Can Strategic Gaming® Help You?
Can Strategic Gaming add value for you and your company? SGG has developed a diagnostic tool for helping our clients understand whether, when, and to what extent game theory/Strategic Gaming should be employed. The tool, in Excel 2003 and Excel 2007, can be downloaded by emailing us at diagnostic@stratgaming.com. You will be sent a link to download the tool.
The diagnostic makes two primary types of assessments. First, it evaluates the level of “influence complexity” and “interaction risk” value to make a preliminary assessment about how extensive a gaming effort should be involved, if any. That is, does the project need a modest or a serious amount of framing and structuring (if influence complexity is relatively low or high)? Does any game framing need to be tied to minimal (“back-of-the-envelope”) valuation modeling or significant quantitative valuation efforts (based on a high “interaction risk”)?
Second, for issues where gaming appears to be a useful tool, the diagnostic gives a preliminary estimate of when analysis should begin. Users of the tool can then see where, in their project planning, they might bring gaming into the analysis to be of greatest value.
The diagnostic also addresses two related, and important, framing questions. First, it provides a recommendation about whether you need to consider and evaluate future options. Option value is related to the gaming context because options are often contingent on interactions with other players (e.g., one cannot exercise a future option if another player takes some action that removes the option). Full and accurate evaluation of some projects requires incorporating an estimate of the project’s impact on other assets and opportunities. The diagnostic provides a recommendation about whether your project needs to take a broad frame, incorporating other parts of the value chain in your framing, alternative generation, and evaluation. These considerations are incorporated in the diagnostic because they have been important issues in a number of projects we have worked.
Additional discussion of the logic and use of the tool can be found in the Logic of the Tool tab. Users can and should insert the diagnostic's timing recommendations into a project plan and/or consult with others as appropriate. If you would like to e-mail the results to review with an SGG principal, or you have any questions about the diagnostic, please contact us at info@stratgaming.com.