How might we use digital gamification tools to better understand customer preferences over the very long term – so we can shape smarter, more adaptable strategies?
Challenge
Strategic planning for the future means making decisions today without knowing what tomorrow will bring. Environmental, social, political, and regulatory uncertainty make long-term planning more complex than ever.
To build strategies that truly stand the test of time, we need better ways to understand how customer preferences might evolve – especially in contexts our current models can't fully predict.
This sprint will explore:
How might we use digital gaming to better understand customer preferences over the very long term – so we can shape smarter, more adaptable strategies?
What will we do?
Building on last year’s exploration of strategy gamification, this sprint will design and prototype game-based tools that allow customers to “play through” potential futures and explore different trade-offs, behaviours, and preferences over time.
Together, we’ll:
- Co-design digital game concepts that simulate long-term challenges and strategic choices
- Explore how gameplay can generate valuable, usable insight from customers
- Test mechanics that reflect uncertain futures: climate, regulation, tech, affordability, social change
- Create a roadmap for deploying games to support PR29 and long-term planning cycles
How will we do it?
Participants will collaborate in creative, fast-paced sessions including:
- Future thinking and scenario immersion – bringing the long-term to life
- Customer persona modelling – how might different players respond to future trade-offs?
- Game jam – developing and testing mechanics, formats, and incentives
- Insight pipeline mapping – how to extract useful data from gameplay
- Strategic integration planning – where and how games can influence strategy and regulatory submissions
Target Outcomes
By the end of the sprint, we aim to deliver:
- Prototypes or concepts for customer facing digital games that simulate future challenges and choices
- A plan for how to test customer preferences through gameplay in support of PR29
- Defined insight pathways—how data from play can feed into planning and regulation
- Guidance for integrating gaming with other long-term planning tools (e.g. scenario workshops, forecasting models)
Who will benefit from this sprint?
- Digital and gaming specialists, helping scale interactive, engaging customer tools
- Strategy and long-term planning teams, with richer, customer-informed data for PR29
- Customer insight teams, with new methods to understand evolving values and behaviours
- Regulatory teams, with tools to demonstrate scenario-tested resilience and responsiveness
- Customers, who gain a more accessible, engaging way to shape the future of water
