A Business Wargame is a structured, disciplined and facilitated process designed to make the development and execution of a plan more effective by helping an organization to understand a situation much better than it could through other approaches

This process involves assigning several teams, usually three to eight, to represent different "players" in the situation. Depending on the purposes and scope of the wargame, these teams might play the roles of the company, each of several different competitors, a market or a key segment in it, a specific customer, a regulatory body, or some other organization that could affect the situation in real life. All “players” are employees of the client company – except when otherwise requested by the client.

A typical Business Wargame involves several "rounds," usually three to five, each representing a different time period, month, quarter or year. This helps to ensure that a “competitor team” cannot win the game by taking short-term actions to win a single round that would in real life cause medium to long-term defeat in real life.

During each round, teams meet independently in a workshop session to complete a series of tasks that require them, for example:

• To assess the situation from the perspective of the client (or other player) it represents during the wargame;
• To anticipate the moves of other players;
• To develop its own strategy;
• To invest limited resources in different elements of its strategy.

 In some cases, additional rounds are incorporated into the wargame to allow it to deal with different scenarios or combinations of "uncontrollable" events or trends.

Between rounds, an Umpire Team assesses the moves of each player in the context of what the other players have done, and determines what the outcome would probably be in real-life had the market and each competitor acted as the teams in the wargame did.

At the conclusion of a round, each team presents an overview of its discussions to the plenary group, to share the insights it developed during its work.

At the conclusion of the wargame, facilitators lead a group discussion to capture all the lessons learned throughout it. Depending again on the purposes and scope of a particular wargame, it is likely to generate a mix of both hard and soft deliverables.

Typical deliverables

Hard deliverables can be:

Focuses on current activities and near-term plans, which are identifiable in the marketplace. This type of CI allows organisation to fine-tune marketing efforts, increase focused field-force support, and respond faster to arising issues in the marketplace

Soft deliverables can be:  

Allows the organisation to identify opportunities and threats, arising from technical and scientific change. This part of CI supports technological strategies, as well as research and development.


How might a Business Wargame help?
 
Here are some of the ways in which a Business Wargame might be used:

• Before initiating strategic planning to help the company's executives to anticipate how the new or updated strategy
  should deal with significant changes that will or might occur in its environment;
• After a preliminary strategy has been developed to help test its robustness in the face of a mix of competitive actions,
  market developments or other changes in other elements of the company's environment;
• To develop and test operational level plans, for example, those involving proposed moves into new markets, the
  introduction of new products or services, proposed acquisitions or reorganizations;
• To develop and evaluate plans for key accounts or major opportunities;
• To support the development of negotiation strategies with suppliers, unions, potential acquisitions or strategic partners;
• To serve as a way of introducing new executives or managers to the company's business or to support executive
  development programs.
   

The GCC Business Center can assist your company with the design and facilitation of Business Wargames. For further information, please contact us on wargaming@gcc-consulting.com or call + 971 4 321 8873

Our Business Wargaming Services

What is a Business Wargame

The Objectives of Business Wargaming

Areas of Application for Business Wargaming

The Business Wargame Teams

A Typical Business Wargame Format

Business Wargaming Brochure

Interview with Leila Camilla Gaaserud on “The Business Breakfast"(Monday 18th of February 2008)

Jay Kurtz (KappaWest) Webinar on Business Wargaming