Business game - This is an imitation of the workflow, its modeling, a simplified reproduction of the real production situation. It is a sequence of actions that players must perform to achieve a certain result. The game is governed by the rules prescribed in advance in the script.
The first mention of business games found in the XVII-XVIII centuries, "military chess" and "map maneuvers" at that time were used as a way to train young military personnel. The USSR also had experience in using such games in order to increase labor productivity. In 1932, for the first time in the country, a method of mastering new products using the game was developed at the Ligovsky Typewriting Plant, but such an initiative was not widespread, since the free speech of participants and the many solutions to problems created during business games were incompatible with the total control mode. regulation. To date, there are a large number of business games, they differ in the scale of the simulated objects (industry, workshop), functional profile (production, management), structural features. The game develops such human qualities as the ability to plan, predict, system thinking, organizational and creative abilities.
Business games can pursue one or several goals:
- team building;
- acquaintance of employees among themselves - in a newly formed division or employees of different divisions;
- personel assessment;
- entertainment at a corporate party;
- "capitalist competition" within the company, used as a model for professional competitions;
- training, including through workflow modeling;
- to add excitement to daily activities;
- change the mental attitude.
Training and business game - what are the differences?
- The game clearly defines the boundaries of the beginning and end, the stages in it are regulated. Training does not always have a time limit.
- The game simulates a situation involving many factors. Training, as a rule, involves a separate aspect of the situation.
- The game aims to develop a set of skills.. Training is used more often to train a particular skill.
- The game is characterized by problematic content: competition, conflict of interests of participants, lack of resources. The conflict situation forces players to look for effective ways to complete the task.
- The peculiarity of the game lies in the fact that it always has an outcome - someone's victory and someone's loss. As a result, the winning participants are convinced of the effectiveness of the chosen behaviors, and the losers get acquainted with examples of successful behavior, analyze their mistakes. Orientation to the game outcome ensures the maximum involvement of participants in the game process, their accommodation of simulated, but still close to real, conditions.
In a business game, experience is gained through activity, that is, the most effective way of learning information. It is known that the usual reading of information allows a person to memorize only 10% of the material, listening - 20%, viewing - 30%, and independent execution - activity - 90%.
Everything business games can be classified by specific parameters.
By time:
- with time limit;
- no time limit;
- real-time games;
- games compressed in time.
By performance evaluation:
score for player or team activity.
According to the final result:
- tough games, with a tight schedule, where the answer is known in advance;
- free games, rules are invented for each game, participants work on an unstructured task.
By ultimate goal:
- training, aimed at learning new knowledge and skills;
- ascertaining, such as professional skill contests;
- search, aimed at identifying problems and their solution.
According to the methodology of:
- hole games taking place on a specially organized field, with strict rules (chess, "Monopoly");
- role-playing games, where each participant has a specific role or task;
- group discussions aimed at acquiring group work skills;
- imitation, giving an idea to the participants, as they should act in certain conditions;
- emotional-activity games that do not have hard and fast rules that imitate competitive or dependent relationships;
- organizational and activity games that do not have strict rules aimed at solving interdisciplinary problems;
- innovative games that shape the participants' innovative thinking.
Speaking about the degree of efficiency of the business game, it can be noted that as a result of its implementation, the participants observed:
- reduction of egocentric tendencies in behavior and thinking;
- social sensitivity sharpens;
- creative potential is updated;
- self-control is reduced;
- forming a setting for the perception of new information;
- stereotypes expand;
- the threshold of acceptance of the point of view of another is reduced;
- the adequacy of self-evaluations and mutual evaluations is increased.
Business games, forcing participants to use their past experience, provide them with autonomous space for the development of their own ideas and actions. A prerequisite for each game is that each participant makes decisions independently, and this does not always happen in reality, as a result, the game becomes a training for creativity. One of the main advantages of business games is that, by simulating reality, they can drastically reduce the time of experience, allow you to turn the course of possible events, try different strategies.
