Interactive parade game: Impact of managerial reactions to workflow variability

One of the primary concerns in the lean construction community has been understanding and managing the combined impact of variability and interdependency on construction performance. The parade game has been extensively utilised for enhancing construction practitioners' intuitive understanding of construction production systems. However, the current parade game does not incorporate managerial actions that are usually taken in practice to offset the impact of variability of activity duration or productivity. These managerial actions often radically change the production profile (e.g., quantity of resources, level of production capacity); thereby significantly affecting project performance. For this reason, exclusion of managerial actions in the parade game can result in less realistic estimation of project performance. Also, given that the pedagogical value of a simulation-based game can be maximised by user interaction, managerial actions are a key element that should be incorporated in the parade game. Based on this recognition, this paper aims to develop an interactive simulation game as an extension of the current parade game. For application in the construction education setting, this game incorporates managerial decision making processes and highlights trade-offs associated with managerial decision. Being developed as an Internet-based application which can be accessed through any platform, the interactive parade game has been applied in construction education. Its application showed that the interactive parade game can successfully help students to actively participate in the learning processes and discuss their findings, and to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of construction production systems.