $      1,200,000  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 73%

G. Workers Compensation and Disability Retirement System Reform $      2,000,000  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 64%

I. Reduce Staffing in Engine Companies from 4 to 3 $     16,600,000  1 1 1 3 27%

J. Children's Health Initiative $      1,000,000  0 0%

K. Close Park Restrooms $         500,000  1 1 9%

L. Eliminate Park Ranger Program $         500,000  0 0%

Parcel Tax

AA. $100 Parcel Tax $     32,000,000  1 1 1 1 1 5 45%

BB. $200 Parcel Tax $     64,000,000  1 1 2 18%

How many revenue‐generating proposals did this table choose? 0 2 2 2 1 1 4 3 4 3 3

Revenue generating proposals are shown in this color.

2012 Results Summary: Funding Proposals Summary

Results are sorted based on purchase frequency

Funding Proposal Price Purchase Count?14. Gang Prevention Efforts $2,900,000 1110. General Code Enforcement $500,000 109. Restore Park Ranger Program $2,200,000 919. Neighborhood & School Traffic Safety $600,000 91. Hub Community Center $900,000 82. Satellite & Neighborhood Community Centers $600,000 86. Open Bascom &  Seven Trees Libraries $1,600,000 87. Open Calabazas & Educational Park Branch Libraries $1,600,000 85. MLK Library Services Restoration $500,000 711. Traffic Safety Improvements $1,500,000 73. Branch Library Hours 4‐4.5 $1,700,000 68. Open Bascom Community Center $600,000 617. Pavement Maintenance: Maintain FAIR Neighborhood Streets $32,000,000 64. Branch Library Hours 4‐5.5 $4,700,000 412. Police Field Patrol: 40 positions $7,500,000 413. Police Field Patrol: 80  positions $15,000,000 415. Temporary Fire Company Closures (Brown‐outs) $5,400,000 416. Open South San José Police Substation $2,400,000 418. Pavement Maintenance: Improve from FAIR to GOOD Neighborhood Streets $64,000,000 2Citizen Proposed ProjectsW1. Medical Marijuana Improvement Program $2,500,000 1W2. Bike Lanes/Table Proposal $900,000 1W3. Elementary Public School in Meadowfair $2,000,000 1W4. Boards and Commissions $250,000 1W5. Spartan Keys Alleyways Repair $750,000 1

8 tables funded police field patrol. 

8 tables funded pavement maintenance. 7 through a parcel tax, 1 through the sales tax. 

10 tables funded increasing branch library hours. 

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Analysis / Interpretation of ResultsAlso informed by the review of Facilitator and Observer Comments

• Gang prevention and other forms of “non‐police” intervention to increase the safety and “livability” of the city were top priorities.

• Participants demonstrated a strong desire to increase revenues (raise taxes) to improve pavement conditions. 

• Tables that enacted the sales tax spent significantly less money on funding proposals than was available, with an average of $12,000,000 of unspent funds. We interpret this as a clear signal that participants favor a prudent and measured approach to budgeting and spending even when a proportionally large sum of money is available. 

• Participants generated five unique funding proposals that are detailed later in this report. 

• Participants expressed a strong desire for additional game‐based sessions focused on “growing” the City.

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Why Are Budget Games Better Than Budget Puzzles?

Dimension Budget Puzzles Budget Games

Producers Goals? Educate the public. Make budget cuts.

Players Goals? Explore and learn. Buy what you want.

How do you “win”? Balance the budget. N/A – You don’t “win”.

Nature of play? Solitary.  Collaborative.

Impact of choices? None. “Being silly is OK”. Significant. “Being silly is NOT OK”.

In‐person or online Online. In‐person. (Future: online).

Biases? A tie. All techniques have inherent bias. See web site for details.

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We Have Many Opportunities to Improve

• Improve preparation

– Distribute proposals in advance

– Solicit citizen‐proposals in advance

• Use more technology 

– During the event to scale

– Provide real‐time results

• Create more opportunities to continue the conversations

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Possible Follow‐up Innovation Games®

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Prune the Product Tree

Buy A Feature Online

Prune the Product Tree

Product Box

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Prune the Product Tree

Understand the evolution of your offering.

• Draw a tree.

• Add current ideas from your roadmap as leaves and apples.

• 5 to 8 stakeholders shape the “growth” of your offering.

