QUERY Running beer game in 1.5 hours

This forum contains all archives from the SD Mailing list (go to http://www.systemdynamics.org/forum/ for more information). This is here as a read-only resource, please post any SD related questions to the SD Discussion forum.
Locked
Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@we
Member
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Running beer game in 1.5 hours

Post by Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@we »

Posted by Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@web.de>

Hello together,

I have been asked to conduct several Beer Game sessions in order to
show the shortcomings of of disrupted supply chain (bullwip effect,
lack of trust, communication shortcoming, time delays, etc.).

The challenge is to do the workshop (including debriefing) with the
traditional Beer Game in about 1.5hrs.

What are your ideas, hints of how to achieve the goal?

Thanks a lot for your thoughts (that are probably useful for others
as well).

Best regards

Ralf
--


-----------
Ralf Lippold
Elsbethstraße 7
D-04155 Leipzig-Gohlis
Posted by Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@web.de>
posting date Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:17:59 +0100
_______________________________________________
""Justin Longsworth Jagger"" <
Newbie
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Running beer game in 1.5 hours

Post by ""Justin Longsworth Jagger"" < »

Posted by ""Justin Longsworth Jagger"" <jaggerju@msu.edu>

Ralf

I initiated an online beergame for students in a laboratory environment (up
to 14 students at a time). I first introduced them to the supply chain
entities and their constraints: 2 week order and shipping delays; 2 sources
of cost (ICC and backorder); I then gave them their goals: to keep costs to
a minimum and attempt to satisfy all demand.

We then talked through the website and how it functioned; we ran a short demo
session (about 3 weeks) prior to playing ""for real"" just so the students could
""acclimate themselves"". At the beginning of the first game, I told students
that they could not know how long we were playing for (""less than 20 weeks"")
AND that they cannot talk to their neighbors (""make the decision based on the
screen in front of you""). Given this, I found that 15-20 weeks should be long
enough to see a significant bullwhip.

The first game, 95% of the time, should illustrate what happens with extended
lead times and no communication. I ran, at a minimum, 2 games at a time so
that we could also compare the results of one game to another; results were
graphically represented.

In games 2 and 3, I allowed communication between supply chain partners and
then shortened the 2 week delays down to 1 week respectively.

At the end we discussed the difficulty of transferring the ideals utilized in
the session into real world policies (different companies/industries; different
scenarios; lack of trust; etc)

The initial feedback I've recieved from students has been very positive.
GOOD LUCK!
Justin L. Jagger

Academic Specialist
Michigan State University
Posted by ""Justin Longsworth Jagger"" <jaggerju@msu.edu>
posting date Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:26:35 -0500
_______________________________________________
""Marion McGregor"" <mmcgrego
Newbie
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Running beer game in 1.5 hours

Post by ""Marion McGregor"" <mmcgrego »

Posted by ""Marion McGregor"" <mmcgregor@cmcc.ca>

The greatest challenge to time that we faced when conducting the beer
game was teaching people the mechanics of how to play the game and keep
score.

If you can find a way to do that ahead of time so that people really
understand how to move the pieces and keep the score sheets properly,
then the exercise (including debriefing) can be done in one and one half
hours.

Best,
Marion
Posted by ""Marion McGregor"" <mmcgregor@cmcc.ca>
posting date Tue, 27 Nov 2007 12:44:12 -0500
_______________________________________________
Fabian Fabian <f_fabian@yahoo
Junior Member
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Running beer game in 1.5 hours

Post by Fabian Fabian <f_fabian@yahoo »

Posted by Fabian Fabian <f_fabian@yahoo.com>

Hello Ralf,

Although not the same thing, I've found ""The Systems Thinking Mini
Sim"" useful for that purpose.

http://www.learninglandscapes.com/minisim.html

Be well...

Fabian Szulanski
Director, System Dynamics Centre, Instituto Tecnologico de Buenos Aires
Posted by Fabian Fabian <f_fabian@yahoo.com>
posting date Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:19:07 -0800 (PST)
_______________________________________________
""Ford, David"" <dford@civil.
Junior Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Running beer game in 1.5 hours

Post by ""Ford, David"" <dford@civil. »

Posted by ""Ford, David"" <dford@civil.tamu.edu>


I have run the Beer Game in a 75 minute class many times. ""Run"" in this
case means that the boards, chips, etc are all set up and taken down
outside the 75 minutes and that the debrief happens in the next class,
not in the the 75 minutes. I have gotten more weeks (30 or so) in if I
have the students plot the graphs in the next class as the setup to the
debrief (a good idea) or fewer weeks (25 or so) if they graph them in
the 75 minutes. I assign a ordering-policy focused assignment at the end
of the first (""run"") session that is due at the beginning of the debrief
to keep things fresh in their minds and to get them to reflect on the
game in preparation for the debrief.

