Is everything just a game? From the discrete to the continuous time modeling of corporate strategy games

Abstract

Strategy games are a very popular part of today’s management training in education and business. Complex economic interrelationships can be illustrated and interdependencies of economic decisions may be better understood. Most of the business games work with a discrete time model, i.e. decisions are made once for an entire time period which is usually half of a fiscal year. This time modeling is an improper representation of reality and leads to many comprehension problems on the participants’ side, e.g. concerning the effectiveness of decision parameters. This paper presents a strategy game with continuous time modeling in which, in addition to the planning at the beginning of a period, a detailed planning can be done during the period and interventions in the decision process can be made on a daily basis. An illustration of a possible temporary course during a continuous-time game is given. Several scenarios are discussed that have unfavorable results in the usual periodic time modeling. They are then compared to the more realistic modeling in the continuous time strategy game. Maintaining the long-term planning process and the method of debriefing, i.e. the discussion of success parameters and reports at the end of each period, the participants’ comprehension for processes in a company can thus be considerably augmented.