• Captures very rich information about perceptions of the future, timing of new concepts, balance, and relationships among ideas.

Community Growth Games (In Planning)

Prune the Product Tree 

OnlineTo identify community service projects. 

Community leaders and city officials will shape ideas into projects.

Buy a Feature OnlineWill be used to “fund” 

the projects. Citizens will publicly commit their time to projects. “Funded” 

projects will receive seed money from the city.

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Engaging Millions of Americans

• Our platforms work well for business. They need enhancements to work for goverments.

• Enrollment and Authentication: Are you a registered voter in the right jurisdiction?

• Anonymity: Can you participate in a game in a way that preserves you free speech? (very hard)

• Coordinating Massive Numbers of Players:We need improved designs for players, SMEs, facilitators.

• Minimizing bias:We need a “wikipedia” for the content within the games to minimize bias.

What About Gamification?

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What About Participatory Budgeting?

Participatory budgeting is a process of democratic deliberation and decision‐making, and a type of participatory democracy, in which ordinary people decide how to allocate part of a municipal or public budget. Participatory budgeting allows citizens to identify, discuss, and prioritize public spending projects, and gives them the power to make real decisions about how money is spent.

Thanks, Wikipedia

Can One Company Do This?YES

• Global network of trained facilitators continue to grow.

• Proven results in many non‐profit endeavors.

• City leaders are gaining trust in us and “games”.

NO• We’re a bootstrapped 

startup. We don’t have all the answers to the tough questions and we can’t fund all the changes we need on our own.

To improve our chances for success we created Every Voice Engaged, a non‐profit focused on increasing civic engagement through games. 

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San Jose, CA Budget Games

Thank You

Innovation Through Understanding®

For more information or to get involved:

The Innovation Games® Company480 San Antonio Rd.   Ste 202Mountain View, CA  94040

Luke Hohmannlhohmann@innovationgames.comSocial media? @lukehohmann#innovgames

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Why Innovation Games®?

• Game playing gives “permission” to be fully creative

• Innovation Games® utilize multiple formsof intelligence (verbal, visual, strategic) thereby providing greater volumes of information

• Collaborative behavior & shared goals are fun

• Some games provide wonderful player artwork that help spur the larger organization to action

• Collaborative play != consensus

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http://everyvoiceengaged.org

Steven T. DoddsExecutive Director

Every Voice Engaged Foundationsteve@everyvoiceengaged.org

http://everyvoiceengaged.org

Project MotivationSan Jose neighborhood organizations have expressed a strong desire to address their needs by engaging their neighbors!

EVERY VOICE ENGAGED FOUNDATION © WWW.EVERYVOICEENGAGED.ORG ATTRIBUTION APPRECIATED. 2

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Great Neighborhoods Goals

• Solicit and capture great ideas from neighbors on community action projects that will result in more beautiful, clean, safe, and engaged neighborhoods.

• Awaken neighborhood capacity to commit resources and volunteer time and take action.

• Facilitate neighborhood prioritization of ideas, recruitment of volunteers and project funding proposals.

EVERY VOICE ENGAGED FOUNDATION (C) WWW.EVERYVOICEENGAGED.ORG ATTRIBUTION APPRECIATED. 3

Timeline for Great NeighborhoodsAnnounce Great Neighborhoods and San Jose Mini-Grant programEVEF producer meets with each interested Neighborhood and plans their event schedule

EVERY VOICE ENGAGED FOUNDATION (C) WWW.EVERYVOICEENGAGED.ORG ATTRIBUTION APPRECIATED. 4

Step 1 Hold Make My Neighborhood Great! events (In-person & Online) to generate neighborhood improvement ideas - Clean, Beautify, Safe, Engaged (projects completed within 6 months)

Step 2 EVEF works with leaders to define resources required (volunteer hours, $, dependencies, etc.)

Step 3 Hold We Commit! events for neighbors to collaborate in volunteering required hours for completion of selected projects

Step 4 EVEF works with leaders to select those projects to apply for Mini-Grant or alternative funding sources

Step 5 EVEF works with leaders in monitoring and reporting on project results

Step 6 Celebrate! San Jose Mini-Grant program recipients, share “best practices” at NDTC (Neighborhood Development Training Conference), September 29th

Step 7 Repeat - Schedule next round of Make My Neighborhood Great! Events, determine if neighborhood wishes to have members trained to facilitate future events.