I concur that getting the mechanics down in the players is critical to
speed-Beer Gaming. I try to facilitate this by assigning people I am
sure understand English well as the Retailer and poorly at the Factory.
This reduces the size of language-induced mechanical problems. I also
find it easier to monitor the Factory and they have less of a tendancy
to get into discussions with the players on either side of them, which
slows things down.

I have not found that the number of tables or the number of players in
each position has any significant impact on the speed, assuming you have
a helper with a handful of tables or more.

Best wishes,

Dave Ford

***************************************
David N. Ford, Ph.D., P.E.
Associate Professor
Zachry Department of Civil Engineering
Texas A&M University
College Station, Tx 77843-3136 USA
Posted by ""Ford, David"" <dford@civil.tamu.edu>
posting date Wed, 28 Nov 2007 11:10:25 -0600
_______________________________________________
Guy Stuart <Guy_Stuart@harvar
Newbie
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Running beer game in 1.5 hours

Post by Guy Stuart <Guy_Stuart@harvar »

Posted by Guy Stuart <Guy_Stuart@harvard.edu>

If anyone is interested, I got the IT people at the Kennedy School to
develop a web-based version of the beer game, based on an Excel version I
developed, which I have used successfully in class to run the game in 80
minutes. I do a debrief in the following class, using Excel spreadsheets
that the system kicks out. Here is the link to the game, anyone can use
it:

http://ksgaccman.harvard.edu/beer/

Guy

Guy Stuart
Lecturer in Public Policy
Kennedy School of Government
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Posted by Guy Stuart <Guy_Stuart@harvard.edu>
posting date Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:40:52 -0500
_______________________________________________
George Richardson <gpr@albany
Member
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Running beer game in 1.5 hours

Post by George Richardson <gpr@albany »

Posted by George Richardson <gpr@albany.edu>

A good debrief of the beer game takes an hour-and-a-half by itself,
so I'd say don't even try to run the game and debrief it in 1.5 hours.

There a layers of insights from the game, from surface thoughts about
the availability of information to very deep thoughts about causality,
blame and the endogenous point of view. In fact, I think the reason
the game has been played for so many years is that it may be the best
quick (3 hour) experience that gets people viscerally to come face-to-
face with endogenously generated dynamics and start the process of
adopting the habit of a feedback point of view.

One would not want to short-change any of those layers of potential
learning embedded in the beer game experience and an insightful debrief.
Deep insights take time and are worth it.

..George

George P. Richardson
Chair of public administration and policy
Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy
University at Albany - SUNY, Albany, NY 12222
Posted by George Richardson <gpr@albany.edu>
posting date Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:32:59 -0500
_______________________________________________
Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@we
Member
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Running beer game in 1.5 hours

Post by Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@we »

Posted by Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@web.de>

Hello everybody,

thanks a lot for your hints insights on speeding (or not) the beer
game in class :-) .

At the moment I am taking all your advices into account. As came
already several times in your answers is the necessity to run it
smoothly -especially at the beginning when everybody is stuck in
their mental models that makes them to do more steps at once than
expected and ""messing up"" the ""flow"" of the game.

A good thing to do is to visualize all single steps with tape (where
the no. of the step is written on) at the appropriate space on the
board. We experienced that (during a workshop a couple of weeks ago)
as a good thing to make things easier and gain more time for discussion
especially on different policies to undertake to avoid the overshooting
of the system.

Actually the beer game offers more to learn than we think (especially
connecting to other fields). As we had a workshop around ""lean thinking""
some weeks ago most of the participants hadn't played the beer game but
had heard of it. As we started with the first run, we quickly ran in deep
discussions on HOW to solve the shortcomings that are inherent in the
system and the setting itself (we were in deep thoughts for about 7 (!)
hours that weekend). This time the fixed class schedule just allows 90
min of playing. I am quite positive that some folks are getting the deeper
ideas and ways of learning that emerge out of playing the beergame with
the right amount of debriefing discussion (thanks George for your comment).
So there will be future runs (word of mouth is kicking in).

Further experiences and hints from you, as you are more experienced players
than myself, would be great.

All the best from Leipzig

Ralf

PS.: Happy to have stepped in the field last year while the lean fire was
glimming (for about 10 years) until it was sparked to a real fire by the
connection with SD :-)

PPS.: The unknown structure of the beer game itself and time constraints
are often the barriers to start playing the beer game in companies or
university courses (not directly connected with SD, e.g. logistics management).
For many people the long term benefit as learning and accumulation personal
knowledge (and the sharing of it), understandíng the complex underlying systems
and building of trust is not obvious and so ""by gosh"" they don't play it.

Posted by Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@web.de>
posting date Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:44:01 +0100
_______________________________________________
Locked