EVOLUTION AND FLEXIBILITY IN BUSINESS GAMING Simulations, Games and Experiential Learning Techniques:, Volume 1, 1974 311 EVOLUTION AND FLEXIBILITY IN BUSINESS GAMING Richard F. Barton, Texas Tech University Two of the many aspects of business gaming brought out by this conference are: 1. The evolution of business gaming 2. The state of the art of flexibility in business games EVOLUTION OF BUSINESS GAMING From its early formulations and organized support in the 1950’s and early 60’2, business gaming appears to have evolved to professional stature for game designers and to a hard commercial market for business game materials. Business games were originally developed to provide additional learning experiences for their players. Once a student had learned some basics of business, he could then put them into action as a business game player. This mode of game use prevailed for more than a decade. Ideal game players were students who had mastered all that texts and lectures offered on the subject of the game. More recently, business games are finding other uses. One of these is introduction to a business function or to the entire business curriculum. Here the student is not expected to be an expert player, or even to have had any exposure to what the game might be about. He is thrown into what becomes for him confusion and frustration, as some speakers at this conference reported. Game administrators attempt to alleviate this by initially restricting play to one or a few decision variables, adding complexity step by step while giving pertinent instruction. Here we see business games used as the organizing force around which learning occurs--no longer the mere capstone, integration, or polishing of prior subjects. Player’s ask questions about how to play and must seek answers. To help provide the answers, we saw at this conference the development of mini-courses and cassette teaching technology to teach players the substantive material the games uses. At first business games supplemented courses, now courses supplement games. Hopefully, both will evolve into a healthy circular relationship. FLEXIBILITY IN BUSINESS GAMING Flexibility is a virtue of anything that must be developed in advance of use. Flexibility is of course a virtue in business gaming. At this conference, four ways of achieving flexibility were brought out: 1. Built into the simulation model so parameters become part of the data for the computer model. With built-in flexibility, Simulations, Games and Experiential Learning Techniques:, Volume 1, 1974 312 the game administrator can become a creative gamer without changing the computer program 2. Generalization of what the simulation is about. This is the “widget” trick for manufacturing. For government agencies, an abstract unit of service has been used. The widget or abstract unit can then represent anything desired. 3. Player creativity. This allows expansion of what is usually a numbers game to include nuances of human behavior and details of past learning. This behavior should be tied to the game model some way (in one case with grades entering the computer model). 4. Simulations made up of many small pieces that can be included or excluded as desired. Table of Contents Volume 1, 1974 Long Live Your Business Game Marketing In Action In Collegiate Education How to Create Your Own Business Game with Imaginit The Design, Conduct and Evaluation of a Computerized Management Game as a Form of Experiential Learning Experiential Learning: Conceptualization and Definition The Teaching Potential of a Structured Experience The Lecture versus the Game Tracking the Elective: Student-Goal Oriented Education The Use of Internal and External Assignments with a Marketing Simulation Game Constructing Mini-Courses to Supplement Business Simulations A Video-Tape/Computer Learning Experience A Collective Bargaining Negotiation Simulation: Settle or Strike Simulation in Personnel Administration Introduction to Pablum: A public Administration Game Enrichment of a Multi-Functional Game through Dynamic Overlays and Intensive Decision Analysis An Orientation to the Oklahoma Farm Management Game A Description of INTSTRAT: A Game of Investment Strategy DØG: A Decision Mathematics Game The Use of Production Scheduling Simulation in a Production Planning and Control Course Interactive Gaming: A Production Example Marketing Interaction: A Marketing Management Game ADMAG I: An Advertising Management Game Meeting the Decline in College Enrollments Using the Money Game in the Classroom Training Salesmen with The Sales Management Game Smith Management Game (BUSOP) The Business Game: A New Approach to Managerial Accounting Administration: The Key to a Successful Gaming Experience Simulation: A Frustration, A ‘Game’, or a Meaningful Experience Using Complex Simulations in Policy Courses in Institutions with Limited Resources Flexibility in Simulation Design for Continual Student Motivation A Terminal Keyboard Experience in Executive Gaming Application of Theory and of Computerized Grading in Management Simulation The Executive Education Experience Using the Toronto Management Game Experiences with the Harvard Management Game Managing the Dynamic Small Business Via Simulation The Use of Business Game and a Simulated Stock Exchange in a Business Policy Course Managerial Strategy and Systems - An integrative M.B.A. Course SIMQ, A Business Simulation Game for Decision Science Students: Towards a Total Gaming and Teaching Package The Use of Simulation in a Financial Planning Course Simulation as a Supplementary Learning Experience in Marketing Principles Intercollegiate Business Gaming: The State of the Art Intercollegiate Business Gaming from a Participant's Viewpoint Correlates of Satisfaction, Learning and Success in Business Gaming A Student' s View of Leadership Training with a Two-Level Hierarchy, Two Course Simulation Autocratic versus Democratic Decision Making: The Executive Game as an Experiment Identifying Potential Game Participants Assessment Centers Selection Based on Simulation Business Games in the Process of Management Training in Israel and the United States Evolution and Flexibility in Business Gaming Quantitative Applications of Games Growing Emphasis on Implementation Debits and Credits: First National ABSEL Conference