Feature Budget Game

Purpose

The Feature Budget Game is a collaborative product game that turns prioritization into a hands-on negotiation exercise. By giving participants limited play money to ‘buy’ features from a priced menu, the activity reveals genuine preferences, forces trade-offs, and surfaces the items people are willing to fight for — far more reliably than a simple ranking exercise.

At a glance

• Group size: 4–8 per table (multiple tables possible)
• Duration: 30 minutes
• Difficulty: Beginner
• Facilitation style: Gamified negotiation
• Setting: In-person or virtual with breakout rooms

How to run

1. Prepare the feature list (before the session). List 15–30 features or backlog items on cards. Assign each a price proportional to its estimated effort — some should be too expensive for one person to buy alone.
2. Distribute play money (2 min). Give each participant the same amount of currency. Total group money should cover roughly one-third to one-half of all features.
3. Shopping round (15 min). Participants pool money, negotiate, and decide which features to buy. The facilitator acts as the ‘store clerk’, collecting payments and marking purchased features.
4. Debrief (10 min). Review what was bought, what was left behind, and why. Ask which negotiations were hardest and what alliances formed.
5. Document priorities (3 min). Rank the purchased features by total spend and record the rationale.

Materials needed

• Feature cards with names, short descriptions, and prices
• Play money (paper bills or poker chips)
• A visible ‘store shelf’ display

Pitfalls & common mistakes

• Pricing everything the same. Varying prices forces real trade-off conversations.
• Giving too much money. Scarcity drives prioritization; if everyone can buy everything, nothing is learned.
• Letting the loudest voice dominate. Encourage quieter participants to voice their spending rationale.

Inclusion & accessibility

• Use large-print feature cards and announce prices aloud.
• Ensure play money is distinguishable by both colour and size for colour-blind participants.
• In virtual settings, use a shared spreadsheet or digital board for transparent tracking.

Variations

• Feature Budget Game with customers: Invite real customers to the session for authentic market signal.
• Reverse: Sell a Feature: Participants argue to remove features from an overstuffed roadmap.
• Time-boxed auction: Replace open shopping with timed auction rounds.

When NOT to use this

• When features have hard dependencies that make independent purchase illogical.
• When the group has fewer than four people — negotiations lack diversity.

Source & further reading

• Hohmann, L. (2006). *Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play.* Addison-Wesley.
• Gamestorming (2010). Buy a Feature. gamestorming.com.