If you had the opportunity to probe the future, make strategic choices, and view their consequences before making expensive and irretrievable decisions, wouldn't you take advantage of it? Of course you would. And in a world of asymmetrical conflict, security threats, intense global competition, and economic uncertainty, there is an even higher premium on road-testing plans and strategies--whether they're spearheaded by government organizations, transnational corporations, or emerging megacommunities. Wargaming for Leaders provides a methodology to get at the issues that one leader, no matter how visionary, cannot grasp on his or her own. How? By bringing together the real experts on the topic at hand to wage “cognitive warfare.” Through tapping the collective wisdom surrounding an issue, experts can experience the future in a risk-free environment and find answers to questions that had not been on their radar--often with unexpected and startling results. With examples from the fields of military, corporate, and public policy, three wargaming developers from Booz Allen Hamilton deliver compelling insights on this problem-solving method, including fascinating details on how A large equipment manufacturer determined whether making a merger was strategically right for its business growth, as well as which technology investments it needed to drop A four-star U.S. general tested his war plan for Iraq and uncovered specific fixes that might have prevented a prolonged conflict An increasingly clogged air-traffic system faced a security-versus-convenience issue determined whether military airspace could be used during peak demand periods Wargaming allows organizations of every type and every size to organize information, plot out scenarios, and tap into the collective expertise of participants. The results allow everyone to identify and tackle obstacles, solve problems, and find new ways to innovate and further performance goals. Get ready for the battle of your organizational life--and prepare to reap the spoils of victory.

The Craft of Wargaming is designed to support supervisors, planners, and analysts who use wargames to support their organizations' missions. The authors focus on providing analysts and planners with a clear methodology that allows them to initiate, design, develop, conduct, and analyze wargames. Built around the analytic wargaming construct, organizations or individuals can easily adapt this methodology to construct educational and experiential wargames. The book breaks the wargame creation process into five distinct phases: Initiate, Design, Develop, Conduct, and Analyze. For each phase, the authors identify key tasks a wargaming team must address to have a reasonable chance at designing, developing, conducting, and analyzing a successful wargame. While these five stages are critical to the process of constructing any wargame, it should be understood that the craft of wargaming is learned through active participation, not by reading or watching. This craft must be practiced as part of the learning process, and the included practical exercises provide an opportunity to experience the construction of an analytical wargame. The authors also discuss critical supervisory tasks that are essential to manage the wargaming team's efforts. While the creators are focused on the design and development of the game itself, supervisors must set conditions for the wargame to be a success (best practices) and beware of the pitfalls that may set the wargame up to fail (worst practices). The book demonstrates using the analytical wargaming framework to create relevant and useful planning wargames. It also reinforces using the analytical wargaming framework for seminar wargames that, without rigor, are useless. The book demonstrates the benefits of using the analytical wargaming process to design educational and experiential games.

Understanding the potential synergies between computer simulation and wargaming Based on the insights of experts in both domains, Simulation and Wargaming comprehensively explores the intersection between computer simulation and wargaming. This book shows how the practice of wargaming can be augmented and provide more detail-oriented insights using computer simulation, particularly as the complexity of military operations and the need for computational decision aids increases. The distinguished authors have hit upon two practical areas that have tremendous applications to share with one another but do not seem to be aware of that fact. The book includes insights into: The application of the data-driven speed inherent to computer simulation to wargames The application of the insight and analysis gained from wargames to computer simulation The areas of concern raised by the combination of these two disparate yet related fields New research and application opportunities emerging from the intersection Addressing professionals in the wargaming, modeling, and simulation industries, as well as decision makers and organizational leaders involved with wargaming and simulation, Simulation and Wargaming offers a multifaceted and insightful read and provides the foundation for future interdisciplinary progress in both domains.

This book is a comprehensive study on analog historical simulation games, exploring both their theoretical concepts and practical solutions. It considers the various ways used by simulation games to depict the different dynamics of historical events and analyzes how commercial analog miniature and board wargames can become valuable tools for historical research and provide a more modern and captivating interpretation of past events. The nature of “simulation” is discussed, exposing its differences with other forms of ludic activity, both analog and digital, as well as intellectual speculation. Many of the most common game mechanics are analyzed in depth and in their practical use, to answer whether “reconstructive” simulations dedicated to historical episodes can provide valuable, reliable and useful insights for researchers. It critically examines the challenges presented to game designers that look to produce an accurate (even if not necessarily complex) simulation of historical events. The book will be of great interest to those curious about the potential applications of such a powerful research and experimental tool for historical, sociologic and anthropologic research, as well as wargaming and board gaming enthusiasts looking to gain a deeper understanding of the inner workings of historical simulations.

Behavioral strategy has evolved as a field the last decades both intellectually and institutionally. This volume examines the relatively new field of behavioral strategy and its contribution to strategic management, with papers reflecting the past and present of behavioral strategy as a field, as well as possible avenues for future developments.

This book is premised on the assumption that games and simulations provide welcome alternatives and supplements to traditional lectures and class discussions—especially in political science classrooms, where real-world circumstances provide ideal applications of theory and policy prescriptions. Implementing such an active learning program, however, is sometimes daunting to overburdened professors and teaching assistants. This book addresses the challenges of using games and simulations in the political science classroom, both online and in person. Each chapter offers a game or simulation that politics teachers can use to teach course concepts and explains ways to execute it effectively. In addition, the authors in this volume make a proactive case for games and simulations. Each chapter offers research to evaluate the effectiveness of the activity and pedagogical design best practices. Thus, the book not only serves as a game design resource, but also offers demonstrable support for using games and simulations in the political science classroom. Aimed at teachers at all levels, from high school through college, the book may be especially appealing to graduate students entering teaching for the first time and open to new teaching and learning approaches.