It’s never easy to make sound decisions when data is sparse and conditions are in flux. Yet, government leaders at all levels must often take action without the desired level of analysis, or sufficient buy-in from stakeholders. In other cases, new plans, concepts, technologies, and products require testing and experimentation before being fielded or released to the public. In each of these situations, a wargame, strategic simulation, exercise, or experiment can provide leaders with the needed information or stress-testing in a safe and structured environment.
Booz Allen Hamilton has been at the forefront of wargaming for more than 20 years with a long track record of devising effective games, exercises or experiments for almost any problem. The diverse scenarios that we have explored range from how to set up a new organization, test a new war plan or technology, or develop a new strategy for dealing with international competitors, to how to build a megacommunity to tackle large and complex cross-national problems like AIDS and climate change. Our approach is to customize the design of each event, which can vary in scale (from five to 600 participants), in scope (from testing a single technology to conducting a national cyber exercise), and in focus (from assessing the future structure and mission of the US Army to developing a quick response plan for a tactical operation in Iraq).
When is the right time to game? We believe that it all revolves around your decision-making process. Hold games early in the process to narrow down a set of choices or uncover potential challenges before too much work has been performed. Midway through the development process, we help clients test what they have developed and begin to socialize it with their staff and stakeholders. A project nearing the end of development offers a third opportunity and is typically focused on stress-testing the final product, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and socializing the strengths of the process, capabilities, or organization in question. Many exercises and experiments are used to fully examine a response plan or operational/organizational concept. Finally, certain games or exercises are explicitly part of a larger program. They typically continue for a full year or two and take clients, and their stakeholders, through the entire decision-making process.
Beyond the types of events, the process used to design and execute them, and the explicit benefits clients can gain, there are implicit benefits that leaders can gain. Hosting an event is an excellent mechanism for developing or formalizing strong relationships—both internal and external—to build consensus. In addition to gaining buy-in for the plans or capabilities being tested, games and exercises give all participants a shared experience, a better sense of each other’s viewpoints, and a shared vocabulary. This vocabulary—“let’s flesh out that concept we developed on the second day of the game”—helps stakeholders build off their shared experience, bridge traditional barriers, gain insight, and understand their respective roles and interactions.
From biannual national exercises involving hundreds of people to rapid turnaround experiments for small groups, our methodologies deliver meaningful results to all who attend—especially those involved in determining the objectives and research questions that drive the design. Booz Allen has helped clients across the civil, defense, and security communities test advanced concepts and technologies, conduct integrated training, and engage in real-time interactive scenarios. They gain tremendous value in the process, especially from operational and educational perspectives. Participants often make discoveries and devise solutions that come explicitly from the interactive, structured process we employ and are forced to counter challenges or threats they had never considered. In the end, they come away with plans, capabilities, and relationships that are stronger as a result.
