Experiential Games

["Sue E. Tullar"]

I have a client that has requested facilitation of a Systems Thinking game
to build initial awareness for their Operations Steering Committee. They
have heard about both The Beer Game and Friday Night at the ER. Ive not
experienced Friday Night at the ER. Any suggestions as to when to use one
versus the other?

Sue Tullar
Consultant, Pareo, Inc.
setullar@pareoinc.com

["steve nyland"]

Sue,
If they dont meet your needs I recommend the series of Systems Thinking
Playbooks by Linda Booth Sweeney for other games. You can find them at
http://www.pegasuscom.com.
Have fun!
Steve Nyland


From: "steve nyland" <nylands@cts.com>

["John W. Rodat"]

Dear Ms. Tullar:

We have used the Beer Game successfully with several health care and human
services audiences. The presentation and surrounding workshop takes special
care.

Both the primary advantage and disadvantage of the Beer Game is the strong
tendency of professionals in both fields to believe themselves to be
"different."

The disadvange: because they believe their fields to be different, say from
manufacturing, they sometimes resist, especially at the beginning of an
exercise because they dont believe it has any relevance to them.

The advantage: When they get over the "exceptionalism" hurdle they are often
more open to looking outside their immediate realm for new ideas and
perspectives.

The same good news/bad news problem emerged when Don Berwick and others
first attempted to introduce industrial quality improvement methods to
health care. Many resisted (some still do). Those who adapted these methods
to their own realms have made substantial strides.

You may wish to start with "Friday Night at the ER." This might be an easier
introduction. I havent seen it myself, but have seen the case from which it
emerged which made sense and heard good things about the game. Of course,
there will be some in health care who will argue that ERs are to different
from what they do.

If you choose to go with the Beer Game, there are ways in which to adapt
your presentation to make it easier for health care folks to embrace. If you
wish, give me a call or send an e-mail and we can discuss those offline.

John W. Rodat
President, Signalhealth, LLC
Information Based Health Care Strategies
jwr@signalhealth.com
(518) 439-5743

[Chris Soderquist]

Sue,

It really depends on the goal for the group. There are many Systems
Thinking games out there. Here are a few that I know of (and I admit
that its not an exhaustive list):

"The Beer Game" is a great introduction to Systems Thinking
principles, especially teaching how systems generate behavior, how
local decisions impact everyone on the system, and how time delays
(pipeline delays) create complexity for managing information. (It
can be run in 4--or more--hours.)

"Friday night at the ER" gives a good understanding of the dynamics
emergency rooms face. It shows how a Systems Thinking perspective
can help different parts of the system move from a view of random
events (that must be reacted to) to patterns of behavior (that can
changed through structural modification). (4 - 8 hours)

"Fishbanks, Ltd." is a game that environmentalists use to help
"apparent" competitors in a system of limited resources move toward a
shared vision of collaboration. (4 hours plus)

"The Balanced Scorecard" (a learning environment from Harvard
Business School Publishing) helps develop strategic thinking skills.
Its emphasis is on how traditional performance measures focus on only
one aspect of a system and how organizations/communities are better
off thinking about a range of measures. And that the range of
measures should be modified over time, as conditions and strategies
change. Its a great game for teaching how the emphasis of a
strategy (where to focus and how much resources to apply) changes as
the system evolves. (1 day)

"The Manufacturing Game" is a great game to help players in a system
(Finance, Manufacturing, and Maintenance) move from sub-optimal
strategies to a larger system-wide focus. Players learn to move from
mild (or aggressive) internal competition to cooperation and
collaboration. They also learn how to shift from band-aids and
fixing symptoms to a system of prevention--moving toward
zero-defects. (1 day to facilitate; 1 day of applying lessons to the
organization.)

And there are a few other games out there that focus on customer
service (and customer retention), marketing strategies,
entrepreneurship, and other concepts. And I know of a few games that
could be modified to help focus on community dynamics.

So, after such an exhaustive list, here are my recommendations--and
they all depend on what the client wants and needs.

If the goal is to teach basic Systems Thinking principles, Id
suggest the Beer Game because its quick and simple to understand. .

If the goal is to learn collaboration skills, then either Fishbanks
or The Manufacturing Game would work. If you want to develop
specific strategies on moving toward a TQM operation, the extra time
involved in the Manufacturing Game might be worth it.

If the goal is to learn how Systems Thinking can be applied to a
medical situation, Friday Nigh is a good game.

Finally, if its to learn a more systemic approach to developing
strategy, then I think The Balanced Scorecard is the best game.

I hope this is helpful. Let me know if I might be of further assistance.

Take care,

Chris

********

Chris Soderquist
Pontifex Consulting
11 Sargent Street
Hanover, NH 03755
email: Chris.Soderquist@pontifexconsulting.com
url: http://www.pontifexconsulting.com

["Sue E. Tullar"]

Chris,

Thanks for taking so much time to reply. Youve provided excellent
information! Im intrigued by "The Balanced Scorecard"--not necessarily for
this situation, but for others. Will check out the Harvard Business School
website to see if I can find information.

Since I have only 2 hours for the game itself--any additional suggestions?
(I had originally planned on using The Beer Game because when I went to
Systems Thinking Training thats what was used and it was done in a little
over 2 hours--including an intro and a debrief.

