Strategic Red Team Consulting - Introduction to Business Wargaming

An introduction to ……

Strategic Wargaming for Business
“Execution excellence through disciplined rehearsal”
© Strategic Red Team Consulting
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Recently showcased at
Deloitte’s 50 Best Managed Companies

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If you are in an adversarial and
competitive business
environment, how do you
evaluate the various courses
of action open to you?

How do you know whether
your strategy is truly
comprehensive, integrated,
adaptive and networked?
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3

How do you test your plans
before you execute them?

How do you test your decision
support structures?

How do you put your plan
under realistic stress before
execution?
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4

How do you establish, align and
integrate your corporate authorities,
responsibilities and accountabilities?
Are they aligned with the actual
decisions that need to be made?

Who plays the role of your
adversary, your competition, or
your clients?
Who is your BAD GUY?
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5

How is the feedback
presented to your executive
leadership prior to
execution?

What separates a great plan
from a self-fulfilling prophecy,
or…..
a self-licking ice-cream cone?
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6

How are your requirements for
Disciplined Testing, Refinement,
Rehearsal & Execution different
than those of the military?

Short Answer: they’re not.

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7

In business, as in battle,
INTELLIGENCE, STRATEGY,
PLANNING, DECISION MAKING and
EXECUTION, are HUMAN ACTIVITIES
and the truest test of those things can
only be accomplished with human
beings in the loop.

Tracing a Gantt Chart or
doing the Six Sigma street
dance is a poor substitute.
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8

The best way to rehearse is
if the players that are testing
the plan are the very people
that will eventually have to
make critical decisions in the
execution of the plan.

….and do it in a way that ensures your decision support SIMULATION
……. promotes decision support STIMULATION

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9

Simply, we wargamed
every course of action
before committing to a
preferred strategy or
plan.

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10

We rehearsed by wargaming
any and all commanders that
had to make decisions in the
execution, or synchronization
of that plan.

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We rehearsed by
wargaming the actions
of a realistic adversary in
a realistic operational
environment.

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12

We wargamed in a cooperative
leadership and learning
environment that believed that
sweat and tears in a wargame
were preferable to blood and
tears on the battlefield.

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So, what’s the equivalent
of blood, sweat and tears
on your corporate
battlefield?

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Wargame Hindsight
becomes
Business Foresight

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Wargames are real-time, actionreaction, role-playing workshops that
pit your key real-life decision makers
and managers (Blue Team) …

….against real-time competitive
adversaries (Red Team)….

…and disciplined by an executive
level White team.

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• Step 1: Leadership Engagement & Planning
• Step 2: Wargame Design
• Step 3: Wargame Preparation & Stage Setting
• Step 4: Conducting the Wargame
• Step 5: After Action Review
• Step 6: Disseminating the Results and Taking Action

The most important element of Wargaming is not the tool used, but the people who participate.

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Wargaming is a methodological discipline to test your plans that is also
designed to promote:
• risk mitigation,
• innovation,

• mechanisms of discovery for
leadership,
• mechanisms of voice for your
teams
• real-time organizational
learning for all.

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The aim of wargaming is to
ensure continuous improvement
in your ability to compete and win
on your corporate battlefield.

The most important element of
Wargaming is not the tool used, but
the people who participate.

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Wargaming is a conscious attempt to
visualize the flow of business operations,
given joint strengths, weaknesses,
dispositions, capabilities and possible
courses of actions available to business
actors in a given business sector and
environment.

……and it’s the best way of
getting into your competitor’s
head, their decision cycle, their
OODA loop.

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Wargaming is a disciplined role playing
activity where key actors react to
critical events using an action /
reaction / counteraction method of
friendly and competitor interaction.

Each step in the execution of the
plan or strategy is examined in the
following detail:
• Action
• Reaction
• Counteraction
• Observations
• Record
• Review
• Learning

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Your corporate leadership, strategy, plan and business environment are the
foundations to preparing, designing and executing your Wargame.

Mission
Analysis

Constraints

Vision

Restraints

Assumptions

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If there’s a problem with any
of these, the wargame will
show it.

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Every event is tested against a competitive reality.

Action
Reaction
Action
Counteraction
Reaction
Observations
Action
Counteraction
Record
Reaction
Observations
Review
Action
Counteraction
Record
Learning
Reaction
Observations
Review
Counteraction
Record
Learning
Observations
Review
Record
Learning
Review
Learning

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23

After Action Reviews (AARs) are a LEADERSHIP responsibility and are
conducted by your corporate leadership, facilitated by the White Team Lead and
supported by the Blue and Red Leads.
•

They are inclusive but
disciplined.

•

Must be constructive and
detailed.

•

Egos are left at the door.

•

Lever innovation by posing
“what if” questions.

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•

These are a series of two of more
sequential and comparable wargames
involving the same conditions, actors
and weighting criteria to determine
the most viable options available in
terms of risk, execution, pay off, etc.

•

•

This is a decision support tool for
senior executives to recommend a
distinct plan of action to corporate
leadership.

Red & Blue players are normally drawn from the extant pool of
executives normally involved in your company’s strategic and
operational planning process.

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Rehearsal Wargaming
•

A Rehearsal Wargame is a
comprehensive exercise to test a
single accepted plan prior to its
execution.

•

•

The BLUE TEAM involves all senior
executives who must make
decisions and manage activities in
the execution of that plan and
confined to their accepted decision
support roles.

The RED TEAM is drawn from corporate leadership team or
subject matter experts.

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RED TEAMING
•

A Red Team Exercise is similar to a
rehearsal Wargame with the exception
that none of the Red Team players are
drawn from company’s decision support
stakeholders.

•

•

Each RED TEAM player is an outside
subject matter expert that is not a
company stakeholder and is only given a
reasonable amount of information that a
normal competitor would have.

The RED TEAM’s role is not merely to test the plan as adversarial players
but rather to put it under extreme competitive stress.

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• Evaluating courses of action to recommend a
distinct plan of action to corporate leadership;
• Levering rehearsals as a comprehensive
exercise under conditions of extreme
competitive stress to test critical plans prior
to execution;
• Reinforcing Unity of Thought, Purpose and
Action throughout your corporate team
through action/reaction/counter-reaction role
playing;
• Visualizing of the flow of business operations,
given joint strengths, weaknesses,
dispositions, capabilities and possible courses
of actions available to business actors in a
given business sector and environment.
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WARGAME
HINDSIGHT becomes
BUSINESS
FORESIGHT
30

Strategic Red Team Consulting - Introduction to Business Wargaming

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