The International Simulation & Gaming
Yearbook
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Games for all seasons
David Jaques
There is a 'catch 22' problem with many games and simulations. If you introduce too many details into the roles and scenario not only can people 'fail to see the wood for the trees', but they may find great difficulty in connecting it with their own experience and thus in transferring their learning. The reality of the game is not their reality. If, on the other hand, you pare the game down to a simple process or task, people (perhaps the same ones as above) may express bewilderment and say 'but what does this mean?' and 'what is this for?'. This chapter plumps for the riskier option - games that have a simple structure or an abstract task. With these games more assumptions are laid bare, the imagination is more likely to be stirred, and learning becomes at once more shared, more idiosyncratic and thus more powerful.
MASTER: a participative learning exercise
Eleni Stavrou
The exercise allows students to learn the class material by participating in a game of MASTER throughout their course sessions. The students design the MASTER board in class, form their MASTER teams, and determine the rules and grading of the game. In each MASTER Session, one team takes the rum in asking the rest of the teams questions prepared from the previous session's material. A composite score is calculated for each team at the end of the course and the winning team(s) earn a prize determined by the students at the beginning of the course. The game is designed to promote creativity and imagination, as well as being a lasting learning experience for students.
Case studies in professional role play
Phill Doulton, Janet Rawson, Robbie Swales and Richard Wilkes
Role play is a firmly established training technique which is used in many different learning environments. However, many trainers now wish to create such complex simulations that it can be a very daunting prospect for a lay person to participate.
In the last few years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of professional actors who are being paid to exercise their skills as role players, in order to enhance training. Van Ments (1989) points the way when describing what he calls Practice Role Play.
'Most role-plays of this type involve a second actor who plays the part of the interviewee, customer, patient or whoever is needed in the particular context. Ibis secondary player will be able to provide direct feedback on the extent to which they were put at ease or enticed into revealing delicate information, etc.'
Professional actors are now providing realistic and demanding characters for participants to interact with in carefully structured simulations. But can every professional actor be a talented and flexible role player? The four directors of Steps Role Play, who have amassed a considerable amount of role playing experience between them didn't think so. We felt that there were some particular attributes and talents required for the job, which not all actors possess. One skill, which is emphasized by van Ments above, is feedback. We feel that apart from the ability to provide believable characters for participants to interact with, all our role players must be able to give sensitive and constructive feedback to the participants. We therefore created Steps Role Play, a company which is dedicated to providing skilled and experienced professional role players.
The playing '80s - Russian activity games
Anna Rotkirch
This chapter presents the social context of the activity games in Russia. Russian history knows two original game methods, of which the open and problem-centred activity games form the second generation. Their influence on Russian society can be assessed on two levels: from the point of view of personal change and social mobility; and as providing society with a structured space for professional and political reflection. The unique practical experience of activity games make them a promising subject for comparative game theory.
A bridge between past and future
Marina Liborakina
The specificity of 'organizational activity games' is often hard to grasp for an outsider. 7be core of games is the idea of development, but what is actually the meaning of 'organizational' and 'activity'? Both aspects of games - collective activity and its systemic organization belong to the original and maybe unique traits of Russian game theory,
Here, the intellectual roots of Russian activity games are traced to some aspects of Lev Vygotsky's and Alexandr Bogdanov's theories. The basic principles, structure and working regime of activity games are presented. Finally, the chapter discusses one recent case where activity game methods were adopted to plan the development of non-profit organizations in Siberia.
A random-strategy criterion for validity of simulation game participation
Dr John R Dickinson and Dr A J Faria
Several approaches have been used to examine the external and internal validity of simulation game participation. This chapter proposes a new approach for measuring internal validity. Termed the random-strategy criterion, this approach offers a more logical conceptual foundation than past research approaches. The random-strategy criterion is defined and tested in a classroom setting with over 660 students. The results presented support the use of this criterion for measuring internal validity.
Consistency in simulation performance over time: an empirical investigation
William Wellington and A J Faria
The present study examines the relationship between simulation team performance over two rounds of play in the same simulation game, but under changed environmental and competitive conditions. The rigorously controlled experiment, involving 555 students on 161 teams, found a medium to strong relationship (correlation of 0.4419, significant at 0.000) between rank order performance in one round of the simulation competition versus rank order performance in the second round of the competition. It was concluded from this finding that simulation performance is relatively stable over time and that good performers will tend to remain good performers and poor performers will tend to remain poor performers.
