{"id":99,"date":"2021-07-25T02:45:39","date_gmt":"2021-07-25T02:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opanalytics.ca\/scenarios\/?page_id=99"},"modified":"2021-09-08T23:50:10","modified_gmt":"2021-09-08T23:50:10","slug":"project-management","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/opanalytics.ca\/scenarios\/project-management\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Management"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anything but the simplest war-game project must be carefully managed as a project. This includes in particular decomposing the war-game project into tasks, assigning resources to those tasks, and monitoring the tasks and resources to ensure the project is completed within budget and on time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Task Breakdown<\/strong>. A war-game project might be decomposed into 15 tasks as shown in the diagram. In this diagram the tasks are organized into five phases. Wargaming organizations should have their own approaches to decomposition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The task breakdowns may depart from those shown in the diagram. For instance, if a wargaming group is a component of the game sponsor\u2019s organization, tasks (1), (2), and (3) may be dealt with quickly as the intimate relationship should mean that the wargaming group is familiar with the sponsor and the rest of the sponsor\u2019s organization and is well placed to determine the sponsor\u2019s needs. Since the wargaming group is a more or less permanent structure, there may be no need at all to establish the wargaming team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Phase
Phases in a wargaming project<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tasks Related to Scenario Building<\/strong>. For the purposes of building scenarios for a war game, some tasks shown in the diagram naturally support the development of the scenario. Once the focus of the war game is clear (Task 2 in the diagram), including essentially the sponsor\u2019s objective, and the key factors have been identified, many elements of the scenario should become clear. The search for information (Task 5) can incorporate searching for information to create the scenario: e.g., finding appropriate terrain and the associated data files; gathering performance data on weapons, sensors, platforms, and command systems; uncovering the doctrine and associated tactics and methods that various sides might employ. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Design\/Develop Cycle<\/strong>. The \u201cDesign\u201d and \u201cDevelop\u201d phases form a cycle: once some of the design task has been completed, some of the development work can be addressed. And once parts of development have been addressed, it may be time to revisit the design phase to complete more of that phase or to revisit parts where the development phase has reached an obstruction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building a House<\/strong>. We can look at the building of a new house for a corresponding project structure. The “Design Phase” corresponds roughly to the architect developing the blueprints. The “Develop Phase” corresponds to the building phase: digging on the site, pouring concrete for the foundation, constructing walls and floors. While the architect is still working on blueprints, the building contractor might start with basic work like clearing the land and perhaps laying asphalt for roads. In building construction, there may be some cycling between the phases, e.g., after some time at the site, the building contractor may find the soil is not what was expected or that some material is not available. So we go back to the architect to amend the blueprint. The final blueprints should be finished well before the final aspects of construction. And so it would be with designing and developing a war game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Estimating Time and Resources<\/strong>. Just like building construction, a wargaming organization should develop skills in estimating the required project resources and timing. Commercial wargaming organizations do this to make a profit. If the estimate for the cost and deadlines of a wargaming project are too low, the organization may not profit. And, if the estimate is too high, the war-game sponsor may go to a competing organization. Even for governmental organizations, where profit<\/em> is not a driving factor, conducting wargaming, it behooves the management to become good estimators of time and resources. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anything but the simplest war-game project must be carefully managed as a project. This includes in particular decomposing the war-game project into tasks, assigning resources to those tasks, and monitoring …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-99","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opanalytics.ca\/scenarios\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opanalytics.ca\/scenarios\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opanalytics.ca\/scenarios\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opanalytics.ca\/scenarios\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opanalytics.ca\/scenarios\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/opanalytics.ca\/scenarios\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/99\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/opanalytics.ca\/scenarios\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/99\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opanalytics.ca\/scenarios\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}