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MOD Civil Servants sit alongside Military Staff at a meeting (Image taken from http://www.rslprojectsolutions.co.uk/?attachment_id=1444)

The Derby House Principles

THE DERBY HOUSE PRINCIPLES*

We believe that promoting diversity and inclusion is the right thing to do.

Diversity and inclusion are more than just words for us. They are the hard-and-fast principles guiding how we will build our teams, cultivate leaders and create a community that supports everyone in it. No one should ever feel excluded or less welcome because of gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, or background. Experience and social science have shown that diversity can generate better results, in analysis, insight, and professional decision-making.

As professional gamers we are committed to the Derby House Principles:

Promoting inclusion and diversity in professional wargaming, through the standards we set, the opportunities we offer, and access to activities we organise.
Making clear our opposition to sexism, racism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination across the board, as well as in wargaming.
Encouraging a greater role and higher profile for colleagues from underrepresented groups in our professional activities.
Seeking out and listening to the concerns and suggestions of our colleagues as to how our commitment to diversity and inclusion could be enhanced.
Demonstrating our commitment to diversity and inclusion through ongoing assessment of progress made and discussion of future steps.

*Derby House in Liverpool was the location of the Western Approaches Tactical Unit during WWII. WATU conducted some of the most consequential wargaming in the history of armed conflict. It was staffed by women from all walks of life, and men considered unfit for duty at sea through illness and injury. Between them was the breadth of tactical, technical, social and cultural knowledge necessary to train naval officers from every Allied nation.

For more information about WATU click here.

Diversity and Decision Making Information

There is good evidence from Social Science that a diverse group generates better results, so we aren't just talking about justice, we are talking about achieving more across the board. We have diverse participants from all over the world and we firmly believe that this makes for a more informed debate, better games and more accurate results.

For more information please read the McKinsey&Company Report here. This shows a statistically significant relationship between a more diverse leadership team and better financial performance.

In his book about The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki identifies the importance of diversity and independence of thought in group decision making. A summary of the book is here.

The UK Games Industry Census here contains interesting detail on diversity in computer games, including job roles, nationality, education and mental health in addition to the more usual metrics.