Games for implementing changes in industrial enterprises
Jens 0 Riis
International competition and the emergence of new technologies put pressure on industrial enterprises to continuously change their mode of operation. In particular, the drastic reduction in delivery time to customers has challenged industrial enterprises to integrate their operation across functional and organizational boundaries. In addition, it has increasingly been recognized as essential to actively involve employees in the change process.
Games of various types have successfully been applied in teaching production management especially for demonstrating the dynamics of production planning and control. Games have also been used in industry as part of a development project to meet the challenges of integration of disciplines and of employee involvement. The paper will discuss the use of different games in relation to three phases of the change process, respectively the initial phase, the design phase, and the implementation phase.
Games provide common experiences as a basis for developing a shared perception of the situation in an industrial enterprise or of a proposed systems design. In this way, a more active participation of employees who will be affected may lead to new ideas and proposals and to a sense of ownership. The use of games supports the view of the design and implementation of production management systems as a learning process.
The WORK FLOW GAME: a new method for developing office work
Eeva Piispanen, Virpi Ruohomaki, Matleena Pankakoski and Veikko Teikari
We have designed the WORK FLOW GAME for participative development of office and administrative work processes. The WORKFLOW GAME is a tailored, action-oriented simulation game, in which the participants simulate their own real work activities. This chapter describes the WORKFLOW GAME method: planning the game, the game session, and debriefing. The WORK FLOW GAME has been successfully applied to ten cases as part of organizational change both in public and private sector organizations.
Increasing customer satisfaction - building a simulation game for the work process of a newspaper
Minna Forsson-Nyberg and Raila Luhtala
This chapter introduces an interactive special simulation game by describing a case study. A simulation can be defined as an imitation of the reality of some system, process, or environment. A simulation game is a participative and interactive exercise where participants simulate the real work processes of their organization. For the organizations, the simulation game is a useful tool for learning and development and it can be used in various phases of development processes.
The phases before, during and after a simulation game are represented by using the case-study done at Sanoma OsakeyhtiØ , which is a large Finnish publishing house. Experiences utilizing simulation games in this and other studies have been very positive: it helps to understand the cause-effects, facilitates seeing things which should be developed, and increases motivation and cooperation between employees and therefore enhances customer satisfaction in the long term.
When building a simulation game one should pay attention to goal setting, high involvement of the personnel right from the beginning and involvement of customers. Well planned realization of the simulation game and quick feedback afterwards confirm best results. The main point to be kept in mind, however, is that the simulation game is just the beginning of the long-term participative development work.
Twenty-five years of flight simulation
John Rolfe
The paper seeks to evaluate the progress that has been made in the design and use of flight simulation in the last quarter of a century, as it is reflected in the activities of the Royal Aeronautical society's Flight Simulation Group. The paper examines factors which have influenced the application of flight simulation in military and commercial aviation and the impact that these may have on future developments.
Role playing: playing a part or a mirror to meaning?
Morry van Ments
This chapter looks at three objections to the use of role play: its lack of contact with reality, the difficulty of getting ordinary people to act, and the knowledge that the observer is watching an artificial situation. It is shown that these objections are invalid. The chapter then describes the uses of role play under four headings: developing an awareness of roles, seeing how situations create roles, rehearsing difficult situations, and providing subjects for others to work with. Finally the author gives some practical advice on the preparation, running and debriefing of role plays and concludes that the technique is not as difficult as many suppose.
The technique of role playing is becoming increasingly used by a wide range of teachers, tutors and industrial trainers. They have found that it can illuminate interaction in a wide variety of areas such as public meetings, committees, family disputes, student counselling and other types of dialogue or group activity. As with any other powerful training technique, however, there are a number of problems which can arise in its use. Many of these problems have been overcome by the more experienced trainer but often their experience is handed on by word of mouth and there is little of practical value which has been written down. The purposes of this chapter are: first, to look at some of the main objections which people raise to the use of role playing; second, to discuss the areas in which role playing is applicable; and finally, to consider a number of ways in which role playing sessions can be conducted and ways in which the major pitfalls can be avoided.
