Lets start with a few questions:
- What if participants could not only interact with the Sim’s artificial market, but the real market of the company they work for at the same time? How would that effect a participants behavior and learning?
- Is there a way participants could immediately see their marketplace results intra-program in order to dynamically see results?
- How would this work and would it cost a bloody fortune?
Let us take a look at this:
First of all, this is all possible. The trick lies in its applicability. In this case, we’re taking an purposefully created artificial environment and mixing it with dynamic market conditions that have their own dials, levers, and news feeds. This is where the challenge comes in. From a crude visual stand point, this is what it might look like:
By utilizing some simple internet feeds, this is easily accomplished. Again, the challenge is how to effectively accomplish this without bursting the learning bubble.
Now more interestingly, what about dynamic market competition with real-time competition (instead of traditional rounds). This might set people’s hair on fire (is this good?). Picture this: An individual makes a decision which effects the entire marketplace (say a lower price). This causes another team to react (does this start a price war?). Another team is watching this and decides to optimize their product and adjust their forecasted units. At the same time, another team emphasizes marketing which starts a frenzy in marketing initiatives. This is all done in real time. What would traditionally take 2 hours is now thrown into 5 minutes.
This is certainly possible but would require some exceptionally gifted facilitators. Could you imagine facilitating 25 people in what equals 20 hours of facilitation per “round” (wow!).
How about the cost. Suffice it to say its coming down but at the moment, all of this is pretty labor intensive to pull off. Definitely worth exploring. Especially the dynamic decision modeling.
That’s great stuff!
