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Wardley Maps BattleCamp

A Wardley Map BattleCamp is an advanced Wardley Map workshop dedicated to teaching and training people (and robots!) to do Business Strategic Gameplay. It's outcome is to get a group of people that are well experienced and comfortable in collaboratively mapping strategic gameplay moves. While in an unknown, uncharted setting.

We should all learn to do all of the Wardley Maps phases and to practice them. Additionaly, help your workshop attendees learn to play collaboratively, in a real-life scenario.

Note: This workshop is a "simulation" of a real-life scenario. Consider it as such, a simulation.

Requirements to Attend

This is an advanced workshop which expects attendees to have at least some real-life experience with Wardley Maps. In order to attend a workshop, you should have, at least:

or

Requirements to Organize

In order to organize a workshop yourself, you must have at least played two BattleCamps in the past. It's not mandatory, though the rules and the game are complex and require significant experience with Wardley Maps.

Public and community events must be free. In case doing something privately, you are free to charge for your time.

Workshop Structure

The Goal

To Win. Depending on the context, the goal can mean different things and outcomes.

Commercial goals

Primary. Be the most profitable company, in a given scenario. Provide the biggest amount of profit.

Secondary. Be the dominant company in the given market, meaning around 60% of the marketshare.

Public sector goals

Deliver the best, low cost public service possible, in a given scenario. This goal actually means:

Note. Even the best service or a product that solves user needs but doesn't gain any public usage provides zero value.

Your role and the attendee structure

You are a company board member.

Attendees are divided into two teams with random team members. (In real life, you will rarely have the choice over who you work with, so it's better to learn to cooperate and create a team atmosphere focusing on a common goal)

There needs to be a team of at least two judges which keep track of the workshop statistics and gameplay.

Each company team belongs to a single company, which is doing business in a single market. Each company has a different scenario.

Two or three teams of random team members. Minimum 3 members per team. Equal members per team.

Game structure

Turn based. Max 40 rounds. Each round lasts for 5 minutes (simultaneous rounds). The teams need to be in different rooms.

After the 5 minute time limit, the judges then enter the separate rooms and without sharing any info get the plays from the teams.

In the next 1-2 minutes, the judges evaluate the gameplays and approve or deny (if the move is just a card play without describing the move its immediatelly rejected.)

Team (Company) Structure

Each company has three main resources.

  1. Time (represented in points, each team has 10 time points per round.)
  2. Capital (represented in cash, e.g. dollars)
  3. Market share (represented in percentages)

All companies operate in a single market developing a single product.

Scenario

The judges choose a single market along with a single product the companies are competing in. They define the market price of the product (e.g. $50) and they draw a Wardley Map based on the Customer need, the product that fulfills that Customer need and its value chain.

Example scenario from the first BattleCamp

For example, the first BattleCamp, organized by Map Meetup Belgrade, chose the healthcare industry, more specifically flue vaccinations. Defined a market without a public healthcare system and two teams that were playing the BattleCamp were two healtcare clinics that were administering and selling a flu vaccine with an average market cost of $100.

The first company was long-running business, with over 50 years. Family made business, with their own "custom built" offices and laboratories. They have hired nurses, lab assistants and doctors. They also have bought an application on the market for the clinic, to schedule vaccination appointments, communicate with the customers and so on. Charging $120 per flue therapy, with a product cost of $70. Their market share is 18%.

The second company is a recently started business, a clinic with about 5 years on the market. Rents its office space and lab space. Has hired nurses, lab assistants and doctors. Have developed their own application for the clinic with similar options as their competitor, they "believe they are a healtcare tech startup". Charging $100 per flue therapy, with a cost of $55. Their marketshare is 7%.

Market and Income

The market size is 100,000 total units sold per quarter (round).

Market share * the total market size * your product price = your revenue you have made.

Example: Your market share = 8% ~ 0.08 Your product price = $100

0.08 * 100,000 * $100 = $800,000 revenue / round.

But this isn't your income. :) You must subtract the product cost (which is calculated by using the capital flows of your Wardley Map, if you don't have a map, well, you won't know which components cost the most). If your product cost is $80 per product sold, your income would be $160,000.

The judges must calculate the income each round for each company. The judges must not share data between teams. (A good team will understand that they should calculate the other team's income too)

Product Cost

Product cost is calculated using the Capital Flows of your Wardley Map.

Capital Flow Example Capital Flow Wardley Map Copyright @ Simon Wardley

Product Price Elasticity

The price is elastic in a standard setting.

Evolution versus Adoption

"Everything evolves" - one of Simon's Climactic Patterns.

Depending on your position on the market, you may want to either evolve or adopt a newly evolved product. Being a first (and fast) follower might be good enough. (e.g. Microsoft following Amazon's lead).

If a certain component is in its Product phase, you may want to evolve it to Utility first and gain competitive advantage, build a tower of income around it ("Tower and Moat") or you may want to wait for someone to evolve it first and then focus on building on top ("Building Higher Order Value").

Evolving a component always costs more and takes more effort than adopting.

Game Modes

There are currently three game modes to BattleCamp:

  1. BabyMode (the easiest) No finances / capital flows, product cost, revenue. Main purpose is to learn the basics of gameplay moves, get the feeling of what does a move do.

  2. Standard (normal) Everything applies, product price is elastic. Everything has a cost. You get the initial Wardley Map of the average company in your company's history.

  3. RealMode (normal) Everything applies, product price is elastic. Everything has a cost. You have to draw your company's Wardley Map yourself, if you're wrong, the judges aren't allowed to tell you and you will "pay the price"

  4. All on One (super hard, NDA - will be added soon)

BattleCamp Leagues

Public and community BattleCamp workshops are part of the open and global BattleCamp Leagues, unless explicitly stated by the organizers that they don't want to participate in the rankings.

Each participation brings one point, with addition of being the member of a winning team, bringing two points more. Also, an additional point if the scenario type is a public sector one.

The rankings are on a player basis and team basis. There are different rankings depending if the team is random or a predefined one.

More information on BattleCamp Leagues will come soon.

BattleCamp Cards

BattleCamp Gameplay cards are guides for gameplay and should be only viewed as such. In real life there is no "do a play and gain 5% of marketshare". That doesn't exist and never look at it like that. If someone asks or tells that they tried "the play and didn't get that 5% of the marketshare" they shouldn't ever play games.

Cards from the first, initial BattleCamp are going to be open source and in the folder cards. We will be slowly adding them.

The card data is contained in the src/cards.json. You can change the data there and then use generate-cards.js to generate a new set of cards with the updated information and in different colors, text, effects and so on.

Any constructive suggestion in improving the balance or demonstrating a higher / lower value of a card gameplay is always welcome and appreciated.

Rights

Wardley Maps belong to Simon Wardley.

BattleCamp follows the licenses defined by the Wardley Maps, and is under the CC by SA 4.0 license.

BattleCamp is created by Aleksandar Simovic.

Credits & Contributions

BattleCamp wouldn't be possible without the help of several people, where I'd particularly mention two great fellow guys both with a same name and surname.