The School of Wargaming for Management Learning and Training

The following report was written for PAXsims by Philippe Lepinard. A former pilot of the French Army’s light aviation, Philippe completed a PhD on the digitization of the battlefield before joining the University of Paris-Est Créteil in 2015 as an associate professor. He leads the educational and research project in game-oriented learning, EdUTeam

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General Context

EdUTeam is an educational and research project in game-oriented learning at IAE Paris-Est, the school of management of the University of Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC), and at the Institute of Management Research (EA 2354). As part of this we have been deploying educational activities related to wargaming since 2018. These practices primarily take two forms: mandatory courses in undergraduate and graduate programs, and supervised projects for discovering wargames. Their commonality is the exclusive use of commercially available board wargames. This article offers a synthesis of these activities, conducted under name of the “School of Wargaming for Management Learning and Training.”

Wargames as Educational Tools

Three courses are conducted using wargames: an operational management course in the second year of a Bachelor’s program (between 30 and 40 students), a course on the methodology of lessons learned (between 8 and 15 Master’s students or managers in continuing education), and a crisis study course with second-year Master’s students (between 10 and 16 students). 

For the first two courses, wargames are tools designed to simulate management situations in order to study classic managerial concepts (for example: Mintzberg’s 10 managerial roles). With tailored scenarios, the games generate action, responses, and consequences that are then linked to theory during the debriefing. Consequently, any wargame can be used, whether they are historical or set in fantasy universes. 

The course on crisis studies takes a different perspective. Games are used for their specific themes. It is indeed about analyzing historical facts with the models proposed by the games. In this context, the games used are realistic and contemporary, such as the COIN series or those from the South China Sea series.

Discovering Wargames

Since the beginning of 2023, students have been contributing articles to the specially created section, “Students Join the Fight,” in the French bimonthly historical games magazine VaeVictis. The initial goal of this section is to introduce students to the rich diversity of wargames beyond their integration into academic courses. Indeed, while historical or near-futuristic wargames naturally offer a different approach to historical issues or current affairs, they also present real intellectual challenges that are particularly stimulating. Unfortunately, they are little known and sometimes rightly associated with a perception of complexity and long gameplay. 

Our section of the magazine, therefore, aims at democratizing these games and reports on discovery sessions conducted by undergraduate students who are new to or only slightly familiar with the activity of wargaming. Each article, co-written by the students themselves, follows the same format: an introduction to the game, testimonials from the student players, and a summary of the session. These sessions last half a day but include pre-session resources: reading an article, watching a documentary, etc. However, learning the game rules is an integral part of the session. In this regard, the co-authors of the articles also have the responsibility of knowing the rules well to guide their peers on the day. The participants’ testimonials are written immediately after the session ends. These testimonials are often similar regardless of the game: their initial fears are swept away after the session, and the feedback is always positive, even if some participants indicate that it is not their preferred type of game. It is important to note that the collective aspect is one of the elements that stand out the most, whether in the collaborative learning of the rules or in team-based games. In summary, the students all enjoyed the wargame discovery sessions and were themselves surprised by this in their various testimonials!

Project Avenues

The results of our pedagogical and research work related to the deployment of wargames at IAE Paris-Est demonstrate their value: with their great depth and agency, these games offer perfectly adapted experiential learning for management students and provide numerous elements of general culture as well as intellectually stimulating challenges. With the proven learning outcomes of three courses (Lépinard, 2023), we are considering the creation of a fourth one focused on information systems project management. The students’ work will involve a case study on the theme of the digitization of the battlefield. The games under consideration are Armageddon War or Heroes Against the Red Star. 

However, the main perspective of the project is to continue the democratization of wargames use. In this regard, and after a very positive first year, especially in terms of feedback from readers of the magazine VaeVictis (we have received many supportive messages), we have decided to evolve the section to include in each article an enriching side aspect that enhances the interest in the tested wargames. To do this, each session brings an original element related to wargaming in general or the game in particular. For example, we studied, with one of the authors (Guillaume Prévost), a real military decision-making method while discovering the game CO-OPS. 

The game library of the GamiXlab^[1], the game lab of IAE Paris-Est, includes more than a hundred wargames and is regularly expanded with the release of new games. Consequently, it is certain that wargaming will also take on an even more important role in our pedagogical practices, even if the training programs concerned have no direct link with the military world or wargaming (Bourguilleau et al., 2020; Lépinard, 2020).

Philippe Lepinard

References

Bourguilleau, A., Lépinard, P., & Wojtowicz, N. (2020). Wargames for training future managers. Management et Data Science, 5(1).

Lépinard, P. (2020). Table-top wargames to train business school students. Ludogogy, 8.

Lépinard, P. (2023). L’apprentissage expérientiel par le jeu pour l’acquisition des connaissances théoriques managériales. Recherches en sciences de gestion, 158, 489-516.

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^[1] The news from the GamiXlab game lab (Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/gamixlab/.