I am pleased to have Stephen Keenan with us to talk about founding a start-up, the early-stage product design and development process, and to share his thoughts about funding new ventures.First, Stephen, could you say a few words about yourself and the motivation behind Filter, the MedTech start-up you are part of?•Why are companies that have a hardware component considered 'Deep Tech'?oDeep tech is where deep innovation comes from. And hardware is nearly always at the heart. But it is high risk over a long timeframe, that's why, ultimately, only governments have pockets deep enough to make that happen.•Are software businesses less capital intensive than hardware?oThe obvious answer is yes! And even more so now with people shifting away from needing so much commercial office space. But for a hardware product, the cost from concept to something concrete - from prototype to small batch production runs - is much less expensive than it was. With CAD models, 3D printing, custom chips and electronics, taking a hardware concept to market has become a lot like the software development process, fast and iterative.•In the Hard vs. Soft debate that Jonathan Goldberg recently commented that "Software may be eating the world, but hardware monetizes better". oYes, and No. "The bar for hardware is so much higher than software. There are many software plays out there that are mere basis points better than existing solutions but their ease of distribution, ability to run free trials, low switching costs means they can win... Hardware doesn't have these characteristics - your solution has to be significantly (10/20/30x) better across some meaningful metric (cost/usability/size/performance) for it to make sense to pursue."•And how supportive is Ireland as a location for starting a new venture?•Ireland is brilliant, but we can do better, particularly for the very early stage.Well, we’ll wrap up there.Thank you for talking with us and sharing your thoughts today.Notes:Filter Health Ltd. https://www.joinfilter.coSee the Jonathan Goldberg article at: https://www.techspot.com/news/95937-hard-vs-soft-software-may-eating-world-but.html AcknowledgementsMusic Title: ImpulseArtist: Ben PruntySource: https://www.benpruntymusic.com/License: Non-transferable license. Permission granted by Ben Prunty (personal letter)Cover Art Title: Aharoni 88 + Equalise Character HeightArtist: Allen HigginsSource: AudioStudio-Name.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ankur Banerjee, Aditya DevulapalliWe are very pleased to welcome Felix Queitzsch, Chief Risk Officer at RiskSystem, an innovative Irish start-up offering risk and regulatory reporting services for asset managers and investment markets.Hello, Felix, could you start by telling us a little about yourself and your background?Questions…1.What does flexibility, agility mean in a product development environment?•[Communication, communication, communication. Constant communication with customers. Clear communication aligning customer’s expectations with our delivery.]2.What does holding your customer’s hand look like?•[Again, communication, never do something without involving them…]3.Do you ever end up “over communicating”? How do you find the balance between too little and too much?•[You have to develop a sense of the customer’s needs, some want a lot of involvement, some less…]4.We hear a lot about Agile and Scrum. Would you call yourselves an Agile organization? •[we don’t like putting ourselves into a specific framework box… 5.What for you are the key behaviours or practices for teams involved in software?•[Yes we apply sprints and daily meetings, a Kanban board, and project management… but our core value is communication, so anything that makes communication happen… ]6.What are the things that work best?•[it really is as simple as having everything organized around a single task list, a list of things that need to be done…]7.What does a typical day look like?8.Can you share your thoughts on teams working virtually, hybrid, in-person? What works best?•…9.How do you balance the team’s need for internal communication - interrupt-driven communication versus having too many interruptions to be productive?•[the day has its own pace, more interactions in the morning with each other, starting with the daily meeting. Then mainly quiet, individual productive time, and then in the afternoon you are more involved communicating with clients…]10.(we may have some questions from the audience…)11.And any last thoughts before we finish?Well, we’ll wrap up there.Thank you for talking with us and sharing your thoughts today.Notes:https://www.risksystem.com/AcknowledgementsMusic Title: ImpulseArtist: Ben PruntySource: https://www.benpruntymusic.com/License: Non-transferable license. Permission granted by Ben Prunty (personal letter)Cover Art Title: Aharoni 88 + Equalise Character HeightArtist: Allen HigginsSource: AudioStudio-Name.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosts: Julian Andriesen and Mohamed Danish ZaveriHello, I am Mohamed DanishAnd I am JulianWe are very pleased to welcome Fin Golding; Author, Business Agility Advisor, and Consultant at Enterprise Flow.First, Fin, you’ve had an amazing career, could you say a few words about yourself to begin?1.If you were to start from scratch, what would your ideal development team look like? [e.g. numbers, composition diversity, hierarchy, location]2.What for you are the key practices for teams involved in software? [daily/weekly activities, online and office environment, workplace culture]3.What does Agile mean for you? 4.Could you share some tips on fostering an agile environment?5.Tell us some more about the ‘flow’ concept… Does it work equally well in a DevOps environment as for product development? How do you introduce Flow to a site, big-bang or incremental, small teams or whole organization?6.What do you look for when you dig into the design of a product and design progress in a project?7.What, for you, is the essence of design?8.