PREDATION: a simulation game about food chains
Claude Bourles
The game PREDATION is designed for use with students following introductory courses in animal behaviour and in ecology. It uses packs of ordinary playing cards and allows groups of up to a hundred students to play together.
EXECUTIVE DECISION - exploring the psychological contract
Hamilton Beazley and John Lobuts A
EXECUTIVE DECISION is a role-play simulation that explores both the changing nature of the psychological contract between employer and employee and its ramifications for management; and the effects of five self-defeating psychological phenomena that managers commonly exhibit when making stressful decisions in small groups.
KALANET - a case study in national information and communication technology policy
Rod Jeffcote
KALANET is a case study exercise based around the fictional island of Kala, situated somewhere in the Pacific rim (see Appendix for full details). It requires students to devise strategies for the implementation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on a national scale to facilitate broad social, political and economic objectives.
There has been much discussion in recent years about the ability of ICTs to effect broader socio-economic and political changes in society. Much of this debate has been polarized into opposing camps - the optimists who think that ICTs will prove to be a liberatory technology, bringing democracy, wealth and well-being, and the pessimists who issue dire warnings about the use of the same technologies for political surveillance, control and economic slavery. Both views are rather deterministic in respect of the relationships between technology and society, whilst more sophisticated writers stress the complexities of technical and social change, and argue that there is nothing inevitable about the way these technologies develop, rather that they are products of particular cultures, reflecting the values and imperatives of these cultures. Technologies can be assimilated, adapted and adopted in different ways, and the most benign technological artefact could be, with a little perverse ingenuity, used for devious ends. The convergence of powerful and ubiquitous modem information and communication technologies on which we increasingly depend, are particularly suited to adaptation in an infinite variety of ways.
There are many case studies that deal with the implementation of ICTs at the macro level of the individual office, factory or company (Legge, 1991 a), but few that deal with broader social, political and economic issues. This exercise should provide a framework which allows students to explore these wider issues and in the process gain a clearer understanding of the problems and possibilities which these powerful technologies might harbour
EMAGE: designing for an instructive chaos
Janneke van Mens-Verhulst
EMAGE is based on a system -theoretical model of women's mental health care. It is designed for research and educational purposes. This article shows the non-linear developments in an originally orderly design process, and reflects on the 'chaotic' qualities of learning environments. The conclusion is that our (mainly linear) models for learning processes and learning environments should be revised and that any such revision may perhaps further the research function of simulation games.
Communicating problem understanding through computer-based simulation models
Ray J Paul, Robert D Macredie and Peter J Thomas
This paper looks at computer-based simulations and how they can be used to help people formulate, understand and communicate problems. It considers complex problems where there may be many parties, or stakeholders, with different views of the problem and the type of solution they would like. These simulations can act as dynamic intermediaries which facilitate understanding of stakeholders. It explicitly looks at the communication of mental models through computer-based simulations. This helps frame the important aspects of computer based simulations from the perspective of problem understanding and communication, including the constraints such simulations can impose. ]be paper builds on these issues to describe the use and theoretical foundations of computer-based tools for developing simulations.
Development of a project simulator
Simon Palmer
This paper discusses the development of UPSTART (Using Project Simulation to Arouse Real Teamwork), a computer-based project simulator. Using the construction process as a basis for the model, the focus is initially on the complex nature of project-based industries and how simulation could be used to improve project delivery by highlighting the project objectives. The main participants are then introduced along with the key management issues acknowledged for project success. The types of problem and constraints encountered on projects are discussed and classified. These issues are set within a time related framework. A graphical overview of the simulation is presented, illustrating the main operational elements of the system including primary and secondary information flows. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the further work needed to implement the simulation on a commercial basis.
Computerizing a marketing simulation
Jim Freeman
Business games/simulations offer a valuable and entertaining input to many different types of in-house management event. An important property of games often exploited in these situations is their ability to foster a collective 'team consciousness' amongst participants.
The chapter summarizes recent experience of computerizing a 'team-building' marketing exercise for a large agrochemical company
A game for all reasons
Robert Edwards
The author devised a game to demonstrate the complexity of information flow in the management of manufacturing in a factory. The game worked well for its intended audience - manufacturing engineers and information systems experts. It was also found to be useful and successful for students of public administration, because of its general applicability to situations where time-constrained decisions, based on rapidly changing information, have to be made. The chapter describes the game and its background, and presents ideas for adapting and extending it to different situations.
