Gamification of strategic thinking: A COTS boardgame for learning scrum, strategy development and strategy implementation

Publikationstyp
Conference Paper
Date Issued
2021-09
Sprache
English
Author(s)
Kodalle, Thorsten  
Schmidt, Mark  orcid-logo
Thomas, W.  
Metz, Maren  
Institut
Controlling und Simulation W-1  
TORE-URI
http://hdl.handle.net/11420/11289
Volume
2021-September
Start Page
419
End Page
427
Citation
European Conference on Games-based Learning (2021)
Contribution to Conference
European Conference on Games-based Learning 2021  
Publisher DOI
10.34190/GBL.21.127
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85120714880
The Bundeswehr Command and Staff College (BCSC) facilitated the Gamification of Strategic Thinking seminar from 11. Nov 2020 - 24. March 2021 with students from the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) and Staff Officers from the Bundeswehr Office for Defence Planning. This paper describes the seminar from construction to end, the sophisticated online facilitation, and the results and evaluation. Thereby, it contributes to discussing how to implement commercial of the shelf (COTS) conflict simulations (wargames) to education, particularly for political science and management. The seminar used the COTS board game 'Scythe' as the strategy development and strategy implementation environment. Seminar goals were applying management tools like SWOT-Analysis, Kanban Board, and the OODA-Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) to strategy development and strategy implementation in a competitive environment characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). Six Teams consisting of five players each competed at the end of the seminar for three days, had to use the decision-making process several times, and faced the consequences of past decisions. Furthermore, four team members had to Red-Team other competitors and learned how to implement this (business) Wargaming technique into the decision-making cycle. Finally, all participants had to develop a strategy, either their own or their adversary's strategy. The seminar was conducted in eight sprints, following the Scrum framework for agile project management in an agile education approach. Students had to practice an agile mindset, followed the scrum events Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective, taking care of the Project Backlog, honouring the Scrum Values courage, focus, commitment, respect, and openness. The lead author planned the seminar as a distributed learning experience with an on-premises final. However, due to COVID-19, the TUHH and the BCSC cancelled the on-premises final. As a result, the lead author had to facilitate the complete seminar entirely distributed using various web 2.0 collaboration tools like Slack, Trello, Zoom and, of course, WhatsApp. The seminar was evaluated regarding the Learning Objective-Game Design framework and the Agile Education approach. This paper provides a new perspective on combining agile education, using a Scrum framework as the organisational overlay over the curriculum, and explicit gamification, using a COTS wargame. It is an update to the ECGBL 2020's paper. In comparison to serious games, explicit gamification is supposed to provide the element of fun by design.
Subjects
Agile education
Game-based learning
Gamification
Scrum
Strategy
Wargaming