To be able to discuss how people operate within a project, it is important to have some kind of idea in our head about people, their behavior and how they interact. Some kind of model. Of course a model is a simplification of reality; we leave things out, we make stuff easier, just to be able to understand it all. This might be a small problem, but we have no choice. Without ignoring aspects and making a few assumptions there is no way on earth our brain will get it. Sorry to bring this to you: but our mind is too small for reality.

When looking for a way to describe how people operate, you just have to be totally amazed by the popular computer game The SIMS. In this game you simulate a group of people that live together. They go to work, they sleep, they have coffee with the neighbours, and they have sex and raise their children. The simulation runs in principle by itself, but the fun is that you can interfere in their situation; can withhold them from food, provide them a lot of money, make them hate or love each other. You just sway your magic wand, kick back and see how your actors in the game react. And what staggers me the most, and why I bring up this subject in the first place, is the level of detail, and live like feel of the simulation. They really nailed it down, simulating ordinary people on their own and in a group.

Just from the looks of it, it seems worth to look a little closer to the underlying behavioral game engine (the part of the game which emulates individuals behave depending on interactions with other actors in the system) to help us crack the code for a proper model. Of course this will be a simplification of the real deal.

Every individual in the game is called an 'actor'. Every actor has some properties that describe it. Of course you have a name so you know who is who, but you also consider aspects that are a given like age and gender. Next to these kind of 'given' properties you have items that describe the state of mind the actor has at any given moment, and yes, they will change. Think about emotions like lust and anger, or physical conditions like hunger and general health.

To be able to do something useful with these properties, they can have values. Of course, gender can be Male or Female, but for things like Anger you can use numbers: 0 can mean completely without anger, and with a value of 100 the steam is getting out of an individuals ears.