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Planning as Gaming or Gaming as Planning. Murray Turoff, Michael Chumer Starr Roxanne Hiltz Information Systems Department. Spectrum of Planning competitive/military/nature. Player Assumptions*. *Problem: Nature seems to be increasing her resources. Nature of Defense Plan or Offense Threat.
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Planning as GamingorGaming as Planning Murray Turoff, Michael Chumer Starr Roxanne Hiltz Information Systems Department (C) Murray Turoff 2006
Spectrum of Planning competitive/military/nature (C) Murray Turoff 2006
Player Assumptions* *Problem: Nature seems to be increasing her resources (C) Murray Turoff 2006
Nature of Defense Plan or Offense Threat • Scenario is a collection of events • Defense only events is a plan • Offense only events is a threat • A combination is an interaction scenario • Events • Require human roles, equipment, and resources • Triggered by and trigger other events • Have objectives and outcome options • Roles and Equipment are constrained by allocation • Current capability determined and desired capability developed (C) Murray Turoff 2006
Objectives of the Game • Improve EP plans for unique events • Improve threat scenario development • Stimulate creativity for professionals • Create Situational Awareness • Stimulate mental rehearsal (cognitive maps) • Encourage Critical and reflective thinking • Refine resource and Information System Requirements • Train novices (C) Murray Turoff 2006
Approach to Design of Game • Hegelian Inquiry Process • Opposing World Views (Plan and counter plan) • Synergistic combinations • Delphi Aspects • Iteration for improvement • Pennames • Defense Conservative & Offense Conservative • Set up resource constraints • Middle ground between optimistic and pessimistic (C) Murray Turoff 2006
Totally Asynchronous Game • Uses an group communication system such as WebBoard/Webct/Moodle • Initial Design avoids any special software additions • Allows individual to participate at any time of the day or night from any location • Everyone can have a pen name • Continuous 3-5 hours a week for as long as one wants (C) Murray Turoff 2006
Generality of the Game • A threat can be: • A terrorist action • A natural disaster • A Competitive company threat • etc • Use of competitive rounds to stir creativity • Continuous to allow reflective thinking • Collaboration of teams dealing with a similar problem to help good ideas to emerge in a large scale consensus • Threat team can be designing the properties and details of a competitive product, a flood, or an earthquake (C) Murray Turoff 2006
Current Findings • WebBoard alone is insufficient based upon two field trials (threaded discussions not content rich) • Collaborative writing that combines associative and hierarchical “structures” i.e. some structure to the plan creation process • Need is to have a collaborative data base (currently a thesis topic) (C) Murray Turoff 2006
Creative Collaboration • Being able to easily build, fit together and tailor components in what is almost a virtual Lego system • It is the process of evolving alternatives and allowing creativity among the group. • Creating an ongoing library of pieces creates a data base that allows an organizational memory and new creations made easier for many teams to contribute ideas • Collaborative knowledge building (C) Murray Turoff 2006
Challenge for Emergency Planning • The total team does not exist until the emergency • There is no major physical system nor team that exists before • No way to build an HRO (High Reliability Organization), except by • Introduction of a continuous virtual system such as the “game” • The asynchronous team and the knowledge building process creates the HRO conditions (C) Murray Turoff 2006
Emergency ManagementProblems for becoming an HRO • Planning often done by people that will not be part of the real response team • Plans often inadequate or unrealistic • Exceptions not considered • Knowledge is not accumulate and maintained over long periods • It is time for Emergency Management to become a discipline (C) Murray Turoff 2006