Heres the schedule thats been proposed: I am giving a 1/2 hour
introduction of the high-level concepts the week before, with the 2 hour
session for the game the following week, and then two additional 2 hour
sessions to present process and tools for systems thinking. (The time
allotted is during the normally scheduled weekly Operations Steering
Committee meetings.)

The goal is to introduce systems thinking and develop an awareness of the
need to apply systems thinking as this Operations Steering Committee deals
with issues that cross functional boundaries - especially related to
implementation of change.


John Rodat,

Thanks for your reply. Id be very grateful for your ideas on how to adapt
the Beer Game presentation to make it easier for health care folks to
embrace.

The goal is to develop an awareness of, and the need to apply, systems
thinking as this Operations Steering Committee deals with issues that cross
functional boundaries - especially related to implementation of change.

Thank you for your help!

Sue Tullar
From: "Sue E. Tullar" <setullar@pareoinc.com>

["Andrew Jones"]

Sue Tullar asked about experiential games to introduce systems thinking.

When we dont have much time, we use a game that Linda Booth Sweeney and
Dennis Meadows call "Warped Juggle." It is in their Systems Thinking
Playbook, Vol 1. Takes about 15-30 minutes with debrief.

Short version: Eight to twenty people stand in a circle and toss a ball to
one another until everyone has caught the ball once. The goal is then to
repeat the same tossing order in as little time as possible over several
rounds. The only rules are that the ball has to get to everyone and get to
them in the same order as was set up in the first round. (Read Sweeneys
and Meadows instructions if you actually want to run it...)

Typically, a group is able to shave 10-20% off their time by throwing the
ball faster (although sometimes they drop the ball and times go UP). But
they dont reduce the time significantly until they figure out that they
dont HAVE to stay in the same spots in the circle. They can rearrange
themselves into their passing order and just hand the ball to one another.
The time is now down 70% or so. Eventually they figure out that they can
all just touch the ball in order and the time is down 95%.

We use it to illustrate two principles:
1. Leverage in Affecting Systemic Structure. Sometimes doing what youve
always done but doing it faster leads to only marginal or incremental
improvement, but working to change the system at the level of its structure
can lead to "breakthrough" improvement. Here, rearranging the order of
people in the circle is the analog to the SD concept of "changing the
structure of the system."
2. Importance of Addressing Mind-sets. In order to take such higher
leverage action, sometimes we need to question fundamental mindsets (deeply
held beliefs and assumptions). Here, people typically follow a rule that
doesnt really exist -- i.e., "we have to stay in the same spots in this
circle." Change the mindset and acting on the insight about systemic
structure becomes possible.

The game is quick and low-tech. Over 20-30 runs over the past few years, it
reliably builds energy in the group. And unlike most classic examples and
games in our field, it draws its lessons from the teams success, not its
failure.

Drew Jones
Sustainability Institute
apjones@alum.mit.edu

[Bill Harris]

Niall Palfreyman wrote:
>
> I would be interested in general to hear from people with experience in
> running the Beer Game the kinds of issues which typically arise, and the
> kinds of points made in the debriefing.

Niall,

Ive observed people going away with a feeling of incompetence that they
didnt relate to their normal lives. Ive led experienced manufacturing
people through the game. They knew what was coming (_lots_ of beer),
but they felt powerless to do anything about it. The fact that they
were good at manufacturing (they were) led them, I think, to conclude
that this was a bit of a setup and that the systems ideas underlying the
game werent things they needed to understand, since they were good at
what they did.

I tried to get around that by modifying the Beer Game process. After
the explanations and the game and the video and their inevitable
complaints that the game was rigged and that they would never design
information feedback that poorly, I/we (I had a co-facilitator) gave
them free rein to design their own game. The only constraint was that
they had to use the same boards, but they could change the rules. They
spent an hour or so devising information feedbacks and production rules,
and then we started the game over. Lo and behold, they got _worse_
results!

At that point, I was able to make progress by suggesting that these were
indeed complex problems, and the Beer Game was far simpler than real
life. I was able to open up the discussion to the utility of trying out
proposed processes by some sort of simulation, and I demonstrated a
computerized simulation of the Beer Game to show how that could be much
faster than these manual, board game simulations.

Im not sure Ill ever run the straight Beer Game again without this
add-on.

Regards,

Bill
From: Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com>
--
Bill Harris 3217 102nd Place SE
Facilitated Systems Everett, WA 98208 USA
http://facilitatedsystems.com/ phone: +1 425 337-5541

[Niall Palfreyman]

I would be interested in general to hear from people with experience in
running the Beer Game the kinds of issues which typically arise, and the
kinds of points made in the debriefing.

Niall Palfreyman.
n:Palfreyman;Niall
tel;work:+49-8161-714814
x-mozilla-html:FALSE
org:Weihenstephan University of Applied Sciences;Bioinformatics
adr:;;Am Hofgarten 10;Freising;;85350;Germany
version:2.1
email;internet:Niall.Palfreyman@fh-weihenstephan.de
title:Dean of Academic Studies
fn:Prof. Dr. Niall Palfreyman
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