Attention: Facilitating a Business Simulation

Hello SimDev Community

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and a nice time off. As we're rapidly heading towards year end, we thought we'd provide something to think about for 2010. We get more and more calls regarding the possibility of self facilitation of a business simulation for training and development. We are avid supporters of self facilitation. But we are also cautious in your defense.

Most people don't understand the complexity of facilitating a business training simulation. It's an unparalleled tool for modern training and development. With the wonderful applicability and rewards comes complexity. We aren't trying to scare you away because we're quite sure you'll do great. We just want to correctly set expectations and prevent the flash of overwhelming warmth that often comes at the beginning of a new program that has a business simulation.

Keep in mind, you and your team will have to keep track of: Setup, content, facilitation, support, technology setup, technology support, calculations, applications, and presentations. It's all very doable. We just don't want you to underestimate what goes into these. Remember, you'll also probably be trying to manage the rest of your program. A custom business simulation is just another new layer.

Takeaway from this: Take the time to be challenged, learn, and grow with your business simulation. We strongly recommend a pilot program. We've seen a trend to move straight into production level programs and skip the pilot. This is not recommended.

Final Thoughts: Facilitating a business training simulation is incredibly rewarding, applicable, and exciting. It also ads a layer of complexity you should prepare for. It's our job to make sure you're comfortable, confident, and prepared to be a business simulation facilitation rock star. Be comforted in the fact that we take our job seriously.

Have a great week!