As someone who has struggled with mental health issues for over a decade, I’d never really found an effective coping mechanism until I found mini painting and wargaming. Video games felt like a waste of time, TV the same and it was impossible to find the energy to actually leave the house. The feeling I get when I nail a new technique I’ve tried out or I’ve completed the centrepiece model of my army is second to none. The concentration required is absolute and it leaves no space for intrusive thoughts.  The work doesn’t feel like a waste of time, it gives a tangible thing to show to others and say, “I did this!” which in turn is motivation to leave the house. The sense of pride when someone compliments your models is always an amazing feeling.

The actual wargaming itself is exhausting, but in a good way. My brain is focusing on the strategies I’ve come up with, trying to execute them efficiently, adapting my plans when the dice gods laugh at me. A close, back and forth game is exciting for both players as these games are often decided by the ability to adapt, and which is a skill that has been immeasurably valuable in staying mentally healthy in the world we live in today. The versatility is also a skill which transfers to the workplace in aspects such as experimental design and process optimisation as all of these tasks rely on the ability to correctly identify issues in the systems used.

There is a strong sense of community in wargaming as well. I’ve seen an ex-military person playing a 10-year-old and both players having a great experience, I’ve been to 24 hour fundraisers for mental health, I’ve met people from all walks of life all with different motivations and drives in life, but all of who have realised the simple pleasure the escapism of strategy brings. A day of duking it out with strangers and making friends in the process is cathartic.

I’d implore anyone to give wargaming a go, as the benefits can be plentiful. I know that companies like Games Workshop have facilities to play trial games in store and allow you to get hooked started on painting with trial models. Many clubs around the country will also have players excited about new games and be willing to run demo games of systems they’re passionate about. There’s plenty of variety in themes as well. So, whether you favour the dystopian sci-fi settings of Warhammer 40k or Star Wars Legion, small scale historical skirmishes in games like Bolt Action and Test of Honour or even just the violent fantasy football of the Blood Bowl universe, you’ll find your flavour of combat-based escapism here somewhere.

The post The Personal Benefits of Wargaming first appeared on Ludogogy.

Admittedly it might seem that wargaming is a mysterious topic. It is very alive in the established circles of professional and hobby players, but it is almost absent from popular view. There is no equivalent of Monopoly, Wingspan or Azul that would be a frequent guest at family’s table. Prevalent perception is that playing wargames requires knowledge and effort to master broad set of rules for range of weapons, terrain conditions and maneuvers. But in in its essence, what is wargaming and how can everybody interact with it?

Wargames offer an insight into a conflict, situation or a system. If you would join a wargame, you would receive all the information needed to play: a map with noted positions, a role which you would take on, your units you can move or fight with and lastly, the objective. Or, in other words, the conditions of winning the game. In the picture below you can see the table set for two players who will be competing over contested elections in Belarus. One side fights to keep the presidency of Aleksander Lukashenka, the other one mobilizes the society to change it.

This prototype translates the unfolding events of mass protests in Belarus into an interactive experience. Taking the place of the commander or a leader triggers an influx of thoughts: what is this fight about? How can I change what I see on the table to my advantage? Do I have the chance to win? Humans understand things they can name, move and rule. The symbols on the table give a view into instinctively known lines, formations and strategies.

This initial interaction gives everyone an understanding of how wargames look, work and evolve. Any possible strategy you might conjure as a leader will eventually make it into a wargame, extending the options and creating new scenarios to play.

If the initial interaction proves engaging, the context of playing wargame can be examined. In most cases, it offers explanation as to why particular wargame is of interest or not and whether different design would be better for you. The first play can be telling in terms of preferences, expectations and possible outcomes. During the introduction for the students in the Hague University of Applied Sciences, I have chosen to play first and analyze later. This way, students have explored wargaming, looking towards elements of context that interested them. It is a point of start that can be reflected upon during next wargames.

Context of wargaming can include many elements:

1. First impression of the player before the game starts – such as being comfortable or overwhelmed, curious or bored, experienced or not, searching for fun or for facts, leaning towards realistic or abstract scenarios, being pacifist or not;
2. Explanation offered by facilitator – is it done in a clear and objective manner, does it convey the rules with precision, is it explaining the background of the wargame as well as its mechanics, lastly, does it create a beneficial atmosphere for the play;
3. Cultural orientation of the wargame – such as design from a narrow or broad perspective (for example showing events from the perspective of winners), focus on topic (for example middle ages and castles), recognition of decision points and players (who is important and why, which story is being told).

After the initial interaction and the increasing understanding of the context in which wargaming takes place, there is room for discovery. Recognizing the context of wargaming reminds me of showing the same movie to different audiences, with expert introduction or without and to those that enjoy watching war movies or not. All these elements influence how the movie is received. The same can be observed for a wargame landing on the table and being played for the first time.

Among hundreds of wargames being published every year, majority is addressing historical battles, with a steady base in popular Second World War re-enactments. That is the most popular, but not the only way to discover wargaming. I have been considered as an outlier, because I have designed new formats and topics which are of interest to few. Such as the Belarus 2020 wargame, that showcases the events as they unravel. Or the Battle of Tabqa (Syria, 2017), seen from a perspective of a local engineer who worked on a Water Dam delivering power to the region. And with that completely alternative look I have met many experienced players that enjoy a new format for a wargame and those that tried to play because those topics were important to them. The take-away is that wargaming can serve as a way of experiencing the situation and creating unique insights, whether those pertain to historical campaigns or current problems.

Wargaming techniques have extended beyond entertainment, with academic and industrial experts reaching for the method in effort to view their problems from an active perspective. For example, a producer of coffee might want to see the market as a terrain they wish to dominate by outsmarting the other companies. In this wargame, you would play the CEO that is proposing ways to offer the most desirable product to the clients while maximizing profits. Other player might provide the view of the customer, keeping the choices of the companies in check and responding to the proposed changes. What can be observed as a result is an interaction between decision of one side and the reaction of the other.

The observations of dynamics brought the attention of academics who use wargames as simulations for collecting data or as a learning tool that engages students in complex problems. In this case, you might play a role of a governmental advisor writing the policy on anti-terrorism, while discussing with a legal advisor and testing the effectiveness of chosen approach on security of the country. Wargames can depict multi-actor systems and replicate structures of organizations, problems and people. They can translate static data into a moving, interactive play. Whether the design is dedicated to a scientific, business or entertainment purpose, wargaming creates a measurable play in which you can interact with a chosen environment.

Opening the box of wargaming mystery offers a new way of learning and discovering. Once you start interacting with a wargame you can recognize the moving parts of a structure, assess the mechanics in a design, judge the balance of the victory conditions and chances of winning. The better you can name those concepts, the more you can shuffle them. You start looking through the building blocks and into the context in which they were constructed. At this point you go from the person watching a movie to being an expert that recognizes how the plot was written, characters made, and the ending polished. Wargaming might look like a box on the shelf, but it is much more. It is a perspective and a way of thinking that sharpens our understanding of the world.

The post The missing introduction to wargaming experiences first appeared on Ludogogy.

Now it’s all well and good to sing the praises of these games but we need to first understand what Wargaming is all about before we dive into who uses them and why they’re popular with different audiences.

What is Wargaming and where did it come from?

One of the simplest descriptions of Wargames comes from Decision Games; which says “a wargame is a model of a military situation which players can control” (Decision Games, 2020). Expanding on this further, it has the players of the game take on a commanding role within a military scenario and has to plan their strategies and make decisions based on their current circumstances within the given scenario in order to achieve victory against their opponent.

Humans have been playing games that simulate the idea of military strategy with game pieces representing their forces for a very long time, with games such as Go and Chess being usually the first games that spring to mind when someone typically thinks about strategy games.

However, according to the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society (HMGS), we know that most of the Wargames that would see use within a military setting evolved from these aforementioned games. The first attempt of a militarised Wargame being introduced in 1811 by the Prussian Baron von Reisswitz which used a table set to a specific scale, filled with sculpting sand, modular tiles, rulers and dividers to regulate movement and porcelain unit blocks.

Although it was well received by the Prussian and Russian aristocracy, Peterson(2012) highlights that military officers didn’t adopt it as a strategic tool due to the original version of the game presented to the royal family was far too expensive to reproduce commercially and due to the Baron being preoccupied with the ongoing Napoleonic wars, the rules and mechanics of the game weren’t refined to function in a reliable manner that best represented the situations that could be found within military skirmishes.

Further Developments in Wargaming

This was up until 1824 where his son George Heinrich Rudolf Johan von Reisswitz took it upon himself to develop the game further into a more reliable and structured game that would better simulate the experience of leading an army.

He would reintroduce this game as Anleitung zur Darstelling militarische manuver mit dem apparat des Kriegsspiels (Instructions for the Representation of Tactical Maneuvers under the Guise of a Wargame). Along with this new name, there were some major changes that would help to improve the structure of the game as well as better quantify the circumstances that may occur during military skirmishes.

These changes included; the introduction of game pieces that represented units of troops which could take a set amount of damage, their actions are represented by dice rolls and can’t be moved by the players themselves, Topologic maps that featured real locations and more natural terrain and finally the introduction of an umpire, an impartial and experienced military officer who interprets and carries out the orders of the players by carrying out the dice rolls and managing the positions of the players troops. (Von Reisswitz, 1824)

After introducing this revised version of his father’s game to the King and Generals, it was very well received, especially from General Von Müffling who declared “this is no ordinary sort of game, this is schooling for war. I must and will recommend It most warmly to the army”. As a result, the king ordered this game to be mass produced and distributed to every regiment in the army. (2012)

This fun little relic of a game is still being used today, thanks to the translation work of Bill Leeson, so definitely look into him if you’re interested in how this game is being used today.

Kriegspiel – translated by Bill Leeson is available from Amazon

Why is it used by the military?

Now that the history lesson is out of the way, there are many reasons that military personnel would make use of wargames in the midst of training. Here are just a few that spring to mind;

• By far the most obvious and important reasons to utilise Wargames during military training would be that they are cheap to purchase or develop when compared to purchasing the necessary training equipment and hiring training staff to carry out in person training exercises.
• Depending on the game, sessions can be very time efficient, especially when you need to restart or create a new scenario. This allows for more time for training when compared to having to restart a live action training session where you have to manage multiple people and reset or replace pieces of equipment after each session which can be time consuming and more difficult to manage than pieces of a game (much less irritative too which is a plus).
• Having the capability to be easily customise the scenarios that are presented to your players is a boon, especially if you want to test how someone handles situations within certain parameters (Having multiple players serving as allies or enemies, having fewer resources or troops than usual, introducing a time limit, etc.).
• Having a specified set of rules and objectives that the players have to follow makes it easy for supervisors and trainers to keep track of any analytics based on their performance and choices as they play, especially when combined with the customisable parameters from the previous point.
• Finally, conducting training through the use of Wargames offers a safe and controlled environment where mistakes can be made without fear of injury of anyone involved. (This is especially true when it compares to the risks posed to trainees during live fire exercises)

What’s the civilian appeal?

Although most Wargames are made with the intent of being used to assist with training military personnel, there is a huge market within the civilian market for these types of games. Being a professional civilian and having grown up playing a wide array of games, I can definitely think of some reasons for why these games would be appealing to the average joe.
Firstly, depending on the game’s historical setting, they can offer the players the opportunity to learn more about the history behind the events that are being represented within the game. This leads to the next point which is these games allow the opportunity to roleplay as a commanding officer within the game world, especially if the setting is a favourite of the players. Another reason could be that the players enjoy the intellectual stimulation that these games can offer. The last appealing aspect of these games is the chance to engage in some friendly competition with friends and family, especially if the setting is a one that the players are familiar with.

How can businesses benefit from these games?

If utilised correctly, Wargaming could be beneficial to be used with the training of teams within the business world. Aside from points that are fairly similar to why these games are popular with the civilian audience (Teambuilding exercises, friendly competition etc.), the main thing that must be considered when utilising these games would be the type of training you wish to support and choosing the right type of games to support that kind of experience you wish to provide to your employees.

The diagram below does show that Wargaming does support the training of decision-making skills, it is important to note that there are many different forms of decision making skills, with the main split being between improving the ability to make more informed decisions based on the knowledge and education of your workforce or improving the capacity to make choices based on analysed data gathered through research.

Although it is rather complicated at a glance, this diagram is just a quick glimpse into the potential training possibilities that can be offered to businesses if they implement them in a sensible way that benefits their work force.

To wrap everything up, Wargaming is a very unique beast within the gaming world that is enjoyed for reasons that change depending on the audience that plays them, be it a tool for training the commanding skills of military personnel, a potential means of testing and training the decision making capabilities of the workforce of commercial businesses, or as an intellectually entertaining way to kill some time with friends and family.

For lack of a better phrase, there’s something here for everyone!

The post Focus on… Wargaming and Wargames first appeared on Ludogogy.

Why? Why this rise, decline, and resurgence?

First, why the popularity of board wargames in the 1970s-1980s?

1. Since their emergence in the 1950s, wargames continued to offer new gaming experiences. New rules, new publishers, new designers, new historical, fantasy and sci-fi settings.
2. They were value for money. In return for the price of a meal they gave players tens, if not hundreds of hours of gameplay.
3. They intersected with hobbyists of miniature wargames, history, fantasy, and sci-fi. Of course, D&D and RPGs were originally born out of wargaming.

Why the decline in the 1990s to the early 2000s?

• The most prolific producer of games, SPI, hit financial trouble, and was bought out by TSR.[4] No meaningful new products were developed, and the circulation of their company magazine Strategy & Tactics plummeted.[5]
• There was competition in related analog sectors. The sustained popularity of Games Workshop’s Warhammer brand, the popularity of RPGs, and the rise of collectable card games, would all seem to have had a part to play in cannibalising the same core audience, pulling players away from the hobby. D&D was still the most popular RPG, but there was now also Tunnels & Trolls (1975), Traveler (1977), Runequest (1978), Space:1889 (1988), and numerous others. These games were more than just games – they were entire game systems demanding large amounts of time to fully explore with effectively limitless potential for play. Perhaps still the best known and most commercially successful collectable card game, Magic: The Gathering was first released in 1993.[6]
• There were problems from within the board wargaming industry too. In this period we also see games becoming more complex and ‘denser’, with behemoth rulebooks, becoming longer to understand and play, with play times extending to 20 hours, and, more realistically, far beyond. Games in question are such as The Civil War: 1861-1865 (1983) and The Korean War: June 1950-May 1951 (1986).[7] From BoardGameGeek (BGG) scores it seems these games were well enough received at the time, but they did a poor job of introducing new players to the hobby. As designer Jason Matthews has described it: “War-gaming destroyed itself.”[8] In contrast, RPGs were developing a whole sub-genre of easy on-ramp experiences in the form of Fighting Fantasy and Choose Your Own Adventure books well-suited to bringing pre-teens and early teens into the hobby. In its own right,Games Workshop conducted a masterclass in retaining and expanding an audience.
• Digital games were gaining traction.[9]
• The net result was a great deal of pressure on the board wargaming industry facing a contracting audience base. From wargame sales of 2.2 million units in 1980 they were 400,000 in 1991.[10] GDW shut down in 1996.[11] Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR in 1997, bringing the curtain down on the remnants of SPI too.[12] Then, in 1998 Monarch sold Avalon Hill and its Victory Games subsidiary to Hasbro.[13]

Why the re-popularization?

• To some extent wargames are now more popular because they are no longer just wargames. We now have wargames that erode distinct borders defining what a wargame is. Games like Pandemic: Fall of Rome (2018) and The Grizzled (2017) are certainly set in times of war (the end of the Roman Empire, and in World War One), and the key conflict comes in the form of strategic and tactical military threats – although really personal and group survival – respectively. But these are cooperative games that appeal to a broader audience than a traditional one-versus-one competitive strategy game/wargame. Twilight Struggle (2005), in BGG’s top 10 for a decade and a half, and at number 1 for much of that time, isn’t just a wargame. It captures some of the international political dimensions of the Cold War too. With 1960: The Making of a President (both games co-designed by Jason Matthews and sharing some similarities in mechanics) we have an election battle, not a wargame. But given the crossover in mechanics (and comments on BGG) we are seeing wargamers play it, and that may be feeding back the other way into wargames. Root (2018) is a wargame, but its woodland critters give it an appeal to a broad demographic – raising over $600k with over 8k backers on Kickstarter.
• We’re also seeing wargames playable in numbers beyond two. We previously had some games suitable for 3 or more players, and that proportion may not have shifted much today, and 2 player games are
  likely still the most common in the genre. But we are seeing more games designed with solo play specifically in mind. Some wargamers exclusively play solo. The Solitaire Wargamers group on Facebook has 10,718 members at the time of writing (late October, 2020), which compares well with 13,549 in the group called Wargamers.
• Today’s wargames cover a variety of topics, some of which have traditionally been under-explored. We have games on counter insurgency (COIN) conflicts with asymmetric warfare – in fact we have an ever-expanding series of COIN games published to much critical acclaim by GMT. We also have wargames on the traditionally under-explored intersections between military and political objectives. Churchill (2015) has the USA, USSR, and Britain working together to defeat the Axis powers, but still competing for position in a post-war world. Versailles: 1919 (2020), and The Congress of Vienna (forthcoming) work with a similar design approach with allies in competition with each other.
• Some of today’s wargames are incorporating popular mechanics from other genres – mechanics such as card drafting ( A Few Acres of Snow, 2011), hand management ( Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea , 2019), and hidden traitors ( Hidden Strike: American Revolution , forthcoming).
• The components of today’s wargames are generally far superior to what was boxed, or frequently bagged, prior to the 2000s.
• Play times are shorter.
• Complexity and rule density have been reduced.
• Connected to all of these points, is the proliferation of non-hex based game boards. We’ve had area control since at least Risk (1959), and point to point since at least 1974, and they’ve been popular since A House Divided (1981), but these are now popular in most of the more innovative wargames of recent years. We now also have area influence/majority maps as a concept and fixed maneuver maps too. This reduction of the use in hexes across the wargames sector, and especially within the most innovative designs, seems significant. Hexes work well for specific tasks:
  • for regulated movement with known modifiers, and for easily calculable ranges. But they also impose a certain aesthetic and, I suspect, conjure certain expectations in non-wargamers (and plenty of wargamers) that are impediments to engagement. To be sure there are players who respond fondly to the notion of clasping long handled tweezers to manipulate large stacks of half inch pieces around detailed hex grids broken into terrain modifiers. Go to the wargaming conventions and you will see it. But there are more potential players who don’t want this than do. Shifting the board aesthetic of wargames may have helped facilitate both engagement and innovation in more recent wargames.

How long this rise might continue is a different topic. But for now, the picture is rosy. In truth, I suggest, it is also altogether a more sparkling shine than the first surge of popularity had. Topics today are more diverse, as are perspectives, designs are more accessible, and components are higher quality. We might well ask – was the first golden age really so golden?

The post The Re-popularization of Commercial Wargames first appeared on Ludogogy.

Abstract: The Bundeswehr Command and Staff College (BCSC) conducted a seminar ‘Gamification if Strategic Thinking’ from 16. – 18. March 2020 with students from the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) and Fernhochschule Hamburg. The seminar used the commercial of the shelf (COTS) board game ‘Scythe’ as the environment for strategy development and strategy implementation. Seminar goals were using management tools like SWOT Analysis, Kanban Board and the OODA-Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) to develop a strategy and implement it in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment against competitors. Kick-off on 19. November 2019 informed students about seminar goal and invited them into a Slack Workspace for further collaboration. Five teams consisting of five players each competed for two days and had to use the decision-making process several times and had to face the consequences of past decisions.

Furthermore, four team members had to red team other competitors and thereby learn how to implement a (business) wargaming technique into the decision-making cycle. Several surveys evaluated in parallel students’ perceptions and performance. This paper describes the seminar from construction to end and reflects on the results and findings.

The first author planned the seminar as an on-premise seminar. However, due to COVID-19, the TUHH and the BCSC cancelled all on-premise seminars. The facilitator (first author) had to facilitate the seminar entirely distributed out of his living room using a variety of web 2.0 collaboration tools like Slack, Trello, Adobe Connect, GoToMeeting and, of course, WhatsApp.

Keywords: Game-Based Learning, Gamification, Wargames, Strategy Development, Strategy Implementation

Introduction: Terminological Grey Zone: Serious Games, Gamification. Game-based Learning, Wargaming

This research, development and education (RD&E) experiment are using the commercial of the shelf (COTS) board game ‘Scythe’ (Stegmaier 2016; Zimmerman 2017). The first author and facilitator of the seminar have never attempted this specific kind of experiment before. He planned the experiment as an on-premise seminar and a proof of concept for the implementation of a complete COTS game as gamification of education or game-based learning approach. This seminar is in a terminological grey area. It does not facilitate a serious game in the common understanding, because ‘Scythe’ was not designed as a serious game. Serious games are usually digital (Jansz and Slot 2019), and Scythe started as a board game. However, the digital version of Scythe on Steam (The Knights of Unity 2018) was available and pointed out by the facilitator as a valuable tool to test strategies. It was also used by some participants precisely for that purpose. In this sense, participants implemented Scythe as a serious game. The Miriam Webster definition of gamification does include the implementation of full games as gamification (Merriam-Webster Dictionaries 2019). In this sense, the seminar approach was gamification. However, the common scholarly understanding of gamification does not understand the implementation of entire games as gamification (Werbach 2019). Game-based learning usually implements games designed explicitly for teaching and training specific knowledge and skills (Al-Azawi et al. 2016). Scythe was designed as a COTS game and is a recreational wargame. The author assumes that recreational wargaming does rely on a cross-functional skill set that is also required for professional wargaming. Scythe as a board game is a manual wargame. The digital version of Scythe on Steam is a constructive simulation of the analogue board game featuring artificial intelligence for opponents (bots). This seminar does incorporate different aspects of serious games, gamification, game-based learning and wargaming. Hobbyists often use the term ‘wargaming’ while the camp of professionals seems to prefer the spelling ‘war gaming’, separating the ‘war’ from the ‘game’. ‘War-gaming’ with a hyphen seems to be a compromise in both camps (Haggman 2019, p. 36). The author uses the term ‘wargaming’ without disregarding the seriousness of war. Peter Perla, a giant of the wargaming community, scholarly defines a ‘wargame’ as ‘a warfare model or simulation whose operation does not involve the activities of actual military forces, and whose sequence of events affects and is, in tum, affected by the decisions made by players representing the opposing sides.’ (Perla 1990, p. 164). Philip Sabin defined recreational wargaming as ‘military simulation games’ (Sabin 2014, 359). The most recent definition of ‘Wargaming’, provided by James ‘Pigeon’ Fielder, combines previous definitions. Wargaming is ‘a synthetic decision-making test under conditions of uncertainty against thinking opponents, which generates insights but not proven outcomes, engages multiple learning types, and builds team cohesion in a risk-free environment.’ (Fiedler 2020). The RAND corporation used a manual wargame, including six-sided dices (D6) to conceptualise NATO Enhanced Forward Presence at NATO’s Eastern flank in the Baltics (Mueller 2016; Shlapak and Johnson 2016). Wargaming has gained popularity again, and War On The Rocks and RAND covered recently different aspects of wargaming: educational (Brynen 2015; Bae 2019; Fiedler 2020; Buitta 2019), analytical (Bartels 2017; Lambert and Quinn 2020; Pournelle 2019; Shlapak and Johnson 2016), manual (David A. Shlapak, Michael Johnson 2016; Mueller 2016), and different topics like Artificial Intelligence (AI) (Schuety and Will 2018; Jensen et al. 2018), and future scenarios (Jensen 2019; Lacy 2019). The most recent comprehensive coverage of the topic is Matthew B. Caffrey’s ‘On Wargaming: How wargames have shaped history and how they may shape the future:’ (Caffrey 2019). Although the author designed the seminar as an on-premise learning experience with face-to-face (f2f) coaching and observation of participants by psychologists, the facilitator also used a Slack Workspace as the information hub from the beginning (Kick-off in November 2019). Therefore, switching to a fully online version with each participant in COVID-19 induced isolation was possible. However, this happened on short notice, and the mix of online tools and web collaboration platforms was more due to chance and circumstance than by design.

Seminar architecture

The BCSC conducted the seminar ‘Gamification if Strategic Thinking’ from 16. – 18. March 2020 with 20 students from the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) and five students from the Hamburg Fernhochschule (HFH). The seminar used the commercial of the shelf (COTS) board game ‘Scythe’ as the environment for strategy development and strategy implementation. The facilitator divided the participants into five teams, with five players in each team. The teams were named Nordic Kingdoms (Nordics for short), Rusviet Union (Rusviet for short), Crimean Khanate (Crimea for short), Saxony Empire (Saxony for short) and Republic of Polonia (Polonia for short).

The idea for a five-player team reflects the number of teams participating. Each team should have the planning capability to observe each other team and predict their strategy (so-called red teaming (Red Teams 2018) leaving one player free for planning on the team’s strategy and receiving strategic advice from her team members. Any team member would become a subject matter experts (SME) in a particular domain, either as a red teamer for another faction and maybe also in a specific area of the game mechanics. The facilitator left the teams alone to self organize as they saw fit. A seminar with five teams results ideally in 25 participants (5 x 5 = 25). A seminar with four teams would be suitable for 16 participants (4 x 4 = 16). Scythe has five factions in the base game and two additional factions in the first extension available. Thus, one could facilitate the seminar with up to 49 participants (7 x 7 = 49).

Next to the participants, the facilitator and his administrative and organizational support staff would run the so-called white cell, facilitating the game, overwatch rules and present the current state of the game. Each team would have its own board game available to track the game state and as a planning tool for wargaming, in particular, red teaming. Three psychologists were supposed to observe team communication on-premise. The optimal support would be one member of the supporting staff and one psychologist for each team.

Seminar goals

The seminar has several goals. Direct seminar goals were using and thereby training management tools like SWOT Analysis, Kanban Board and the OODA-Loop to develop a strategy and implement it in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment against competitors. These tools should be experienced based on the Wikipedia content but in particular due to active implementation into the decision cycle during gameplay. The facilitator tasked all participants to prepare for the on-premise part of the seminar after the kick-off in November 2019. In particular, he tasked the participants with getting familiar with the game system of Scythe and strategy in general. Regarding the topic of strategic thinking and agile strategy implementation, the facilitator tasked the teams to prepare for two tools, in particular, the Kanban Board and the OODA-Loop. Each team was supposed to have two students who are familiar with the Kanban Board and two students who are familiar with the OODA-Loop. The facilitator saw the SWOT analysis as a fundamental tool for strategy development as a given and just pointed out that the SWOT analysis was one central product at the beginning of the strategy development process. A team had to prepare their SWOT analysis and each red teamer needed to prepare a SWOT analysis for the specific red teamed faction. The expected result would be a total of 25 SWOT analyses. Based on the SWOT analyses, the facilitator tasked the teams to prioritize six critical goals in their strategy and visualize milestones as critical steps for strategy implementation on a Kanban board. The expected result would be a visualization of the grand strategy for each team with a Kanban board as a tool for agile strategy implementation. The overall expected result after using the SWOT analysis at the start and the Kanban Board and the OODA-Loop in (in this case) 16 decision cycles would be a higher competence in using these tools in general and the transferability to other relevant domains. Another direct seminar goal was the training and measuring of the so-called 21^st century 4C skills, communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking skills (van Rosmalen et al. 2014). On-premise teams would discuss their strategy face to face and prepare their products using provided visualization tools in a separated team room while being observed and coached.

An indirect seminar goal was the transfer of the gaming experience to different areas. The facilitator anticipated the participants to experience and feel two central concepts of security policy during gameplay: strategic balance and deterrence. Furthermore, the facilitator anticipated the participants to understand the DIME (Diplomacy, Information, Military and Economics) (The DIME/PMESII Model Suite Requirements Project 2009; Khomko 2019; Bishop 2018; Hartley III 2017) framework policy with the benefit of hindsight after playing the game.

Strategic Thinking with Scythe

The facilitator assumed that Scythe is a suitable vehicle for experiencing strategic planning processes. Scythe is a turn-based, highly appreciated strategy game. It is a conflict simulation in an alternative timeline after the first world war where fictional countries expand their influence by using shared and unique abilities. Many different approaches can lead to victory in Scythe (Zimmerman 2017). Probably the best chance to win Scythe is the ability to adapt an economic optimization strategy. In the end, the faction with the highest score in coins wins the game. Resources, territory and achievements are transferred to coins when the game ends. Factions adapt to other faction behaviour exploiting weaknesses, seizing opportunities while balancing military capabilities to deter other factions. Most importantly, Scythe provides a rich and complex environment in only two hours of gameplay for experienced players. These characteristics make Scythe a suitable tool for a three-day seminar. The facilitator did not lay out a specific approach to the topic of strategy. For the participants, the Wikipedia coverage of strategic management with the two branches of strategic planning and strategic thinking, resulting in a strategy is sufficient as the starting point for the seminar. However, he emphasized the Clausewitzian wording for military strategic planning approaches, in particular, effect-based planning. Figure 4 covers the generic terms of the strategic planning process and the generic terms of the NATO strategic framework. Starting with the analysis of the strategic environment, applying a strategic framework and applying strategy implementation. The effects-based planning approach starts with the identification of a desirable endstate (ends) and delivers strategic objectives. Ways explore specific activities (for example managing, scaling, enhancing something) to perform and means explores specific factors (for example capabilities, characteristics, development and delivery). A specific capability (mean) could be enhanced (way) and the delivery (mean) managed (way) to achieve a strategic objective (end). Scythe ends after one faction reaches six out of ten achievements (game term: stars).

The end state of the game is, therefore, one faction with six stars and any other faction with less than six stars. Stars, territory and resources transfer to money (game term: coins) based on a multiplier defined by the factions popularity. The result might be that a faction with less than six stars wins the game. This duality reflects the requirement for careful planning and awareness for

SWOT, Kanban board and OODA-Loop

The SWOT analysis is a common starting point for modern business strategy (Austin 2015). The facilitator assumed the Kanban board to be a straightforward tool to use for any agile planning requirement, particularly compared to Scrum. Scrum requires a scrum master and proceeds along specific periods (sprints). Kanban boards are suitable for self-organizing teams with no scrum master available and without time restriction (Alexander 2017). The facilitator also assumed that the introduction into OODA-Loop would be valuable as some experts characterize the OODA-Loop as the application of the scientific method to the practice of strategy development (Richards 2012). The OODA-Loop started as an American military planning tool but evolved into a business strategy tool. It is common in the native English-speaking military and the business community. However, it is not common in the none native English speaking community. Figure 5 depicts a more detail visualization of the OODA-Loop with the required feedback loops for the different phases. This diagram depicts ‘Decision’ as the hypothesis and ‘Action’ as a test. This comparison illustrates the notion that the OODA Loop is the application of the scientific method on the process of strategy development.

Limitations through online facilitation

The main disadvantage of the improvised online facilitation was the high time demand for communication and tracking the state of the game in the Slack workspace. This activity took much more time than expected due to several hurdles imposed by technical frictions. The facilitator assumed the participants to be able to play Scythe two times on Monday before the actual competition on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thereby, the advantages of testing a strategy and applying wargaming red teaming techniques within the group would have been evenly distributed in a controlled on-premise environment. Monday was reserved for strategy development without the opportunity for a test run. Monday ended with the first round of the game as a technical proof of concept. Tuesday covered nine turns and Wednesday the last four turns leaving enough time for an after-action review (AAR). Close observation of team internal communication was not possible; direct coaching on the use of Kanban boards was not possible. However, the digital version implemented with Trello worked considering the circumstances very well. The coaching of the use of the OODA-Loop was not possible due to lack of time and missing a suitable online visualization tool. The facilitator assumes that the voluntary surveys would have a higher participation rate in an on-premise setting.

Surveys before, during and after the seminar: design, results and lessons learned

The facilitator planned the seminar as a proof of concept and Dr Maren Metz supported with statistical evaluation capabilities provided by the HFH. Surveys aimed to measure a set of different data points before, during and after the seminar. There was an initial survey, a strategy development survey, five surveys parallel to the game (after the first turn, after the fifth turn, after the tenth turn, after the fifteenth turn) and an exit survey. Twenty-five participants had the opportunity to provide twenty-five set of data (25). The results should provide beside the facilitator’s observation an additional perspective on the evaluation of this proof of concept approach. Questions targeted the mood of the participants during the seminar, appreciation of the provided strategic tools and evaluation of the importance of 4C skills. The survey provided a fluctuating set of data based on the various degree of participation: initial survey (15), strategy development survey (10), first turn (15), the fifth turn (12), the tenth turn (12), the fifteenth turn (12) and an exit survey (20). Data sets. The survey results provided a detail view of the state of team communication and collaboration. For example, Team Saxony did not take part in the initial (0) and strategy development survey (0), increased participation in the first turn (1), increased participation further in the fifth turn (2) and finished with a high degree of participation in the exit survey (4).

Lessons learned: facilitators need to encourage participants more to take part in surveys. The problem was the low participation at the beginning. The number of surveys did not result in lower participation at the end of the seminar, quite the contrary.

Participants and gaming experience

Fifteen participants took the initial survey; twenty participants took the exit survey. The age distribution ranged from 19 to 50 years, with an average age of 25. This distribution is not surprising, considering that most participants were regular students from an on-premise university (TUHH). 55% of the participants were female, 35% male, 10% diverse. 100% liked board games (73% without caveat, 27% with the caveat of providing a strategic challenge). 73% liked computer games (27% with the caveat of providing a strategic challenge), 20% explicitly disliked computer games. 87% played board games less than once a week, 80% played computer games less than once a week. Only 13% identified as regular computer gamers (more than once a week). Almost no participant did know Scythe before the seminar (94%).

Lessons learned: facilitator could divide teams into female and male-only teams or female-only participants to compare decision behaviour between genders. Facilitators could also adjust teams for an even distribution of experienced gamers.

Recommendation for seminar and Scythe as a tool for teaching

The facilitator assumed that Scythe would make fun to play and the seminar appreciated by the participants. 90% would recommend the seminar (Would you recommend this seminar overall? 75% yes, 15% rather yes) and 95% enjoyed Scythe (How did you like Scythe? 60% good, 35% very good). The facilitator was in particular interested in answer to the question: Would you recommend Scythe as a tool for teaching strategic thinking? 80% of the participants would recommend Scythe as a tool for strategic thinking (30% very strong recommendation, 50& yes).

Lessons learned: the facilitators should use Scythe also for further seminars.

Team mood from beginning to end

Team mood increased during gameplay, starting with 46% neutral/bad mood after the first turn which decreased to 33% after the fifth turn, 8% after the tenth turn, 17% after the fifteenth turn (shortly before the end of the game in turn 16). The mood in the teams was at the end of the seminar, 75% good (45% very good, 30% good). This result indicates that though 80% of the participants lost the game, this did not impact the team spirit significantly. The facilitator assumes that successful gamification results in high intrinsic motivation and thereby increased engagement with the material and content. Feelings, especially negative feelings, such as the feeling of being overwhelmed, wanting to resign, not being able to do it, not being valued or not being able to contribute much, are perceived more intensively over time. It depends on internal resources and how they are dealt with so that feelings do not influence actions. The feeling of appreciation within the group fluctuated significantly throughout the game. After turn one, 67% of the participants denied poor appreciation, after turn ten only 50%, but after turn 15 92% of the participants denied poor appreciation. Towards the end of the game, the feeling of appreciation seems to have increased significantly again.

Lessons learned: the facilitators could adjust surveys for additional indicators of intrinsic motivation, in particular, try to measure the state of flow during gameplay.

Appreciation of strategic tools: Kanban board and OODA-Loop

After 15 game turns, 75% of the participants saw the Kanban board as somewhat helpful or very helpful. However, as expected, the digital tools are not being used properly. Even after 15 turns, 33% of the participants stated that they had not used the OOAD loop. This result indicates that most of the participants concentrated on the Kanban board, where after 15 turns only 7% of the participants stated that they had not used it. Due to the limitations of online facilitation, the observation of the usage of the OODA-Loop fell short. The facilitator assumes that therefore the usage of this strategic tool fell short by the teams.

Lessons learned: the facilitators need to establish a transparent and visible approach to observe and coach the implementation and adaption of the OODA-Loop during the decision-making process. Trello is an excellent tool to observe and coach the implementation and adaption of the Kanban board.

4C skills

Creativity is hidden as an essential resource in a complex situation to develop new strategies or to break free from established patterns of thought and action. 4C competency ratings shift as the game progresses. After a game turn, 46% of the participants state that creativity is the essential 4K competence for the next rounds; after five rounds, only 17% of the participants state this. The value remains comparatively low until the end of the game. In contrast, the skills ‘critical thinking’ and ‘communication’ are becoming increasingly important. In retrospect, 46% of the participants regard ‘communication’ as the essential 4C competence for the entire game. The more complex the situation, the more emphasis participants placed on communication with simultaneous communication frictions.

Observations during and after the seminar

The facilitation of the seminar occupied the first author and facilitator to a very high degree. The improvised online facilitation resulted in one-person facilitation out of the first author’s living room with organisational support by three locally distributed supporting staff members. This procedure was overwhelming, and a lot of planed observations were not possible. However, the facilitator observed team communication inside the WhatsApp Groups. He observed team collaboration long after regular office hours into the night. Team Crimea conducted red teaming up to 10:30 p.m. and decided about a decisive strategic decision. Many conversations inside the WhatsApp Groups took place, and after the seminar, Team Nordics disclosed the secret diplomacy they conducted to snatch victory from Team Crimea in turn 16. This observation confirms the facilitator’s assumption that gamification provides intrinsic motivation to engage participants to a very high degree with the material, content and in this case, also the process of red teaming.

The ad-hoc and distributed nature of the seminar provided participating students with new experiences in self-organization and online collaboration. Some of them used online collaboration tools for the first time to coordinate their actions with multiple other groups.

Conclusion

The main advantage of the seminar was that it took place despite the challenging circumstances. The main disadvantage was that Scythe could only be played one time and not three times. Therefore, survey results do not reflect the effect of a wargame being repeated before the real competition. The steep learning curve during strategy development in implementing tools for strategic thinking like the SWOT analysis or the OODA-Loop could not be observed. However, facilitator observation of player activities and behaviour during and after the seminar confirmed the assumption that Scythe is a useful and appreciated learning tool for strategy development and introduction into wargaming in general. The seminar and game concept also confirmed hypotheses and underlying assumptions for the thinking and acting of people in complex and stressful situations. For example, methods used in complex situations become essential if they contribute to the structuring. However, a stressful situation means that not all or even some of the methods are dealt with adequately.

As a proof of concept experiment, the results are auspicious. Gamification can be a valuable and motivating approach, for example, to develop, adapt and test strategies. Retrospectively the learning objectives were achieved. The type of implementation encouraged the authors to repeat this seminar as an on-premise seminar in the future but also to conduct similar types of seminars in a decentralized manner. They will also enhance the improvised online-only facilitation based on lessons learned.

: A COTS Boardgame for Learning Strategy Development and Strategy Implementation (due to COVID-19 improvised entirely online distributed facilitation)

LTC Thorsten Kodalle, The Bundeswehr Command and Staff College, thorstenkodalle@bundeswehr.org, thorstenkodalle@hotmail.com; Clemens Harten, Hamburg University of Technology, c.harten@tuhh.de; Prof Dr Maren Metz, HFH · Hamburger Fern-Hochschule, Maren.Metz@hamburger-fh.de

The post Gamification of Strategic Thinking with a COTS boardgame first appeared on Ludogogy.

The definitions and types of wargames are multiple and we will not try to make a synthesis that would not be exhaustive. However, our approach to these games must be clarified in order to understand our educational approach. In our context, a wargame is above all a catalyst artifact to generate realistic managerial situations through a system of rules, scenarios and material (counters, maps, figurines, etc.). Wargames represent historical or fictional environments where several teams are opposed, often asymmetrically.

The key to this definition is the concept of “ realistic managerial situation”. Indeed, despite the decontextualization of environments in relation to real work situations, we found that the acquisition of managerial knowledge was facilitated. The reason is simple but may seem counter-intuitive: as the scenarios do not look like real life, the students engage with authenticity in the proposed situations. Cognitive, pedagogical and organizational routines fall. Participants let go. But that’s not all. Wargames also contribute to the implementation of a real inclusive educational strategy. By replacing evaluations of results with evaluations related to involvement, students who are introverted or inhibited by the complexity of real situations are no longer afraid to engage in the proposed activities. All these assets then facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and the development of managerial skills as well as self-confidence.

The pedagogical plan goes beyond the simple time of the game and incorporates an initial briefing of the session and a particularly long debriefing. But the pedagogical arrangement also overlaps several sessions (the management course on which this article is based is 7 sessions of 3.5 hours). The idea is to propose an experiential learning cycle (Kolb, 1984) per session. This is very important. Too often, students don’t have the opportunity to test what they have just learned. Table-top wargames are again effective allies. The proposed situations are malleable and can be adapted in real time. Their complexity is perfectly mastered unlike digital wargames. It is then relatively simple to perform scenarios with the gradual complexity from one session to the next. The development of skills is then cumulative and in perfect harmony with the logic of experiential learning.

However, decontextualized managerial situations are only a step towards the professionalization of students. The ultimate objective is to support them in steering a realistic managerial situation. Management simulations or integrative learning situations can then be implemented favorably because any cognitive blockages have been removed during previous sessions with wargames. In conclusion, the use of wargames may be the first brick of an educational continuum allowing students to build their career path as future managers.

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“Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the first day of the crisis response wargame! Please note that the crisis actually started three days ago. Half of your computers are down, a third of your employees are sick, the bathroom pipes burst last night, and you’re fresh out of coffee filters. Be ready to present your opening moves in 20 minutes. Time starts now.”

The stress is palpable and dialed to 11. Tempers flare, emotions boil, and sweat-soaked game pieces fly as teams scramble from one crisis inject to another. The word “fun” likely doesn’t come to mind, but harnessing stress in training and education wargames transports players to a new world where emotions, thrill, and learning are real, and the risk illusory. Overcoming obstacles in high-stress training and educational wargames bolsters player confidence, strengthens interpersonal trust, and fosters team cohesion.

With inspiration from John Curry, Jim Dunnigan, Peter Perla, and Phil Sabin, I define wargaming as a synthetic decision making test under conditions of uncertainty against thinking opponents, which generates insights but not proven outcomes, engages multiple learning types, and builds team cohesion in a risk-free environment.[1] With one caveat. Most wargame literature highlights competition between thinking opponents, or human teams. I’ll step slightly out of bounds in suggesting that game controllers and adjudicators can proxy as non-thinking opponents such as pandemics, storms, power outages, accidents, earthquakes, zombie apocalypses, or other similar scenarios where human players must respond to uncontrollable and varyingly predictable events. Training and education wargame methods further overlap with analytic wargames; however, training and education wargaming focuses on active learning and skill reinforcement, while analytic wargaming focuses on hypothesis and decision generation for a given problem. Even so, harnessing stress applies to both approaches. I’m also enlarging the discourse to include not just tabletop, seminar, and matrix wargames that are largely rules and narrative-driven, but also live training exercises that translate piece movement into players actually practicing their skillsets.

How does stress reinforce wargame learning outcomes? In my own research I draw on Johan Huizinga’s magic circle, Peter Perla’s synthetic experience, and Roger Caillois’ liminality; or, that games are ritual spaces inside which all actions and consequences are real to the players.[2] Everything the players experience–their anger and failures, their frustrations and “ah ha!” moments, their elation and successes–imprints on their minds as if the experience happened in real life, yet in a risk-free environment. Put differently, how many Ludogogy readers can’t remember what they ate for breakfast yesterday but easily recall well-played games from decades past in stark clarity? Liminality also reinforces teamwork, as achieving goals under duress forges immense rapport between players. In particular, changes across the following four points effectively invoke stress that jumpstart liminality:

• Dispossession. Adjusting available resources for completing objective(s).
• Temporal. Adjusting available time to complete objective(s).
• Spatial. Adjusting available space.
• Sensory. Stimulating player senses.

From these four points, creative designers, controllers, and referees can generate a wide variety of useful, relevant, and occasionally devious stress-inducing methods. The key is to review and ensure that chosen stress injects positively contribute to the wargame’s overall learning objective(s). Also, tailor methods to match the trainees: first responders will expect a blend of physical and mental challenges, while a trade negotiator is likely to expect an almost entirely mental experience. Although not all-inclusive, I’ve used–and lived through–the ten below methods with great success across almost three decades of wargaming. All of these methods also tap one or more of the above points:

Barriers. Creating physical or communicative distances between teams. If space permits, place teams in different rooms or buildings and restrict their travel. If space is at a premium, restrict how teams communicate–perhaps one team has cell phones while another is limited to paper notes. You’ll be surprised by player creativity: a colleague once applied the phone/paper communication method, and the paper-limited team won the exercise.

Blackout. Dramatically reduce player access to critical resources. In board, seminar, or matrix wargames this might mean removing game pieces representing player capabilities or covering computer screens and locking doors during a hands-on training exercise. The immediate shock is immense. Put differently, imagine relearning to navigate without a Google Map. Again, stress foster enlightenment. What starts as a flurry or panic (usually) shifts to creative information workarounds.

Day -/+. Decreasing or increasing time available to players. Decreasing time appears the most stressful at face value, especially when paired with an audible or visual countdown. However, increasing time is also useful when paired with a suitably enlarged problem. For example, in the 1980s a team of senior officers opened a wargame expecting to practice a strategic-level problem with divisions, air wings, and carrier groups already in theater. Much to their surprise (and some dismay), the actual problem had planned forces still great distances from the theater, and the officers were tasked to figure out how to move them. Yes, their time available was extended, but now logistics details such as road widths, railroad gauges, and runway lengths mattered far more than initially expected.[3]

Decimation. The actual definition means to kill one of every ten people in a group as a form of punishment. But I’ll apply the vernacular version and characterize this as removing a percentage of the player’s human capital, either in raw numbers or selective positions (such as temporarily removing the commander or CEO for having eaten a bad batch of shrimp). Although injects can be random–particularly at STARTEX, or “start of exercise”–the decimation technique ideally ebbs and flows naturally based on player actions and their consequences.

Environment. Make the gaming space slightly uncomfortable. Dim the lights and make the room just a few degrees warmer or colder. Play sound effects or music with varying tempos. Restricting player senses while simultaneously enhancing others invokes shifts a simple room into unworldly realms. One note of caution, though. In my experience, increasing lighting breaks the magic circle and is usually a visual cue for ENDEX, or “end of exercise.”

Fatigue. Your people will hate you for this, but fatigue works. Start, end, or extend the wargame before, after, or beyond normal hours. The game space grows increasingly surreal to players, while creeping fatigue both challenges thinking and increases liminal receptivity.

Green Army Soldiers. In homage to the toys I spent many youthful days placing, marching, and occasionally melting, in this method referees ensure that the game space includes visual and tactile triggers. For a military wargame, I might tastefully place swatches of camouflage netting and spare maps in the room. For a business wargame, arranged notepads and newspapers. And regardless of setting, players find dice and cards almost irresistible to touch, and the act of handling dice and cards open players to liminality.[4] Like an elaborate or sparsely-furnished stage play, even small details transport player’s minds across the magic circle.

(Not) Just-in-Time. A nuance from point-of-failure below, this is a challenge outside of the team’s immediate control, such as a vendor sold out of critical supply stocks or an extended major airport hub closure. This method is particularly useful for creative generation of workarounds, substitutions, and alternate course of action development.

Point-of-Failure. In contrast to (not) just-in-time, this represents a significant challenge within the organization. Think having the only employee who knows the finance database’s password hospitalized, or the same database corrupted and without software backups. In my experience, this method results in the most spectacular flameouts matched with equally sobering and actionable post-wargame lessons learned.

Pre-Mortem. Turning the stress on its head! Allow teams to plan their strategies in bucolic bliss, then immediately before the opening moves, inform the teams their strategies failed and ask them to draft a list of reasons why. This method’s stress come from sudden surprise and sowing of doubt but generates great discussion. Sometimes the teams stick to their plan–and emerge victorious.

High-stress wargames, however, require expertise, proper skill level alignment, and emotional decompression. First, high stress wargaming demands highly experienced adjudicators. This octane of wargaming is equally stressful for those running it, as adjudicators must also think on their feet and make realistic calls under conditions of fatigue, poor lighting, and bad coffee (actually, there’s no excuse for bad coffee). Second, using the “crawl-walk-run” learning methodology, high-stress wargaming for training and education is more effective for reinforcing experienced personnel (walkers and runners). However, you can mitigate inexperience by pairing crawlers with experienced trainees. Finally, failure in high-stress wargames can result in players carrying blame outside of the game space that affects real-world perceptions. The post-wargame debriefing is where you nip the blame pathology in the bud. In addition to capturing best practices, lessons learned, and new ideas, the debrief is when players individually discuss their actions, make amends, and focus on praise. Take your learning and new confidence with you but leave negative emotions behind in the circle.

Although I’ve focus on training and education wargames, as a takeaway I offer that stress reinforces learning and teamwork in any game genre, even for pure entertainment. Well-applied stress creates powerful organization knowledge laboratories and immense rapport amongst friends around the gaming table. The next time you build an employee training event or game convention dungeon crawl, give the players a memorable experience–harness stress and conjure an unforgettable magic circle.

The post Start on Day 3: Liminality in High-Stress Wargames first appeared on Ludogogy.

The preconceptions

I spend a lot of time around the army.  Collectively, the organisation embraces wargaming for a range of purposes, but on an individual level, not so much.  In my experience, this is largely based on fear, whether in the conscious or subconscious mind.  For some, it may be the fear of being publicly and unequivocally turned over in an adversarial setting.  For others, it is fear of being seen to be too interested in an activity stereotypically enjoyed by men who are everything an army officer strives not to be.  For the more perceptive, lurks the combined fear of being beaten in a game of tactics by those individuals.  As a result, many would rather mock wargaming as the preserve of the seriously uncool; much more socially acceptable to make a name for oneself on the Rugby pitch.  Some of this analysis might translate to business; certainly managers’ discomfort with being shown to be wrong, to have made poor decisions or having failed to anticipate, could be behind excuses not to wargame, but I’m not quite cynical enough to believe that most managers are more interested in their own reputation than in the success of their organisation.

Rather, I think that the challenge outside defence is much more about the name and the baggage it brings.  We need to convince people that the range of activity we describe as wargaming is relevant across a range of settings, not just in the study and preparation for waging war.  Combine this with a genuine and well-intentioned belief that playing games is for children, and there are plenty of reasons and excuses to reject wargaming as something for other people.  Somehow, it’s up to those of us who get excited about professional wargaming to get past those assumptions and preconceptions and convince organisations and decision makers of the potential benefits to be gained.

Communicating the benefits

To communicate those benefits, it is crucial to understand them and to be able to explain them.  At their heart, wargames are models of a situation in which players make decisions in an effort to reach an objective.  These models can be simple, abstracted and portable, or fiendishly complex, realistic and require significant infrastructure to run, or anywhere in between.  But they must have an element of modelled competition or antagonism and include an element of uncertainty. Without this, it’s probably a BOPSAT.  “A Bunch Of People Sat round A Table” can be useful, but it’s not a wargame, despite being occasionally mislabelled.

What differentiates wargames and makes them interesting and useful is that they are simulations, in which outcomes can diverge from expectations.  They are all about developing strategies, challenging linear thinking and testing assumptions and bias.  We’ve used them to educate, training minds to expect plans to come unhinged, and to anticipate how an opponent, a competitor, or an ally, might act.  We’ve used them to build consent for change, by putting an audience in the shoes of their stakeholders and letting them feel their frustration and see a wider slice of the big picture. We’ve used them to help understand what the impact of a decision might be, to test the detail of contingency plans and share ownership for them.  What all of these games had in common was that they focussed on accepting complexity and rejecting the ordered simplification which our psychology loves to impose on any given situation.

The power of the Red Team

There is a huge range of reasons for organisations to run wargames, but the magic ingredient in every wargaming experience is the Red Team, whose job is to think from a different perspective and provide the friction required to find the flaws in the Blue plan.  In traditional military wargaming, Red and Blue are antagonists, opponents for whom winning means their enemy losing.  Decision making in the real world is evidently more complex, with a wider range of actors and audiences, all of whom will have a bearing on the situation, some of which can be incorporated into a wargame. It is this Red (or rather non-Blue) Team quality which makes wargaming such a powerful tool.  It is an antidote to over-confidence, to optimism bias, groupthink and confirmation bias; it builds resilience and agility through practicing the need to re-plan and re-think on the move, rather than giving up or holding onto a plan that simply won’t work.  That said, a wargame is not the answer to every problem. It is just a set of tools, not a panacea.

The benefits of practicing strategic thinking in complex situations seems self-evident, and a steady stream of pieces from the big consultancy firms highlighting the positive impact of wargaming on corporate resilience and risk management through the uncertainties of 2020 suggest that really big business is now increasingly using wargames to good effect. So why is it still such a struggle to convince managers that they should consider running wargames as part of their business activity?

What’s in a word?

The name is certainly problematic; a direct translation from the Prussians’ KriegSpiel and set against the context of hobby wargaming with its preponderance of Dark Elves and Space Marines, a wargame hardly sounds like a useful tool for 21^st Century businesses.  A few have tried to promote alternatives; Rex Brynen’s PaxSims blog is a great wargaming resource which nods to the idea that the tools can be used in contexts beyond warfare.  In an ideal world, there would be a neat Japanese word, along similar lines to Kaizen, which could be used as a shorthand for the range of adversarial simulations we currently label as wargames.  In the meantime, writing and speaking to explain what we do and redefining what most understand by the word “wargaming” helps to get the word out there.

The second problem is yet more military baggage, largely in the name, again.  While businesses may admire the army’s ability to mobilise and organise people and resources rapidly, at scale and with minute attention to detail, there seems to still be a belief that this is achieved through “ways that won’t work for us”, with lots of shouting by a small number of aggressive men and a lot of hard work and running around by the majority.  While this has a lot more to do with media portrayals than any first-hand experience, it is a pervasive view.  Wargaming might work well for these military cartoon characters planning their operations, but how on earth can it be applied to how Smith and Jones PLC are going to sell Financial Services or test the Business Continuity Plan?  Again, the only way to unpick this preconception is through explanation and communication.  One of our finest wargames was a consent-building exercise in a scenario concerned with ethical sales and distribution of infant formula and it was so successful we were asked to deliver it again for the same client on 3 continents; wargaming is not just for warriors!

Too difficult to implement?

As with many “innovative” business solutions, there is often a perception that wargaming is something of a dark art, only to be practiced by an anointed few and within strict rules and limitations.  Well, it’s really not.  Yes, there are some real Master Craftsmen (so far, the vast majority are men, but that’s changing) out there with decades of expertise, but most businesses don’t need an exquisitely crafted masterpiece; they need an exercise and a set of tools to help them learn, think or plan in a scenario in which outcomes can diverge from expectations, based on decisions and even chance.  A relatively “quick and dirty” solution is often the most efficient one and certainly doesn’t need to come at the prices charged by the big consultancy firms!

Red Teaming is gaining traction in the business world; a Venn Diagram would show a very significant overlap with wargaming, particularly in broad approaches and ways of thinking.  Some established credibility outside defence, perhaps out of successful application in cyber security, and a relative lack of baggage mean that Red Teaming is well ahead of wargaming in becoming part of normal life in the business world; perhaps we should be using it as a crowbar to break in or should just accept that it’s a better shorthand for activity to overcome linear thinking.

A tool for ‘lifting your gaze’

However, all of this is really just semantics.  Those of us who design and run professional wargames for a living are not that excited about what name gets used.  What gets us really excited is seeing people who are playing a game start to think in ways that account for what an opponent might do, start to really weigh risk against reward and really understand the detail of their contingency plans.  What we work with is just a set of tools; we can use them to educate, to explain, to explore and to assure, but the name really shouldn’t matter.  The real challenge is persuading hard-pressed decision-makers to lift their gaze from the daily battles they are fighting and to start thinking about how best to prepare for whatever is coming over the horizon next.  It’s once their attention is there that we can introduce them to our offering; but probably best not to call it wargaming, until we need a shorthand.

The post Wargaming: The Challenges of Preconceptions  first appeared on Ludogogy.

Wargaming can help organisations to make better decisions, through a more insightful external perspective of your markets and competitors and look to uncover future opportunities. In addition, it allows ‘stress-testing’ of strategies’ prior to implementation along with predicting competitors’ most likely moves.

Background

Wargaming has its roots in the military and can be traced as far back as ancient Greece.

It was used to great effect by the Prussians and Frederick the Great in the 18^th century, ‘Kriegsspiel’ is the German translation of Wargame. The Prussians based their political, diplomatic and military moves through a clear understanding of the underlying dynamics and likely responses with the goal of answering; What will be my opponent’s likely move? And then, what is my response?

The principles of Wargaming lend themselves nicely to the business environment.

What is a Wargame

Paradoxically, a Wargame is neither ‘a war or ‘a game’ it is an internal ‘competitive role-playing simulation hosted in a prespecified future horizon that allows participants to gain insight by playing external third parties e.g. competitors. As the success of any given strategy largely depends on the reactions of third parties – and as we don’t have direct knowledge of these intended reactions, role-playing allows us to help predict these moves.

It also helps organisations avoiding the following:

Where would you utilise a Wargame?

Wargaming has a number of different applications but one of its key strengths is in testing;

• Strategies prior to implementation
• Future market changes
• Plans against new competitors’ or defending against existing threats

Wargaming has been utilised in many other areas such as; crisis planning, change management and training and education. Wargames have been applied in both the public and private sectors.

What does a Wargame program look like?

As part of the overall process, we would recommend the following approach (see picture below). This would begin by preparing a ‘competitor insight dossier’ for each of the specific competitors.

Agreeing the key future events that will likely affect the competitive environment is the next step through a ‘Hypothesis meeting’ – this also helps to build up different scenarios which can be used in the workshop.

Engaging participants before the workshop is important and ensuring that they are properly briefed about the competitor that they will be role-playing is essential.

Wargaming workshop is usually hosted in a prespecified future horizon allowing participants to gain insights through playing key competitors. It is normally conducted over 1-2 days period with each round lasting approximately half a day with presentations back to the full group after each round. The participants in a workshop normally cover a number of cross-functional roles from commercial, sales, market research, finance, manufacturing & R&D. The participants’ are divided into competitor teams with one of the teams playing the home team to bring some objectivity and market orientated perspective. At the end of the workshop, the outputs are analysed and workshop report with recommendations is delivered within two weeks.

 Wargaming output and benefits

By undertaking a Wargaming workshop you can help uncover answers to the following questions;

1. Who are our competitors?
2. What are their strengths and weaknesses?
3. What strategies are they pursuing (and how successfully?)
4. How are they likely to behave in the future?
5. What changes (if any) should we make to our strategy based on competitors’ expected moves

Additionally, the benefits of Wargaming to an organisation are as follows;

• Provides greater external focus and helps develop competitor insight
• Helps to share expertise and uncover intelligence gaps
• It is dynamic process, involves active anticipation and company buy-in

Types of Wargame

Wargaming can be used across different types of organisations, from large mature ones to small start-ups and also for different objectives. Whether this is for a market leader looking to defend their market position or a new entrant looking to move into an uncontested  space – the same methodology can be applied.

In Summary

Wargaming can help your organisation develop more insightful external perspective of your markets and better understanding of the risks and uncertainties moving forward.

It is dynamic role-playing simulation that involves active anticipation with a focus on the market, the competitors and their dynamics, as well as on the company itself.

It is an ideal strategic tool to test out global strategies prior to implementation and to enable the company’s ideal ‘positioning’ based on anticipated future market conditions.

‘Well-designed war games, though not a panacea, can be powerful learning experiences that allow managers to make better decisions. By asking a few tough questions, executives can help their organizations be smarter about when and how to play’.

The post Business Wargaming….for an uncertain world first appeared on Ludogogy.

Its true that the military invests considerable intellectual and doctrinal effort into red teaming.  They have useful brochures on it which describe best practice, principles and list ‘golden rules’.  These guides are well worth a read – especially as they are progressively shifting the emphasis away from ‘me vs my competitor’ and onto a broader range of inputs.  However, my own experience is that the theoretical study is separate from the day to day reality.  I have seen several military operations, which I was part of, go awry because the gaming element prior to launch was just a box ticking exercise, or was seen as unimportant.  The outcomes were indeed catastrophic.

Influenced by these events, I left the Armed Forces nine years ago, on a personal mission to understand gaming concepts and improve the way it is conducted.  I set up a company which specialised in gaming and, along the way, I have done a lot of reading, but also supported many clients including Shell, Mercedes, Waitrose, as well as smaller businesses across the world.  Each of these games has been an opportunity to gain experience in the way people react and how to deliver different types of game, from Pre-Mortems to Thinking Hats to Red vs Blue Teams.  As I have taught clients, I have also learned from them and come to the conclusion that success in gaming is based on some simple principles:

Diversity of thought

Gaming is all about creativity – which requires diverse thinking.  This can be accelerated by the inclusion of people from outside the immediate core business/department area, provided they have knowledge of the topic / subject matter.  Thinking carefully about who to invite to a game, to get the maximum amount of different perspectives, is invaluable. This video on the principle of cognitive diversity by Matthew Syed is well worth a watch.

In the diagram above[1], all of the team members in team 1 are too similar.  They likely all come from the same management level, have the same type of experiences, the same level of knowledge and frame of reference.  This means that, even though each individual may be extremely knowledgeable, as a collective they only occupy a very small proportion of the problem space and will therefore come up with limited solutions.

The team members in team 2 are too diverse.  This means that although they have lots of creative ideas and are highly innovative, very few of the solutions actually contribute to the problem space they have been asked to address.

Like Goldilocks, the team members in team 3 are just right.  They are sufficiently diverse in their thinking and experiences that they can occupy all of the problem space and come up with a wide range of creative solutions, but they are not sitting outside the problem space and therefore so unfamiliar with the issue that they can’t contribute.

Safe Space

If the first principle of running a successful game is diversity of thought (and therefore a wide range of people), the second principle follows by default – making sure that everyone taking part feels comfortable to contribute.

Ensuring that they enter the room in a mindset of it being a safe space to express their views is really important.  Otherwise you have diverse representation but not contribution.  To create a safe space means working hard, in advance, to help everyone understand what is needed, giving them the confidence they will require.  It applies equally to senior and junior people.  Senior people need to be reassured that the challenges being expressed are focused on the TOPIC not them as an individual.  Junior people need to feel comfortable that if they express a valid opinion they will not be sanctioned later.

Transitory

For some traditional and hierarchical organisations, it helps to understand from the outset that a game is just a moment in time.  That we need to temporarily flatten the structure in order to generate new ideas and fresh perspectives.  This helps reassure some leaders that they aren’t opening Pandora’s box and everyone will be challenging every decision from now on.

All organisations need to get things done.  For that, people need to be assigned tasks.  The game is just a way of identifying what those tasks and actions are, through temporarily getting away from the day to day structure.

Preparation

It will be clear by now, that a good deal of preparation needs to be conducted prior to a game.  People need to walk into the room comfortable with the behaviours that are required, an understanding of the topic they are testing and the role they are playing.

This preparation cannot be understated.  It is often best done as a group briefing a week or so ahead of the main test, with calls to those who cannot make the briefing.  This enables everyone to be given the same ‘rules of the road’ in terms of how the game will be run.  Importantly for a facilitation perspective, it also gives the facilitator an opportunity to meet the players in advance and get a feel for who is more extrovert / introverted, who has key knowledge and build a relationship with them.

Timeliness

Organisations often feel they must have a fully formed plan that is robust before they test it.  This has two problems.  Firstly, those who created the plan are now emotionally tied to it and any criticism of it feels like an attack on themselves, rather than a critique of the plan.  Secondly, it can mean that time is incredibly short to make any corrections or adjustments.

Games can be run at any stage of the planning process; at the outset as a way of generating ideas and potential options, at the mid-point as a way of selecting between options, or at the end as a ‘health check’ of the chosen solution to make sure it is fit for purpose.

The general rule of thumb is to always run a game far earlier in the process than seems to make sense or feels comfortable

Output and Outcome Focused

A game can quickly spiral off into being an enjoyable discussion down a rabbit hole.  It is vital that the game is kept focused on the desired outcomes and outputs.  These are usually; risks, opportunities and actions.  They can also be; building a better understanding across a team, or helping to socialise a new concept.

Whatever the outcomes or outputs are, the facilitation team should ensure that the focus remains on those deliverables, and on time.  The correct amount of time needs to be given to each aspect of the game, or it will go into significant depth on the first subject area and neglect the rest.  The facilitators also need to remember to capture, accurately, the outputs.  Nothing is worse than a fantastic game with a great depth of challenge and insights, only for no-one to subsequently remember what those were!

…and back again

In July 2017, I was approached by one of my former military commanders, who was now extremely high up in Defence.  He asked me if I would be willing to help re-invigorate and refresh the way in which wargaming was done in the military.  It was fascinating to be invited to do so and be part of some of the conversations.  I don’t think that I ended up shifting the cursor very much if I’m honest, and my commercial experience was seen as a bit irrelevant by some in the military.  What is heartening though, is that no matter what the organization, military or commercial or charitable, the art of gaming is being recognised for what it is; a powerful and capable tool that doesn’t just stress test plans, it brings cohesion across teams and builds understanding.  Long may that continue!

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