(questions from the audience…)9.After two years of “remote”, how do you see work evolving over the next two years?10.Any last thoughts before we finish?Well, we’ll wrap up there.Thank you for talking with us and sharing your thoughts today.Notes:Fin Golding at Enterprise Flow. - https://enterpriseflow.ioAcknowledgementsMusic Title: DismantledArtist: Ben PruntySource: https://www.benpruntymusic.com/License: Non-transferable license. Permission granted by Ben Prunty (personal letter)Cover Art Title: Aharoni 88 + Equalise Character HeightArtist: Allen HigginsSource: AudioStudio-Name.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The fourth compilation of my interviews from Spiel ’22…  First up I met Julien Griffon, designer of Ratapolis (save your rats from the cats!). https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/349464/ratapolisRatapolis is published by Bragelonne Games for general distribution in 2023.Bragelonne Games were promoting “Captains War” (le roll & write avec des combats entre jouerus!) https://www.bragelonne.games/ And finally, I talked with Irene Leemans, community manager for Jolly Dutch, a publisher of family oriented boardgames and card games.https://www.jollydutch.comJolly Dutch also host the “110 Wedstrijd” contest for new games using 110 cards, with a publication/distribution deal as the prize, held annually to prompt game designers to propose new game ideas.https://www.jollydutch.com/jolly-dutch-110-wedstrijd/  Mentions:SPIEL, the Internationale Spieltage, also called the Essen Game Fair.The Nuremberg International Toy Fair.UK Games Expo at the NEC Birmingham.Spellenspektakel in Utrecht. ============================I hope you enjoy the podcast.============================AcknowledgementsMusic Title: Hades, from the album Chromatic T-RexArtist: Ben PruntySource:  https://www.benpruntymusic.com/License: Permission to use was granted by Ben Prunty. Non-transferable license.  Cover Art Title: Talking Spiel - LearnArtist: Allen HigginsSource: Spiel_play_22License: CC BY-NC-SA Podcast LicenceCC BY-NC-SA 4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The third in our series of interviews from Spiel ’22… Opening with Micael Sousa from Universidade de Coimbra (pronounciation: kəʊˈɪmbrə, or ˈkɔɪmbrə - if you say ‘Queenborough’ you won't be far wrong).Micael talks about serious games and the game-centric facilitation approach he has developed for, among other things, understanding and solving spatial planning challenges.https://www.linkedin.com/in/micaelssousa/At 20’ with Xeo Lye from Capital Gains Studio – Singapore tabletop game designer talking about his educational game “Cryptocurrency”, a game for learning about crypto scams.https://www.capitalgainsgroup.comAnd finally, we chatted with Sara Favaron (at 35’), Brand Manager from Asmodee Research. Sara talked about Asmodee's Access+ games and their commitment to CSR as manifest in product lines that are both accessible and that address educational, health, cognitive and social development goals.Mentions and References: “Challenges for Game Designers” by Brenda (née) Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber (2008)“Game Balance” by Ian Schreiber and Brenda Romero (2017).The Dixit card game (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39856/dixit)“Rules of Play” by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman (2004)“Characteristics of Games” by by George Skaff Elias, Karl Robert Gutschera, and Richard Garfield (2020)“Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design – An Encyclopaedia of Mechanisms” by Geoffrey Engelstein and Isaac Shalev (2022)“The Gamer's Brain” by Celia Hodent (2017)“The Art of Game Design” by Jess Schell (2008)“Man, Play and Games” by Roger Caillois (1958, 1961 English translation)“Homo Ludens” by Johan Huizinga (1950)Ludem approach============================I hope you enjoy the podcast.============================ AcknowledgementsMusic Title: Hades, from the album Chromatic T-RexArtist: Ben PruntySource:  https://www.benpruntymusic.com/License: Permission to use was granted by Ben Prunty. Non-transferable license.Cover Art Title: Talking Spiel - LearnArtist: Allen HigginsSource: Spiel_play_22License: CC BY-NC-SAPodcast LicenceCC BY-NC-SA 4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The second series of interviews from Spiel ’22… In this episode I talked with:Opening with Patrick Gebhardt and Julius Brunken from Vuca Simulationshttps://vucasims.comAt 12’ chatted with Koosha Nezamirad and Mehdi Mohammadzadeh from Piriyka House Game Design Studio (at 12’)www.piriyka.comAt 29’ I caught Fran and Ian demoing at the Bright Eye Games standhttps://www.brighteyegames.com(Ian is also involved in the Games People online play test group)http://www.thegamespeople.co.uk/games/game-designs-ian-brocklebank/And at 50’ we wrap up chatting with some very chill dudes at the chess tables…============================I hope you enjoy the podcast.