How Coevolutionary Gaming Can Facilitate Group Decision Making
Introduction:
Coevolutionary war gaming is an unconventional scenario planning process put forward by Jeff Cares and Jim Miskel in their article "Take Your Third Move First" which essentially builds on the argument that planning and subsequent decision making should not be conducted in a vacuum, i.e., it is not enough to just look at the current facts and historical data to make decisions and plans and just assume that those who will be affected (e.g., competition) will just take them sitting down. Plans and decisions made using this "vacuum" process are characteristically shortsighted at best, because they normally do not take the impact of the counterplans and actions that …show more content…

For example, in the above example of a newcomer bringing down prices to gain market share, if the cost of losing a few market share points by a market leader is strategically less than the cost of losing profitability (or brand reputation) to protect it, then there is a strong possibility that they will just allow it to happen or take a defensive position (e.g., hype on their reputation as a better brand). At best, however, these decisions should be treated as tactical in nature and should not be treated as the final decision to take. If the market leader sees that the point below which they would not react aggressively has been breached, they will react in a major way.
• Plan several steps ahead. Being able to anticipate competitive moves via coevolutionary war gaming generates data that, while largely theoretical, is nonetheless valuable to develop the next step decisions and plans to the point of "push button" readiness. Advanced knowledge allows the development of key indicators that can be monitored, and planned for depending on which happen individually or in combination. It will then be a relatively simple matter of activating the plans (with possible revisions done based on factors not seen earlier) to respond to these indicators.
• Experiment without getting hurt. Since the exercise is still purely theoretical, the results are likewise theoretical, albeit logically determined. This allows