Cycle Time, Decisions, and Complexity in Business Simulation/Games

Abstract

Despite the abundant references to complexity in the business gaming literature, few in-depth attempts have been made to operationalize the concept beyond the generally used measure of the number of decisions to be taken during each game cycle. This article examines a measure of game-playing complexity formed from a number of key defining features including the surprisingly neglected feature of game cycle time. The complexity measure is constructed using principles stemming from dimensional analysis. This theory underlies the topic of dynamical similarity, which is concerned with configuring physical models to reflect realistically features of the represented situations. Empirical data collected from various gaming situations are used to calculate the complexity measure and to arrive at conclusions by assuming that dynamical similarity exists among the different situations. The analysis provides a method of deriving required cycle time from the number of decisions.