Design and evaluation of the project and program crashing games

Abstract

Purpose -This research aims to help project management game designers and educators in simulating complexity in project management games and in assessing the effect of simulated project complexity levels on students' learning experience. To achieve this aim, we attempt to design and evaluate two computer-based project crashing games with different complexity levels, namely Project Crashing Game (PCG) and Program Crashing Game (PgCG).Design/methodology/approach -A literature review is conducted to identify serious games design principles. These principles are then manifested in the design of PCG and PgCG. The latter is a more complex version of the first. Students' reaction after playing both games are then analyzed quantitatively.Findings -We discover that students' learning experience is affected by how complex the simulated project is. The more complex the project is (i.e. as in the PgCG), the more realistic the game is perceived. Nevertheless, we also discover that the less complex game (PCG) offers significant value to students, particularly to teach basic project management principles to those with minimum or no practical experience. This game is perceived as better in increasing students' learning confidence as its content is perceived as more relevant to their existing knowledge.Originality/value -We adopt a project complexity perspective when designing and evaluating the games.

Lessons learned from implementing project management games

“…The Project Crashing Games (PCGs) are ready-to-use online PM games that were developed by Rumeser and Emsley [27][28][29][30]. The PCGs' learning objectives are to teach project crashing (or acceleration) principles, the importance of critical path, and time-cost trade-offs at both project and program (or multi-project) levels.…”

“…In designing these games, Rumeser and Emsley [27] omitted any context from the project or activities (i.e., Activity or Project "A", "B", and "C" were used instead of "laying foundation" or "user acceptance test"). Furthermore, other PM aspects, such as resource allocation and limitation, vendor selection, resource sharing, risk and stakeholder management aspects, were not simulated.…”

“…The PCGs are developed on the basis of Kolb's experiential learning theory (ELT) [27,31] which emphasizes knowledge acquisition through experience that consists of four successive cyclical stages. The first stage is concrete experience where players make decision in selecting activity to crash.…”

“…Based on the main author's observations, students tended to disregard the instructions page, as they had limited time to solve the problem and were competing against other teams to be the first to achieve the game objectives. Rumeser and Emsley [27] might have been affected by designer bias whereby the repetitive tasks involved in designing, testing and solving the problems presented in the PCGs led them to falsely believe that students would quickly grasp the gameplay and interface.…”

“…the less complex and the more complex stages). Rumeser and Emsley [27] suggest that playing the less complex stage (i.e. the first stage) is required in order to prepare learners to cope with the problems in the more complex stage (i.e.…”