Featured in Inc.com - Kickstarter Success for the board game that wants to make you a better entrepreneur Oslo, June 9th 2015 - The board game Playing Lean reached 500% funding on Kickstarter the 3rd of June. The team behind the game The game is a brainchild of Simen Fure Jorgensen, CEO of a Lean Startup Consultancy firm, Iterate, and Tore Rasmussen, Lean Startup Advisor and serial entrepreneur. Jørgensen first got inspiration from the game when he was met with resistance from colleagues and clients to read the books or attend the lectures on the Lean Startup Method.   “People don’t have time to sit down and read a book, and if they do, they rarely retain the information. That’s why we needed a fast, easy and effective way to lead them through the Lean Startup Method”, says Jørgensen. The first failure This is not Playing Lean’s first time on Kickstarter. The game had a first campaign earlier this year, which compiled around 130 backers and 25% of funding.   “While failing the first campaign was a blow, we still sat down and took in all the learning we could. We made a lot of improvements between the campaigns, including gameplay, design and bringing on new team members, such as Ash Maurya and Holger Nils Pohl”, says Rasmussen. The future After the campaign ended on June 3rd, the team is now working on shipping the game and the bonus add-ons that the backers have requested. Then, the team’s focus will turn from facilitating the game themselves, to creating Playing Lean facilitators all over the world.   Press coverage (English) Inc - Top 4 Board Games For Aspiring Entrepreneurs (Norwegian) E24 - Dette spillet kan sette norsk Kickstarter-rekord (German) t3n - „Play fast, break things!“ – Mittels Brettspiel zum Lean Startup (English) StartupJuncture - Mastering lean while having fun: Playing Lean Contact: Tore Rasmussen, phone: +47 411 63138 - tore@playinglean.com Simen Fure Jørgensen, phone: +47 920 30 173 - jorgensen@iterate.no  

(English) Inc - Top 4 Board Games For Aspiring Entrepreneurs   (Norwegian) E24 - Dette spillet kan sette norsk Kickstarter-rekord   (Norwegian) Radio Haugaland - God butikk med brettspill   (German) t3n - „Play fast, break things!“ – Mittels Brettspiel zum Lean Startup   (English) StartupJuncture - Mastering lean while having fun: Playing Lean    (English) The Millennial Takeover - It Takes Being Lean to Play Lean   

When we first read Eric Ries' book Lean Startup, we got inspired. What we read felt important and it seemed clear to us that it was going to have an impact on how we work with innovation and creativity. Then we became a little frustrated. How would we get this way of working to fit into our everyday lives? How can Lean Startup be relevant in everyone's industry? After that we have had many practical experiences. In the Playing Lean board game we want to pass along our learning experiences in a fun, fast and lasting way.

In Playing Lean, you lead a team that tries to get from an idea to a winning product. The transition from dealing with visionary individuals to capturing large chunks of thousands of customers will be difficult. The choices you make will be hard ones: should you go with your gut and build what you think the market needs, or should you spend your sparse resources on experiments?   Playing Lean simulates the experience of launching a successful product into a board game that can be played in two hours. Along the way, players will learn the core concepts and vocabulary of the Lean Startup. And they will remember it because they have experienced it.

Simen Fure Jørgensen Started out as a Java software developer. He is the CEO of Iterate, a consultancy based in Oslo, Norway. He is also the co-creator for Playing Lean.    Twitter: @simenfur Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simenfur Tore Rasmussen Passionate about Lean Startup techniques and putting them into practical use. Working on Playing Lean both as a co-creator and academically where he is measure the players learning outcome in his Master's Thesis at Norwegian University of Life Sciences.   Twitter: @torerasmussen Linkedin: http://no.linkedin.com/in/rasmussentore     Katie Z. Griffiths Katie is our local Word Nerd, passionate about communication and making entrepreneurship available to all. Linkedin: https://no.linkedin.com/in/katiezgriffiths     Holger Nils Pohl Visual Strategy Facilitator, makes every kind of complexity tangible, visual and understandable. Holger is known for his Visual Thinking Workshops, with some of his clients including Alexander Osterwalder, Deutsche Bank, and Deloitte. Holger is providing all sorts of creative input to the game, primarily with his illustrations designed specially for Playing Lean.    Twitter: @HolgerNilsPohl Linkedin: https://de.linkedin.com/in/holgerpohl/en Ash Maurya Ash has been an entrepreneur for more than a decade, and throughout that time he has been in search of a better, faster way for building successful products.     He started sharing his learning on his blog, http://practicetrumpstheory.com, which then turned into the best selling book Running Lean, and subsequently into a series of products aimed at helping entrepreneurs raise their odds of success.   He is an advisor for Playing Lean, and is currently working hard on creating the Facilitator's Playbook for the game.   Twitter: @ashmaurya Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashmaurya     Benjamin Sommer Benjamin Sommer is a business angel, agile coach and lean start-up practitioner mentoring start-ups and established companies to innovate faster and better. He uses Lean Startup, Customer Development, Business Model Innovation and Scrum as frameworks when working with clients and entrepreneurs.   Twitter: https://twitter.com/benjaminsommer Linkedin: http://linkd.in/1Fwk4eG

