Construction contracts in a competitive market: C3M, a simulation game

Simulation games provide practical decision-making and strategy development experiences to students in a classroom setting. Having the ability to develop a bidding strategy that secures work and increases market share is vital in a competitive market. This paper presents a simulation game, called C3M (Construction Contracts in a Competitive Market), which mimics a bidding situation and allows users to experiment with different strategies. It is aimed at upper undergraduate students taking courses in construction management or cost and bid analysis, but can be utilized also in a professional training program. The game introduces the principles of competitive bidding through a series of simulated bidding decisions and provides for interaction between the bid prices of the competing teams over a simulated period of time. It can be implemented on any commercial spreadsheet, as described. Trial runs are provided to test the interlocking nature of the decisions made.