23
War Gaming
Short Description
War gaming is a role-playing simulation of a competitive marketplace used either for general management training and team building or as a tool to explore and test competitive strategies for a specific firm to discover any weaknesses in a plan and to identify possible consequences of adopting such a plan. Teams of players take roles and simulate the dynamics of a marketplace over a period of time. The actions of each team will have an impact on both the effectiveness of current strategies by other teams and future directions for the game. The idea is for participants to gain a perspective of the marketplace from outside their own firm.
Background
Military war games, simulating battle to allow practical training outside the forum of war, probably began since recorded history. The ancient games of chess and Go were developed as war games.
Modern war games are generally considered to date back to the Prussian's Kriegspiel, which is credited with teaching Prussian officers at least some of the skills they needed to win the Franco–Prussian War of 1870–71.
The first recorded non-military war games club was set up in Oxford in the 19th century. In 1913, H.G. Wells published the first book about recreational war gaming, Little Wars (full title: Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books). It brought together existing rules for playing with miniature toy soldiers and attempted to codify these rules.
In the late 1960s, the war-gaming society at the University of Minnesota began role-playing their games/wars rather than moving models or counters around on a table top (one of the moderators of these games went on to co-create Dungeons and Dragons). Role-playing games became very popular through the 1960s and 1970s and have expanded and developed along with technology (for example, today's MMORGS—massively multiplayer online role-playing games).
The analogy of "business" as "war" is a popular one for capturing the essence of the competitive marketplace. Consider this, for example:
"It is critical to keep in mind that the [competition] is not an inanimate object but an independent and animate force. [Our competitor] seeks to impose [its] own will on us. It is the dynamic interplay between [its] will and ours that makes [business] difficult and complex."
This is a quote from the U.S. Marine Corps' handbook on strategy1—adapted by referring to competition and business rather than the enemy and war. The philosophy translates seamlessly from military strategy to competitive business strategy. It seems logical, then, that the practice of war gaming, long used to explore military strategy and decision making in a risk-free environment, has been appropriated and adapted for use in business.
Since their development in the late 1980s, business war games have become an increasingly popular tool for firms to experience strategic decision making, provide hands-on training to their staff, and see the consequences flowing from the decisions made in a realistic simulation of a dynamic market.
Strategic Rationale and Implications
The basic aim of a war game is to turn information into actionable intelligence by increasing the quality of decision making. Chussil likens the function of war gaming in the context of strategic decision making to that of research and development in the context of product development.
War games today are complex role-playing simulations, which ideally capture the complexity of competitive market dynamics. By running a business war game, a firm can have its participating managers practice strategic decision making in a realistic context.
In many firms, management decisions are guided by quite conservative thinking in which few risks are taken in the hope that this course of action will minimize mistakes. However, taking a conservative approach may in fact end up costing more in the long run than a radical change in strategic direction, as opportunities for profit may be passed up.
In the fast-changing environment of modern business, it is also important for a firm to avoid the trap of endlessly trying to relive its own past success by repeating history. As history unfolds, its course is shaped not just by our own plans and actions, but by many other factors outside our control, such as the strategies of our competitors, new inventions and innovations, and even government policy changes. As new competitors join a market and new products and technologies develop, there can be little wisdom in sticking with what you did yesterday while everyone else has moved on.
A business war game allows experimentation with new strategic directions without incurring real-world costs and so widens the range of strategic planning options a firm may be willing to adopt. It effectively reduces the risk of making mistakes by illustrating the flow on effects of the decision or decisions explored in the war game. It provides a simulation where some of the uncontrollable factors influencing the market can be modeled and their likely affects explored in a risk-free environment.
The action in a war game will span a nominated time period, usually measured in years (though the game itself will last for only a matter of days). This allows the consequences of a particular decision to be tracked into the medium term to thoroughly investigate the reactions of the marketplace. By following the competitive dynamics of the market for a period of time, the war game will uncover either longer-term negative consequences of a decision that may initially deliver profits or show that while a strategy used may offer modest returns in the short term, it will yield much greater profits (than alternative strategies) with time.
The war game situation also forces participants to change their perspective on strategic decision making. Participants are divided into teams that assume roles in the game, simulating a wide variety of players in the marketplace. Teams will usually include several teams representing competitors or customers as well as the host firm. The teams will work in isolation to develop their "move" in the game but then will see the results, not in isolation, but in the context of all "moves" made by all other teams. Managers are no longer making their planning decisions based on their view of the market from their own firm (inside out), but are seeing the effect of their firm's decisions on the whole market from a much wider perspective (outside in).
There are two basic types of war games that can be run for a business. The first uses a generic business scenario to educate managers generally in the process of strategic decision making. It will put the participants in a safe environment in which they can experiment with radical thinking and gain confidence in their own decision-making capacity. The experience will also promote team building among the participants.
The second type of war game is tailored to the needs of a particular firm, mirroring its competitive environment in the war game set up. This type of war game is used to facilitate the firm's strategic planning process. It may be run early in the planning process to indicate strategic directions or, alternatively, it may be run after the strategic plan has been formulated to test it for weaknesses and check what affect it is likely to have on the marketplace. Participants in this type of war game will also gain experience, which will build their confidence in decision making—same as with the generic war game. Similarly, a firm-specific war game will act as a team-building exercise.
Strengths and Advantages
The general development of decision-making skills and team-building effects may be achieved with a relatively cheap generic "off-the-shelf" war game. A tailored war game, however, allows a firm to explore new and different strategic plans for the market in which it competes without incurring real-world costs. The war game is designed around current market and financial conditions and often requires the facilitation by third parties. Competitive intelligence necessary for input into the war game will be provided by the firm. It will use this information, which may already be available, though often not centrally accessible, to create a realistic representation of a particular marketplace. By undertaking a war game, the firm will be gathering together information that may be "owned" by separate parts of the business and integrating it all into a single model from which the firm will be obtaining valuable, low-risk practical intelligence.
One or more strategic plans may then be tested in the game to explore short- and medium-term effects of specific actions in the market. This testing may be carried out at the beginning of the planning process to allow the firm to investigate broad direction change. Or the game may be run after a plan has been developed when it will uncover any weaknesses and/or unintended or undesirable results in the short to medium term.
The successful testing of a strategic plan in a business war game will build support for the implementation of the plan across the firm. Participants from throughout the firm will have had an opportunity to question the strategy and follow it through its rigorous testing. They will be able to communicate their enthusiasm for the successful strategy to non-participants in all areas of the firm.
A tailored war game will give those participating an insight into the future reality of their business environment that is not available to their competitors. It will anticipate future market directions of competitors and their reactions to the host firm's actions. It will contemplate the affects of new products, new competitors, and/or new technology on the market.
After a corporate merger, acquisition, or takeover, a generic war game may be useful to build cohesion between staff who were probably once competitors, while a tailored war game may educate newcomers in the specifics of the firm's situation.
The "after action report" compiled after a war game has run provides an historical record of the scenarios tested and the outcomes of the war game. It is a reference tool for those who took part in the war game and others who did not, to use when formulating strategic plans for the firm.
After a firm has run one war game, any future war games it wishes to undertake will be easier and cheaper to run.
Those taking part in war games will gain confidence in their own strategic decision-making abilities as a result of the experience. They will also have an understanding of "thinking outside the box" and be more willing to consider new and different strategies.
Firms will also find strong cross-functional team building benefits resulting from war games. In many large firms, there is often internal competition between departments or simple lack of communication that hinders the development and/or implementation of firm-wide strategies. Geographic separation of functions, units, or branches of a firm may also make cooperation difficult in practical terms. A war game typically involves teams of players consisting of members from a variety of departments, units, or branches and a variety of management levels. The intense experience of war gaming builds valuable working relationships and open channels of communication between the areas of the firm represented by the members of each team. The feeling of camaraderie resulting from the intense war game experience can also build bridges throughout the firm and increase the chances of successful implementation of future strategic plans.
Weaknesses and Limitations
The design of a war game must be done very carefully, or the game will not run properly, and little or no useful information will result. The major flaw in war gaming is that is requires significant skill and diligence from participants as well as facilitators. The running of a war game itself requires skilled logistical and administrative support. Most firms as such may not have the ability to design and run its own war game.
The design process has multiple points where a mistake or input error will compromise the utility of the war game. For example, choosing the wrong situation to war game may yield accurate but useless information; starting out with an ill-defined scope for the war game may yield information with a big picture focus, but no specific strategic feedback; too narrow a design may rob the teams of any flexibility in how they play the game and give skewed results.
The outcomes of the war game may be easily distorted by having unbalanced teams involved, thereby limiting the actions of the teams. The make-up of the teams must be carefully considered to give a mix from across various functions within the firm and involve different levels of seniority.
When running a war game, the umpires or referees responsible for allowing or not allowing specific actions by the teams may limit the scope of the action with their personal biases or assumptions about the market being emulated. A computer-based umpire may also limit the scope of the game by generating its decisions based on narrow assumptions about market dynamics or finance.
Another potential problem is having the players manipulate the game situation simply to "win." This can happen where a human umpire/referee has well-known preferences for business behavior or narrow views of finance or competition, and teams can use these biases to get approval for their actions at the expense of other teams. Similarly, an unsophisticated computer umpire/referee may allow teams to second guess which strategies will get them furthest in the game situation. When this occurs, no realistic insights will result from the war game.
The quality of generic of "off-the-shelf" war games varies widely. Some can be limited by being based on narrow financial or economic models, which makes the war game scenario react unrealistically to the "moves" of players. Limited modeling of market forces may encourage more conservative strategies by players and limit their learning experience as a result.
A tailored business war game is an expensive and time-consuming exercise for a firm to undertake. The war game can take weeks or months to design. Any staff involved in the design process will need to be trained to do it. Participants will need to have some pre-training to gain the skill level required to take part in a war game. The war game will usually run for several days and will require a dedicated space (often a number of separate rooms) and a network of computers set up for the running of the game.
War gaming in fact takes longer to set up than other analytical techniques.
Process for Applying the Technique
A business war game is a complex exercise to undertake, and there are multiple steps involved in applying a war game to a firm-specific situation. Figure 23.1 illustrates the process and steps involved.
Figure 23.1 Process for conducting a business war game
Step 1: Is a War Game the Way to Go?
The first question to ask when contemplating a war game is whether it is appropriate to your situation. What do you hope to achieve by running a war game? A business war game can be used to encourage bonding between participants or to simply stimulate thinking. It may also be used to rehearse and thoroughly test a specific strategy direction for your firm to ensure that the dollars spent in implementation have the highest possible opportunity for success—that is, achieving the biggest bang for every dollar spent on a specific strategy—or to minimize possible risks involved in strategic decision making.
The major disincentive from war gaming for most firms will be the commitment of time and money required. However, a range of war game styles can be leveraged to suit the range of outcomes required, from bonding to strategy testing, to varying amounts of both time and money.
Generic business war games are cheaper because they may be purchased "off-the-shelf," thus bypassing the long and involved design process required for a tailored war game. These are useful where a firm wants to deliver staff training and experience in flexible strategic decision making in an intense and hands-on environment, and often last for only one half to one full day. These types of war games may also give participants confidence to make decisions under pressure and serve as a firm-wide team-building exercise.
On the other hand, there are various levels of complexity that may be incorporated into a tailored business war game. Some war games may last for only two days, while others may continue over five days.
A shorter war game may be useful in delivering insights into a changing market and changing competitive factors, and this may be all that is required to kick start your firm's strategic planning process.
Longer business war games tend to be used to comprehensively test new plans and strategies that will require a great deal of a firm's resources. The longer and more involved the war game, the more complex and expensive the design process will be. However, the returns may more than compensate for the cost in that risks, unintended outcomes, and consequences can all be pre-managed for maximum benefit to the firm.
A long tailored war game simulation will, however, be most beneficial for testing a complex situation, where you face unfamiliar problems, and the cost of any mistake will be high.2
Either way, whether you have a short or long game, a war game will give you creative insights into your situation and will help to build consensus within your strategy team for a particular future direction.3
Step 2: Getting a Business War Game Off the Ground
Once you decide that a business war game is the right thing for you to do, you will need to find a powerful and committed sponsor from high within your firm. Your sponsor will be particularly important where you are contemplating a long and detailed war game, not only to get the go ahead for the expenditure and hours it will require, but also to champion the outcomes. For a war game to be successful, you need to be sure that there is a commitment from senior management in the firm to actually make some practical use of the results.
You will need to select a team to design your war game scenario. Once you have a team pulled together, the team will need to meet to get the basic war game design settled, including deciding what the objectives/scope will be. They will also need to develop a plan, schedule, and budget. All the decisions and preparation work from this point on will be done by the design team.
The design team now needs to buy and/or design the war game.
While all generic war games are bought "off-the-shelf," not all are equal. Research into the underpinnings of the war game (for example, what sort of modeling is used, what the processing of input based is on, and so on) is advisable. If a game is cheap because it uses unsophisticated processing, then the strategic decision-making experience may be less than optimal, as decisions will not result in realistic feedback. It may in fact encourage participants to make very conservative decisions. Another consideration is how flexible the game is while being played. Players will not get any useful training in decision making unless they can explore the effects of a variety of actions in each situation. This means you should look for a game that allows players to ask "what if" as they play. Remember that when running a generic war game, the design process will only be relevant to the extent that you need to decide who will be involved and who will be in each team.
On the other hand, the software you use to process information while running a tailored war game should be sophisticated enough to realistically mimic complex marketplace dynamics as teams make their various "moves." It should also be difficult to predict so as to dissuade any rogue players from trying to manipulate the results of the game and allow players to explore "what if."
The design process is crucially important to the success of a tailored war game; however, most firms can obtain assistance for this aspect from a professional war game consultant or facilitator.
By this stage, you will already have considered some of your objectives in deciding what sort of war game you wish to run. Other objectives will be determined by what information do you expect to have in the "after action report" generated after the war game. The next consideration now is what objectives you have for the war game process itself. What sort of experience are you hoping the participants will gain from being involved? Who should be involved? How many teams will you need to play out the war game scenario, and who are they representing? There will always be a team representing the host firm, a facilitator team, and usually an umpire/referee team (or at least someone feeding the information into some umpiring software and giving the results back to the players). There will be at least one competitor, but usually more, and a team representing a particular customer or all customers in the market. Often the war game will include a "wildcard" team representing a new, as yet unknown competitor in the market. Other teams may represent your distributors or retailers.
To an extent, the objectives you choose will influence the scope and domain of your business war game. For example, if you are testing a strategy to move your business offshore, then your war game will have to consider overseas market conditions—but will you need to consider just one or a variety of geographical area and industries? This information is vitally important to the players while they are playing the game as their time will be limited, and they must be guided in what to consider and what not to. It is an important guide for preparation of the briefing material you must supply to all players.
Step 3: Who Should Play?
Together the objectives and scope of the game will point to who should be involved in the war game. You should involve not only management from a variety of levels, but also from different departments within your firm and from different branches as well. How many players should be involved? How many teams do you have, and how many people and what mix of people should be on each?
The facilitator and umpire teams need not be large and may in fact be represented by only two persons. However, those making up the umpire team have a critically important role in the progress of the war game. The umpire decides whether a team will be allowed to take the action it plans to—the umpire is effectively the gatekeeper of what information gets processed, and so any biases the umpire may give in to in playing his or her role will have a direct effect on the integrity of the war game's outcomes.
The number of players in a team should be decided by considering how many people across the firm senior management would like to involve, the number of teams being represented, and what will be a reasonable number for each team to provide a range of input into the team's decision making without having an unwieldy amount of input (from too many team members) to try to integrate.
Each team should be carefully chosen to include members from a variety of areas (departments and offices) and from a range of seniority. Who should lead each team? Mark Chussil notes that some firms have deliberately put more junior staff in charge of war game teams to enhance the sense that team members may speak freely. Some team members may feel intimidated by having to make radical or wildly creative suggestions to a senior manager—and the aim of a war game is to explore exactly these sort of ideas in a risk-lessened environment.
Step 4: Preparing for Your War Game
Players will need comprehensive background information to prepare for the war game and to refer to while they play. Compiling this information from various internal and external sources and ensuring each team gets the information it needs is critical. This is the most time-consuming part of the design process. What information will be needed to give each team the background it needs to realistically play its role? For example, the host firm team will need financial, market share, product (including R&D), and human resources information. Competitor teams will need much of the same sort of information on their own firms, which your design team will need to provide as best as possible. However, the host firm team will only have information about its competitors that it already has. None of the teams will have all the detailed information supplied to each of the other teams. Some information may also be based on rumor in the marketplace. This will all go to reflect the incomplete information used for making real-world decisions.
The design team will have to address the method to be used for teams to communicate their "moves" while playing the game. Often this means designing a template into which decisions can be entered. Information from a standard template should then be easy to transfer into the game-processing software.
Players will need some training before they participate in the war game. War gaming requires a certain level of skill to progress effectively. Players in longer games will generally be asked to attend a half-day or full day pre-war game briefing. Where the game is a generic or shorter tailored game, a short introductory session before the war game and an opportunity to read their background material may be all that is required.
The pre-war game briefing usually occurs a few weeks before the war game proper. Players will be given their background information and be introduced to the processes and concepts of war gaming. They will be told what the objectives of the war game are and what is expected of them. Sometimes the session will include a simple, short war game to give players some direct experience of playing.
Other activities, such as short assignments, which may require further research, may be given to the players to help them get into their roles in the weeks leading up to the war game.
The final important preparation for the running of the game is the physical set up of the space where the business war game will be played. The room or rooms to be used by the various teams and the administrative and technical support staff involved must be furnished with all equipment necessary (for example, whiteboards, paper and pens, computers). It is advisable to have a test "walk through" of the game to double-check last-minute preparations—for example, are all the computers involved recognizing one another on the network?
When you are planning a long war game, it may be necessary to build in some side activities for players to give them a break from the intensity of the war game.
Step 5: Playing the Game
The actual playing of the game can last between one and five days, depending on the game's complexity.
A business war game will run as a series of "rounds," each representing the market after a particular point in time. For example, some war games nominate that each round occurs at three monthly intervals; others may use half yearly (or longer intervals) or a mix of time periods.
Teams go to the area or room assigned to them. Each team will have a set amount of time, usually a number of hours, to prepare its plan for action in the current round based on the latest available information. For the first round, each team will plan its "move" based on the information provided to the players at their pre-game briefing (including any information gathered as a result of any additional research they were asked to do for their specific team).
At the end of the allotted time for the round, the teams will submit their plans to the umpire/referee, who will then decide whether the actions can be allowed in the game context. In some games, other teams—for example, a consumer team—will assess competing strategies and directly reallocate market share. The allowable actions from each team will then be fed into the game-processing software, which integrates plans from all teams and then generates new information about the market—for example, revised market share or profit figures. Each team receives limited feedback about the actions of the other teams mimicking the incomplete information on which business decisions must be based in real life. The new information is used as a basis for making the team's new plan of action for the next round.
While the game is running, it is important to have both administrative and technical support available. The outcomes of the business war game should be recorded (and backed up) continuously to ensure no information or decisions made are lost over the course of the day.
Step 6: After the Game
After the players have finished all the allocated rounds of the game, they need to be debriefed about the experience and reminded of the original objectives. This will give them a chance to reflect on the personal insights and confidence they have gained during the process.
The value of the strategic analysis done during a war game will be lost without follow up after the game has finished. The outcomes that have been recorded by administrative support staff need to be collected and organized into a meaningful "after game report." The tasks involved in putting the report together should be assigned specifically and be subject to a deadline. You do not want the information to "go cold" and interest in the activity to leak away before the outcomes can be put to use.
Once the report is complete, it must be followed up, and the insights gained during the business war game should be acted upon. The learning curve for all the staff involved in a firm's business war game is very steep. However, once there are knowledgeable people in-house, future war games the firm chooses to run will be quicker and easier to prepare.
Case Study
A new CEO with an information technology firm (ITF) found the key division of his firm was facing difficulties. He also discovered the following:
- The marketplace was dominated by one very large competitor (holding nearly 60% of market share) and crowded with about 10 other minor players, including his firm (none of which had more than 8% market share). ITF adopted a strategy of taking market share from the market leader, and this had not been working.
- The products ITF relied on were good, but unremarkable compared to those of competitors.
- Morale was very low.
- ITF had been divested from a larger IT firm some time before, and some of the managers still retained a management style suited to a large firm and not the small one they now found themselves with. There was no consensus among senior staff as to how to turn the firm around.
The CEO decided to conduct a business war game to involve his whole management team and put them in a situation where together they would explore and experiment with the dynamics of the market. He hoped the war game would help raise morale and build agreement in management about a course of action.
Specific objectives were defined. The war game was to include five teams representing existing competitors, one being the market leader. A wild card team would represent a new and as yet unknown competitor with the potential to disrupt the market. Other teams would represent end users and channels (the firms involved in getting the ITF products to the end users). There was also a team for the host firm, a facilitator team, and an umpire team. The war game would simulate the next three years, which would be covered by three rounds of play, each representing a calendar year. The focus was to be on the national market.
A half-day pre-war game briefing was conducted three weeks before the war game.
The teams each worked in separate rooms, preparing for each round. Rounds 1 and 2 required the teams representing the host team and competitors to assess the overall market, anticipate likely competitor strategies, and determine where it would concentrate its efforts. Each team had limited resources to implement their strategies.
The channels and end-user teams had slightly different tasks. It was the role of these two teams to analyze the decisions from each competitor (including the host team) and reallocate market share according to the "success" or otherwise of their strategies.
For round 3, every team took the perspective of ITF and wrote a list of events and trends it saw as likely in the market (including an estimate of the probability that these would occur) at the three-year point, based on the results of the preceding two rounds of play.
A plenary group was chosen to meet and review all of the suggestions arising from the game and developed a grid mapping the events and trends with probability to assess their importance.
The war game indicated that ITF would have to shift its strategy from targeting the market share of the dominant firm to targeting smaller competitors to succeed. The other minor players were all focused on the dominant competitor and not defending their market share from marketing assaults from a similar-sized firm. Success was, however, seen as possible if this new strategy was adopted. The war game also identified strong and weak competitors in the marketplace. The information was taken and used to formulate a new strategic plan.
The war game also had a direct positive effect on team building and morale as contemplated at the outset of the game.
Within four years, the strategy developed through this war game had proved to be so successful that ITF found itself being considered as a major threat by the leader in the market.4
FAROUT Summary
Figure 23.2 War gaming FAROUT summary
Future orientation—High. A business war game is entirely future focused.
Accuracy—Medium. The quality of the outcomes from the game will depend on a number of factors. Flaws in the design of the war game may result in information that is inaccurate for meeting the game's objectives. Inaccurate information provided to players at the outset may skew results. Inability of players to properly understand the role they are assuming and play it realistically will have a negative impact on the accuracy of the outcomes.
Resource efficiency—Medium. Although the investment required to conduct a business war game is high, the returns are also very high. Players will receive valuable training and build relationships within their teams. When analysis of the firm's strategic planning is undertaken, the final plan/s will have been rigorously tested by the war game, and practical advice about future plans will be available.
Objectivity—Medium. The objectivity achieved will depend on the sophistication of software used, the game parameters, the impartiality of the umpire team, and the dedication of the players to the war game process. It is possible to have both very low or very high objectivity—often a result of the quality of the facilitation.
Usefulness—High. Forewarned is forearmed.
Timeliness—Low. To improve the timeliness of the results, a business war game must be undertaken as early as possible in a planning process. The war game itself will require weeks or months to design and prepare, depending on the depth of testing and learning required.
Related Tools and Techniques
- Blindspot analysis
- Competitor analysis
- Financial ratio and statement analysis
- Industry analysis
- Scenario analysis
- Supply chain analysis
- SWOT analysis
- Value chain analysis
References
Center for the Study of Intelligence; CIA (1999). Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, Chapter 6.
Chussil, M. (2005). "Business war games," scip.online, 1(19), June 23, 2005.
Chussil, M. (2003a). "The seven deadly sins of business war games, part 1," scip.online, 1(31), May 8, 2003.
Chussil, M. (2003b). "The seven deadly sins of business war games, part 2," scip.online, 1(32), July 10, 2005.
Chussil, M.J., and D.J. Reibstein (1998). "Calculating, imagining and managing. Using war games to leverage intelligence and improve strategy decisions," The Journal of AGSI, March.
Fuller, M. (1993). "Business as war," Fast Company, Issue 00.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_role-playing_games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wargame
Kurtz, J. (2002). "Introduction to business war gaming," Competitive Intelligence Magazine, November–December, 5(6), pp. 23–28.
Kurtz, J. (2003). "Business war gaming: Simulations guide crucial strategy decisions," Strategy & Leadership, 31(6), pp. 12–21.
Kurtz, J., (2005). "Lessons from business war gaming," Competia, March 1, 2005.
Reibstein, D., and M. Chussil (1999). "Putting the lesson before the test: Using simulation to analyze and develop competitive strategies," Competitive Intelligence Review, 10(1), pp. 34–48.
Underwood, J. (1998). "Perspectives on war gaming," Competitive Intelligence Review, 9(2), pp. 46–52.
Endnotes
1 Quoted by Fuller, 2001.
3 Chussil, 2002.
4 Adapted from Kurtz, J. (2003). "Business wargaming: simulations guide crucial strategy decisions," Strategy & Leadership, 31(6), pp. 12–21.