Computerized simulation design: OOP or oops
Jeremy J S B Hall
This chapter argues that the cost and the risk inherent in the design of computerized simulations can be reduced by using object-orientated programming (001`) methodology. It describes object-orientated methodology, how it differs from conventional programming and how it is particularly suited for developing simulations. The benefits of the methodology, in increasing software reliability and reducing development, are illustrated by describing the development time, and are illustrated by describing the development of a 'family' of simulations - the 'CHALLENGE Series'. Based on an analysis of the literature, the general usage of object orientated programming is questioned and it is concluded that, despite the benefits, object orientated design is not advocated in the literature. Finally, the general benefits of object orientation are summarized and it is suggested that this methodology is particularly suited for simulation development.
Floods in Bangladesh - caused by nature or people?
Avril M C Maddrell
The FLOODS IN BANGLADESH - CAUSED BY NATURE OR PEOPLE? role play investigates the causes and consequences of the 1988 Bangladesh floods. The roles include: Mrs Sharman (Minister for Flood Recovery Programme, Bangladesh government); Dr Pretty (researcher at the International Institute for the Environment and Development); the Ahmed Family (bereaved family made homeless and unemployed by the flood in Dacca); Ms Bladen (Oxford Forestry Research Centre); Mr Amin (Minister for Exports, Indian government); and the Aziz family (Nepalese subsistence farmers). Each of the characters has a different perspective on the causes of the floods and their possible prevention in the future, helping pupils to appreciate the complexities of cause and effect and the varying costs and benefits of prevention strategies for different people in different places, as well as the role of international cooperation in finding solutions to cross-boundary environmental problems.
Simulation in professional training
Julian Martin and Richard Dunne
In the UK there is currently a fashion for emphasizing the centrality in training of personal or transferable skills (Jessup, 1990). This emphasis is also entering higher education (CIBE, 1987; Slee, 1989) so that graduates are increasingly expected to exhibit abilities that go beyond the previously accepted outcomes of a first degree (Green, 1990; QHE, 1993; 1994). There is a demand, made by employers, for 'personal skills', especially with respect to the ability to communicate, with the Quality in Higher Education project reporting dissatisfaction with graduates' ability to express themselves, make oral presentations and write reports or business letters, and suggesting that 'higher education has a responsibility for ensuring that students graduate with competences that enable them to work effectively in modem organizations' (QHE, 1994). There is also an imperative for the development of personal skills to respond to the needs of the wider range of entrants to higher education as a result of the government's policy of making degree courses more accessible, although there is some reported reluctance among academics in the traditional universities to change their established mode (Allen, 199 1; Gubbay, 1994). Even so, there remains a considerable enthusiasm for developing ways of working that in some way recognize, encourage and develop workplace skills. It is not surprising that the development of 'workplace skills' in the course of academic learning relies heavily on simulations and games.
Design a game in 90 minutes
Sally Brown and Phil Race
Games can be used in education and training in all kinds of contexts. One of the barriers to using them is that people cannot often find one that exactly fits their purposes, and they are unsure how to go about designing one for themselves. They lack the confidence to launch out into development for the first time or feel that they would like some help to create and pilot a purpose-built game. Often they are unaware of the range of types of games available or they are not sure which kinds are best for particular circumstances.
The workshop this chapter describes aimed to provide participants with the chance to look at some basic aspects of game design, with the intention that they could experiment with a number of types of game within the session and develop frameworks for activities that could be used in their own working practices. In recognition that several heads are better than one, a group activity format was used and this meant that we could draw upon the diverse experiences of those attending.
Workshops that work
Phil Race
This is a report of an interactive workshop session which opened the 1995 SAGSET Conference in Birmingham, UK. It was a workshop about the design of workshops, and links between design and successful learning by participants. The objectives of the workshop are presented, and the products of a series of tasks given to the participants are transcribed and discussed.
How to eat an elephant
Sally Brown
This article details a creative methodology that can be used in a variety of contexts to enable participants to tackle a large task. Using the metaphor 'How to eat an elephant', it suggests ways in which large projects can be broken down into smaller ones, using a method that can be transferred to other contexts. A lighthearted approach is used which has proved successful in a variety of workshops.
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