Planning as Gaming
or
Gaming as Planning
Murray Turoff, Michael Chumer
Starr Roxanne Hiltz
Information Systems Department
(C) Murray Turoff 2006
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Spectrum of Planning
competitive/military/nature
Offense Defense
Planning (Hegelian
approach)
Human Offense
Computer Offense
Human Defense
Plan Improvement
by experts
(Non-zero sum
competitive game)
Training for
learners
Computer Defense
Stress testing of
plan details by
experts
Simulation for sensitivity
and risk assessment
based upon probabilistic
factors
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Player Assumptions*
Assumptions
Offense
Pessimistic
Offense Optimistic
Defense
Pessimistic
Stupid for both
Murphy’s Law
Peace is best!!!
Safe and costly for
defense
Stupid for offense
Defense
Optimistic
Safe and costly for
offense
Stupid for defense
Armaments spiral
Realism through
resource
constraints
*Problem: Nature seems to be increasing her resources
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Planning Game Information Flow
Defense
Leak
Offense
Leak
Threat
Intelligence
Team
Defense
Intelligence
Team
Public
Defense
Plan
Assessment
Threat
Team
Assessment
Resource
Requests
Confidential
Defense
Plan
Threat
Scenario
Resource
Decisions
Defense
Team
Evaluation
Group
Resource
Decisions
Leaks
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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)
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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
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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
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Emergency Management
Problems 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
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