When we launch on 4th May, we’ll be in good company. Eric Ries’ recent campaign, THE LEADER'S GUIDE, was funded by 9,677 backers pledging $588,903 to help bring his project to life. It is now in the Top 3. most funded of all time on Kickstarter in publishing We are also inspired by the gamification of Ash Maurya’s book Running Lean: the Running Lean Startup Card Deck: The Running Lean startup process captured on 52 cards by Miles Galliford. This project was supported by 275 backers pledging a total of £4,925.   Playing Lean was successfully funded in 10 hours and closed on 500% funding. It is now the most funded board game from Scandinavia 

According to Flybridge Capital Partners, the existing global market for EdTech is valued at over $1.3 trillion.     The growth in Edtech is visible in the investments made in EdTech businesses. Of 103 businesses that received funding in the first quarter of 2014, 44% were in Seed or Series A round. In summary, more investments were made in early phase EdTech businesses in the first quarter of 2014 than in the entire year of 2010.     Corporate eLearning, consisting of both established companies and startups, was worth $24 billion in 2012, and is expected to be worth $35 billion by 2017.

There’s something about Gamification   Gamification has been one of the hottest methods for teaching and learning in the past few years. Its effects promote engagement and motivation to boost even the most reluctant student. Any subject can be gamified. But doing so alone takes time, effort and oodles of creativity.     Opinions on the future of Gamification are, however, divided. According to a recent survey at Pew Research Center, quoted in Brian Burke in Gamification 2020: What Is the Future of Gamification? over half of the people surveyed - 53% - believe gamification will be globally widespread by 2020, while 42% predicted that by 2020, gamification will not evolve to be a larger trend “except in specific realms.”     Gamification first appeared on Google Trends in September 2010, five years ago. Now, five years on, technologies such as mobile, cloud, social and location-based services have stimulated even greater growth of gamification to date. Five years from now, once these emerging technologies have reached their peak, with implemented uses such as gesture control, head-mounted displays and augmented reality, they will permit gamification to combine effortlessly with our daily lives on a more human level.   In Gartner's "Hype Cycle for Emerging Energy Technologies, 2012,", gamification was scaled in the Peak of Inflated Expectations, and expected to reach the Plateau of Productivity in 2017-2022. There are risks of entering the Trough of Disillusionment when gamification is poorly implemented; when designers fail to understand game design or player engagement strategies. However, when utilized effectively, with correct game design principles, gamification can have a significant impact in many domains, in some fields, even transformational.

  Augusto Evangelisti wrote an article on the benefits of the game and what he liked best about it. https://mysoftwarequality.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/playing-lean-a-fun-way-to-learn-about-lean-startup/   Joseph talked about his experience Playing Lean and how valuable the game can be for startup entrepreneurs https://plus.google.com/+JosephBironas/posts/8giK8ebuMw7   So good he reviewed it twice: Joseph gave the game a second review after the success of the second Kickstarter https://plus.google.com/+JosephBironas/posts/9vYbp1MeotU   Nico de Haan really goes into depth on the games mechanics and the lessons it can teach you and your team. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lean-startup-board-game-playing-nico-de-haan?trk=hp-feed-article-title   Edgardo writes about his "humiliating defeat" in Playing Lean and his lessons learned. http://edgardosavoy.com/2015/05/05/the-lean-garden/

There had been a murder at the office. We were on the hunt for the perpetrator. http://newtohr.com/blog/board-games/   Playing Lean: Interview with Simen Fure Jørgensen http://grasshopperherder.com/playing-lean-interview-with-simen-fure-jorgensen/   Throwing out good work http://linkis.com/www.oomaat.com/Oj4n2   Winning over the millennials by playing the Lean Startup methodology https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/winning-over-millennials-playing-lean-startup-tore-rasmussen?trk=prof-post   How Friendster got to dominate social media https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-friendster-got-dominate-social-media-tore-rasmussen?trk=prof-post   Playing Lean The Game http://leanstack.com/playing-lean-the-game/   17 Ways to Learn Lean Startup https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/17-ways-learn-lean-startup-tore-rasmussen

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn