Innovation method
Fill a cube with your model, mix it, and compose ideas that are feasible, original or disruptive.
Read the first 23 pages for freeSpin the cube
The challenge
Testing every possible combination in a spreadsheet exhausts teams; planning-heavy approaches narrow the view and discourage change. Unstructured brainstorming, meanwhile, keeps raising the same question: “Is it a good idea?”
Cubification takes a middle path: rigour and randomness, rules and play. Like the Oulipo writers who invented under constraint, the method sets a precise frame to free the imagination, and opens innovation to people outside R&D, design or marketing.
The cube turns a complex situation into visible elements you can handle and rearrange.
Play creates a “magic circle” where making mistakes is allowed, whatever your job title.
A star score separates what can launch quickly from what belongs to the long-term vision.
The method
Cubification borrows the structure of fairy tales: a central character, a setting, an auxiliary, a disruptive element, a quest and a reward. Each element becomes one face of the cube. The aim is not to solve the cube but to “disrupt” it.
The team fills the six faces in this order: users, places, resources, game changers, advantages, revenue stream. One item per square, nine per face, spread across three star levels.
What the team produces A fully completed cube: your innovation model.
Mix the cube. Pick a side where every colour appears at least once, keep six items of different colours, then tell the idea using a set narrative structure.
What the team produces Idea sheets, each with a name and a slogan.
Add up the stars of the six items used. The total places the idea in the short, medium or long term, and on an innovation roadmap.
What the team produces A roadmap: within 6 months, 6 to 18 months, beyond.
What you already do, better than your competitors
What your competitors already do, and you don’t yet
What nobody does yet, but has real potential
You play safe with elements you know well. It could be put in place quickly.
You leave your comfort zone, mixing what you know with harder elements. Medium term.
You explore uncharted territory. Sometimes a visionary idea, for the long term.
An organisation needs all three types of ideas to work in the short, medium and long term.
What product or service could you imagine for user, by using resource in place? This would allow the user to advantage. And besides, all this could work game changer. This would be funded through revenue stream.
From the English edition of the book (p. 74).
The book describes nine activities that facilitators combine depending on the playground:
Inside the cube
Each face of the cube carries one dimension of your innovation model. Drag the cube or pick a face to explore its question.
Drag the cube or pick a face
Who are you creating this product or service for?
Specific profiles, not a generic target: the person who uses the offer, even if they are not the one who buys it.
Three rows on every face
In what context will it be used?
A geographical area, a physical or digital space. Picturing a place and what makes it specific makes it easier to invent stories.
Three rows on every face
Which assets can you bring into play?
Concrete resources (equipment, finance, people), intangible ones (know-how, patents, reputation) or strategic ones, such as exclusivity.
Three rows on every face
What if all this was…?
A higher constraint, a market trend or a legislative change, phrased neutrally. It is the most exploratory dimension of the cube.
Three rows on every face
What benefit will you offer your users?
Written as an infinitive verb (to eat, to create social links, to amaze) to express action and the idea of a quest.
Three rows on every face
How will the project sustain itself?
Sales, subscriptions, pay per use, rental, advertising… The revenue stream can itself become the innovation lever of your offer.
Three rows on every face
Static illustration of the six faces
Try it
Illustrative example
A glimpse of the principle, using the book’s worked example: “a new food service offer”. Pick one item per face and watch the sentence and score update. In a real workshop, your team fills the cube and the faces get mixed.
A simplified demonstration built for this website; it does not replace a session. Items taken from the book’s example, pp. 68–73.
Use cases
The book identifies seven situations, based on two questions: what stage is your project at, and how many people are involved? Each is illustrated by a real case described in the book.
Re-think your career
Case described in the book A career change project, played individually
Players: 1 person
Create the first offer of your start-up
Case described in the book Windalps, a start-up at the Technolac incubator (Savoie)
Players: 3 to 5
Develop your offer to explore new markets
Case described in the book Maped
Players: 6 to 12
Develop a team’s agility and creativity
Case described in the book Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)
Players: 12 to 25
Apply concepts to concrete examples
Case described in the book UNCTAD’s Empretec programme
Players: 20 to 40
Help organisations re-think their strategy
Case described in the book Natixis EuroTitres
Players: 6 to 80
Open up your innovation issue, up to a hackathon
Case described in the book Somfy
Players: 50 to 1,000
Explore markets, qualify options and connect quick wins with long-term bets.
A complete workshop format, from pre-filling the cube to the roadmap, scalable to the size of the group.
Put innovation management concepts into practice with groups of 20 to 40 people.
These are the benefits the method aims for. Results reported in the book concern specific cases and are not a guarantee.
Foundations
Cubification is not just another game: it turns established work in innovation management, game design and the social sciences into a simple rule you can hold in your hands.
Johan Huizinga’s “magic circle”: time set apart, with its own rules, where you can experiment and get things wrong.
Character, setting, auxiliary, disruption, quest, reward: narrative structure becomes a model for an offer.
The Oulipo of Queneau and Perec, and research on why people enjoy constrained creative experiences.
Edith Penrose’s types of resources, and the required, expected, desired and unexpected benefits of a value proposition.
User innovation and user toolkits, and double-loop learning that questions the rules themselves.
The creator
The book
Published by Pearson France, Hélène Michel’s book sets out the principles of gamification, walks through the Cubification method step by step, then tests it on seven real playgrounds.
Seven illustrated principles, the theoretical foundations of game mechanisms and their challenges in management.
Founding principles, key steps and how to run a session in nine activities.
Seven cases: career change, start-up, business offer, change, training, consultancy and open innovation.
For anyone who wants to re-think a career, launch an entrepreneurial project or open up their approach to innovation, whether with a small team or a large group.
| Publisher | Pearson France |
|---|---|
| Published | 25 August 2017 |
| ISBN | 978-2-326-00148-0 |
| Ebook (ISBN) | 978-2-326-05379-3 |
| Pages | 175 pp. |
| Format | Paperback, 19 × 24 cm, colour illustrations |
| Foreword | Xavier Niel |
| BnF record | BnF record (opens in a new tab) |
| Publisher | Pearson France |
|---|---|
| Published | 2018 |
| ISBN | 978-2-326-00233-3 |
| Pages | 175 pp. |
| Format | Paperback, 19 × 24 cm, colour illustrations |
| Foreword | Xavier Niel |
| BnF record | BnF record (opens in a new tab) |
Xavier Niel’s foreword, “Who is this book for?”, the author’s profile, the introduction and the start of chapter one. No sign-up, no email.
This excerpt comes from the English edition, “Innovation is a game!”.
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Excerpt: PDF pages 1 to 23 of the English edition, © 2018 Pearson France.
You’ve read all 23 free pages.
The rest of the book walks through the method step by step, across seven playgrounds.
At the booksellers we checked on 29 September 2026, both print editions were listed as out of print. Copies are still offered by third-party sellers, often second-hand; availability varies.
You can also consult it in libraries, for example at the BnF.
Links checked on 29 September 2026.
In practice
“We came to play and, suddenly, we enter into strategic thinking.”
Seminar described in the book, p. 163.
Powered by Opopoï
Opopoï is a Paris-based workshop design and facilitation agency, founded in 2015 and co-founded by Hélène Michel and Mathias Salanon. It designs and runs Cubification workshops in French and English.
Pearson France publishes the book; Opopoï supports teams who want to play the method together: preparing the cube, facilitating the session and sharing the results.
FAQ
No, and it’s even better if you don’t. You never try to restore the faces: you mix the cube to create combinations, then ideas.
A Rubik’s-type puzzle cube (or a bigger one), personalised stickers in the colours of the six faces, a permanent marker and idea sheets. For materials or a facilitated session, contact Opopoï.
The rules booklet plans about three hours: an hour and a half to build the model, the same to imagine ideas. For sessions shorter than three hours, the book recommends pre-filling part of the cube. The cases in the book range from two and a half hours to a full day.
You play in teams of three to six. According to the book, one facilitator can coordinate up to six teams, or 36 participants. The method also works alone, to re-think a career, and has been played by several hundred people at a hackathon.
A completed cube that captures your innovation model, idea sheets (six per team during the ideation stage, in the book), 30-second pitches and a roadmap that separates feasible, original and disruptive ideas.
The first 23 pages of the English edition PDF: title page, contents, Xavier Niel’s foreword, who the book is for, the author’s profile, the introduction and the start of chapter one. No sign-up, no email.
Yes. The English edition, “Innovation is a game! The Cubification Method”, was published by Pearson France in 2018 (ISBN 978-2-326-00233-3). The French original, “Jouez l’innovation !”, came out in 2017.
The print editions are listed as out of print at the booksellers we checked. Copies are still offered by third-party sellers: see “Buy the book”.
The book is written to help you organise your own sessions: stages, activities, timings and examples. For commercial use or licensing questions, contact Opopoï.
Talk to Opopoï about a workshop, or start by reading the first pages of the book.