Project Wars: A Serious Game to Teach Decision Making in Project Execution

Project execution (i.e., the production, delivery, and deployment of an information system project's outputs) is a difficult concept to teach effectively because of the many real-time decision making variables facing a project manager. This paper introduces Project Wars, a web-based serious game designed to teach the project execution concepts of deferral of gratification, organizational mindfulness, and discipline in the face of adversity. Project Wars serves as both a platform to instill these concepts and as a basis for discussions on other critical concepts. The latter includes project team management and control, project leadership, the relationship between productivity, slack, and overtime, and project coordination. The paper also explains how to use Project Wars to teach project execution in a HyFlex classroom environment by developing a lesson plan around Project Wars. The game has been tested and demonstrated to be effective.