It’s surprisingly hard to tell my kids what I do at work all day. Product Management is awesome, and I want that excitement to come through, but at ages 8, 4, and 1 it can either be too nebulous (“I help people by building great products for them”) or too exact (“I understand customers to build a vision and strategy for a product”). Recently, though, my family found an awesome board game that not only helps explain Product Management, but brings Product Management skills right into our house!
Engineering Ants is a cooperative board game from Peacable Kingdom. We love the cooperative games from Peacable Kingdom as they get us all working to win together. In this game, we’re presented with a set of random challenges that your ants must overcome, like escaping a wild bear or getting through sticky mud, with a set of cardboard widgets to connect to together to build solutions. The widgets are things such as batteries, sails, wheels, rope, and chairs. As a team you build a solution, and when you all agree it’s a great answer to the challenge, you move to the next one.
Right away the premise of this game teaches the collaboration and co-creation that are vital to Product Management. With this game you can show your family that being a Product Manager means taking a vague challenge and working with others to build a prototype or solution! The rules of the game are vague, which also means you can bring your Product Management toolbox of choice to demonstrate to your kids what you do all day. For instance, we’ve started using these house rules:
- The challenges are vague, like simply stating a fallen tree is in the way of your ants. The player that reaches the obstacle must define the challenge and answer any questions the other players might have to help build the answer. This reflects how Product Managers may have to research a problem before helping others create a solution.
- The first player picks two widgets to connect to start a solution, then passes it to the next player to add another, and so on until everyone has added a piece. This lets the solution evolve with each player getting to put their thumbprint on it, and echoes design thinking workshops of co-creation and ensuring everyone has a voice.
- Once everyone has put a piece on the solution, we give a fist-to-five vote. If anyone is a 2 or under, they talk through their concerns and we alter our design. My 4-year old thinks this is a game just in itself, and is always very excited to give her vote! This is another great tool for Product Managers to judge alignment of a team around a solution.
The whole family has been loving Engineering Ants, and if you have young kids that want to know more about your job or you want to get them started on the path to Product Management early, I recommend you check it out too!
For other ways to involve your kids in Product Management, check out my post on the book Hamburger Heaven.