Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Simulation Blog Comments Provider

Hello- SimDev community.

Puzzle Piece
A quick note to say that we had to switch over blog comments provider. We’re sorry to say this erased the comments on the previous blog posts. We apologize for this. Unfortunately, this was a surprise to us as well. The good news is that this should complete the transition from the old blog engine. Thus, we’re good to go for the foreseeable future (in tech, that means the next 6 months :) ).

Thanks-
The Sim Dev Team

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Soft Skills and Business Simulations or Games

Puzzle Piece
Teaching leadership and people management skills is a critical component of effective employee development. A business simulation is an effective tool to reinforce the important skills taught in management training. How cool would this be:

The message is (these are examples):
- Be courageous
- Listen carefully
- manage execution
- be adaptable
- act strategically

How about a business game or business simulation that has the ability to measure how people put these skills into place. While participants are learning about the challenges of running their current business, they are being measured and scored on how effectively they apply these skills as a team.

Thus, teams are scored not only on how effectively they plan and execute their business plan, but HOW they execute utilizing the criteria above. This forces the participants to utilize the new skills and practice.

This is very effective experiential learning. This doesn’t need to be complicated. It just takes a coordinated effort. We recommend companies such as PDI. They are best at what they focus on.

Very cool and very effective.