============================ AcknowledgementsMusic Title: Hades, from the album Chromatic T-RexArtist: Ben PruntySource:  https://www.benpruntymusic.com/License: Permission to use was granted by Ben Prunty. Non-transferable license.Cover Art Title: Talking Spiel - PlayArtist: Allen HigginsSource: Spiel_play_22License: CC BY-NC-SAPodcast LicenceCC BY-NC-SA 4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From Spiel ’22… In this episode I talked with:Pete Ward & and Duncan Molloy (at 8’) from Rebellion Unpluggedhttps://rebellionunplugged.com/announcing-rebellion-unplugged/Scott D'Agostino from WizKids (at 22’)https://wizkids.comAnd Jon Manker from ION Game Design (at 34’)https://iongamedesign.com AcknowledgementsMusic Title: Hades, from the album Chromatic T-RexArtist: Ben PruntySource:  https://www.benpruntymusic.com/License: Non-transferable license. Permission to use was granted by Ben PruntyCover Art Title: Talking Spiel - PlayArtist: Allen HigginsSource: Spiel_play_22License: CC BY-NC-SAPodcast LicenceCC BY-NC-SA 4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosts: Trisha Ghosh and Saptarshi MitraWe are very pleased to welcome David Bowman, Chief Technology Officer at InvoiceFair.First, David, could you tell us a little about yourself and your current role?1.     Let’s start with a hard question first. What, for you, is the essence of design?2.     Moving on then, our audience are interested in digital, consulting, technology. Is there a place for consultants in a start-up?3.     If you were to start from scratch, what would your ideal team look like? [diversity, numbers, reporting/hierarchy, location]4.     Is Agile more fashion than reality?5.     Could you share some tips on fostering a ‘learning culture’ in teams?6.     What are good practices for teams involved in software? [daily/weekly practices, office environment, work practices/policies]7.     As a technologist who has worked in finance, what works well in the finance sector that we should adopt in the Tech sector?8.     Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) has become an important part of financial services. Can digital services and software industry follow suit and if so, how?9.     And finally, after two years of “remote”, how do you see work evolving over the next two years?10.   Any last observations before we finish?Well, we’ll wrap up there.Thank you for talking with us today.Notes:David Bowman; Chief Technology Officer at InvoiceFair, a working capital platform for businesses.LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidbowman4/AcknowledgementsMusic Title: ImpulseArtist: Ben PruntySource:  https://www.benpruntymusic.com/License: Non-transferable license. Permission granted by Ben Prunty (personal letter)Cover Art Title: Pick and MixArtist: Conor Fitzpatrick; and Graphic Design: Allen HigginsSource: Fitzpatrick_Unamed.jpg -> PickAndMix-Name.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (Permission granted by Conor Fitzpatrick (personal letter))Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosts: Gayatri Poddar and Isha Sharma Our guest today is Padraig Coffey. Padraig is CEO at Zartis - a software consultancy, technology strategy and team augmentation services company based in Cork.1.     Thank you for joining us, Padraig, can you start by telling us a little about yourself?2.     How do you become a consultant and what do consultants do?3.     Is consultancy necessarily a time-boxed project-oriented activity?4.     Do you ever admit the limits of your knowledge?5.     How do you handle the politics of being a consultant?6.     Comment on the consultant as facilitator.7.     How do you cope with resistance on a project? Sensitivity to tone, communication, context.8.     What for you is the essence of design?9.     Where does design happen in consulting projects?10.   How do you see the work changing over the next couple of years?Well on that note, I think we’ll wrap up there.Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences today.Notes:Padraig Coffey: CEO at Zartis - a software consultancy, technology strategy and team augmentation services company based in Cork.https://www.zartis.comAcknowledgementsMusic Title: ImpulseArtist: Ben PruntySource:  https://www.benpruntymusic.com/License: Non-transferable license. Permission granted by Ben Prunty (personal letter)Cover Art Title: Pick and MixArtist: Conor Fitzpatrick; and Graphic Design: Allen HigginsSource: Fitzpatrick_Unamed.jpg -> PickAndMix-Name.pptxLicense: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (Permission granted by Conor Fitzpatrick (personal letter))Podcast LicenseDesign Talk (dot IE) CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 The license can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0By taking part you give permission for your voice to be recorded, for the recording to be edited, and for it to be posted and published as a podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosts: Bing Chen and Rachel O’BrienOur guest today is Trevor Dunne from Grant Thornton Ireland.You are very welcome to the podcast Trevor. Could you say a few words about yourself and GT’s consulting business?1.What is the role of a consultant?2.Do we need deep expertise in all domains?3.What do you consider to be key skills for a consultant?4.And your thoughts on how to become a better communicator?5.What tips would you give to someone starting out?6.Is there a clear line between being a strategist versus technologist?7.How do you handle the politics of being a consultant?8.And finally, could you share advice on good practice for the hybrid workplace?Well, we’ll wrap up there.Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences today.Notes:Trevor Dunne – LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-dunne-aca-7461838/https://www.grantthornton.ie/meet-our-people1/trevor-dunne/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.