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Steps to Great Neighborhoods

Make My Neighborhood Great!

Work with community leaders to

shape ideas into potential

projects

Create Define

EVERY VOICE ENGAGED FOUNDATION (C) WWW.EVERYVOICEENGAGED.ORG ATTRIBUTION APPRECIATED. 5

Community members can collaboratively generate ideas.

Decide

Collaboratively prioritize projects

based on community members’ time commitments.

Clean

Safe Engaged

BeautifulQuicker Projects

Longer Projects

EVERY VOICE ENGAGED FOUNDATION (C) WWW.EVERYVOICEENGAGED.ORG ATTRIBUTION APPRECIATED. 6

Other CommunitySupport?Web Site?

Project Timeline

Great Neighborhoods: CREATE

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Great Neighborhoods: CREATEEvent: Make My Neighborhood Great! “This is a great way

to get all of these things done!”

Emma Ramirez, CCNA adopt-a-street beautification

EVERY VOICE ENGAGED FOUNDATION (C) WWW.EVERYVOICEENGAGED.ORG ATTRIBUTION APPRECIATED. 7

“That was a great meeting! I'm excited!"

Mike Ospring, CCNA block captain / anti-graffiti & litter task force

Great Neighborhoods: CREATEEvent: Neighborhood Celebration

EVERY VOICE ENGAGED FOUNDATION (C) WWW.EVERYVOICEENGAGED.ORG ATTRIBUTION APPRECIATED. 8

“I'm thinking about all of the projects,.. let me go home and see if my husband can help”Pat Tiara, CCNA block captain

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Great Neighborhoods: CREATE

EVERY VOICE ENGAGED FOUNDATION (C) WWW.EVERYVOICEENGAGED.ORG ATTRIBUTION APPRECIATED. 9

Ideas for Safety, Beautification, Clean Up and Engagement

“I'm so excited about all of these projects! thank you so much!"

Linda Musumeci, CCNA hospitality

Great Neighborhoods - DEFINE

Each Project description, benefit, and estimated volunteer hours required.

EVERY VOICE ENGAGED FOUNDATION (C) WWW.EVERYVOICEENGAGED.ORG ATTRIBUTION APPRECIATED. 10

"this is so helpful - I think we can really get more done!”

Sandy Bowman, CCNA event coordinator & N.A. beautification/ community relations

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Great Neighborhoods – DECIDEEvent: We Commit!

EVERY VOICE ENGAGED FOUNDATION (C) WWW.EVERYVOICEENGAGED.ORG ATTRIBUTION APPRECIATED. 11

"this is a great way to get all of these things done!”

emma ramirez, ccna adopt-a-street beautification

Great Neighborhoods – DECIDEEvent: We Commit! Results

EVERY VOICE ENGAGED FOUNDATION (C) WWW.EVERYVOICEENGAGED.ORG ATTRIBUTION APPRECIATED. 12

• Of 31 projects, 24 received at

least one bid

• 16 Projects were fully funded!

• 16 attendees contributed at least

some time out of the 22

participants, for a total of 568

hours volunteered

"the presenters did such a good job! their group was so impressive!”

Darryl Ospring,CCNA secretary & past president / coord adopt-a-park & trail / coord n.a. beautification

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From the City of San Jose…

EVERY VOICE ENGAGED FOUNDATION (C) WWW.EVERYVOICEENGAGED.ORG ATTRIBUTION APPRECIATED. 13

[With Great Neighborhoods…] What we are engaged in is an awakening of neighborhood capacity, a capacity that is already there.”

"What Every Voice Engaged is doing [with Great Neighborhoods] is beyond just allowing for their voice to be heard, it is opening up the possibility of their connecting with each other and engaging in what's most important in their neighborhood, and taking action.”

Kip HarknessAssistant to the City Manager

Transforming Communities with the Power of Every Voice

• Nonprofit constituent engagement

• Quantitative & qualitative feedback

• Experienced facilitators support your team, handling event structure and process, not outcome

• Options of online and/or in-person events, facilitator training (over 600 trained)

• Empowered by The Innovation Games Company

EVERY VOICE ENGAGED FOUNDATION (C) WWW.EVERYVOICEENGAGED.ORG ATTRIBUTION APPRECIATED. 14