Hello SimDevGroup Community-
We hope you are well. For years, the single biggest question we get is, "Should I use a custom business simulation or an off the shelf business simulation?" We can answer this in just a few questions. So, we decided to proactively help people choose. Granted, this is just a broad attempt, but in our testing, it's actually worked out pretty well. We went ahead and took it live last night. You can play with it by going to the home page and clicking the little guy in the middle standing in front of a question mark. For the geeks out there, its totally written HTML5. For those that don't have a modern browser, it will fall back to Javascript. For those that don't support Javascript, well, just give us a call.
We're pretty excited about the business simulation assistant tool. Keep in mind, its pretty rough around the edges for now, but hey, its just 1.0.
Enjoy and we hope this helps!
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
Tips and Tricks to Picking a Simulation Solution
Hello SimDevGroup Community-
The first time most all the companies we work with call us, they say something along the lines of, "Well, I'm just learning about using a business simulation." We're always more than happy to talk about things to think about when choosing a business simulation for training and development. Here are some tips:
1. Do you need off the shelf or custom business simulation- This may seem like a big question to answer, but you'll pretty quickly see what you need most. If the subject matter has very little to do with any specifics to your company, then an off the shelf solution may be the easiest way to go. If your training program is specific to your organization or company, then a custom solution will probably be best.
2. Should you build or buy- This is a tough question to answer. One which we can't easily answer. In our experience, it will usually come down to time, resources, and expertise. If you have a team that is exceptionally good as statistical modeling, software development, and business acumen, then build inside. If you only have an instructional design team, then go outside. There is a huge difference between building a training program and building a business simulation.
3. Should you self facilitate or outsource facilitation- Again, take a look at your internal capabilities first. If your facilitators either have strong business acumen or have the capacity to learn it very quickly, then explore self facilitation. But if your team is scared of the three financial statements and concerned with being "caught", then take a look outside. There is nothing worse for a facilitator than being run over by participants.
4. Should I build new, or reuse existing training program(s)- This is actually pretty simple: A business simulation should not replace your existing training content. So don't feel that the simulation will render your existing content obsolete. Just ask this simple question, "Is my existing training program still relevant?" If it is, then definitely continue to use it. If the content is out of date or irrelevant, then its time to throw it out or update it anyway. No matter the case, the simulation is not the training, it is simply a tool for more effective training. A good business simulation should fit nicely into an existing training program.
5. Should I pay a ton for a business simulation?- No. The simulation should not cost too much. If its too much of your budget, don't risk other programs spending everything on a shiny new simulation. Chances are, those dollars could be used better if its really that big of a percentage. Spend your money like investment advisors advise their clients: Diversity!
We hope this helps. Have a great weekend.
The first time most all the companies we work with call us, they say something along the lines of, "Well, I'm just learning about using a business simulation." We're always more than happy to talk about things to think about when choosing a business simulation for training and development. Here are some tips:
1. Do you need off the shelf or custom business simulation- This may seem like a big question to answer, but you'll pretty quickly see what you need most. If the subject matter has very little to do with any specifics to your company, then an off the shelf solution may be the easiest way to go. If your training program is specific to your organization or company, then a custom solution will probably be best.
2. Should you build or buy- This is a tough question to answer. One which we can't easily answer. In our experience, it will usually come down to time, resources, and expertise. If you have a team that is exceptionally good as statistical modeling, software development, and business acumen, then build inside. If you only have an instructional design team, then go outside. There is a huge difference between building a training program and building a business simulation.
3. Should you self facilitate or outsource facilitation- Again, take a look at your internal capabilities first. If your facilitators either have strong business acumen or have the capacity to learn it very quickly, then explore self facilitation. But if your team is scared of the three financial statements and concerned with being "caught", then take a look outside. There is nothing worse for a facilitator than being run over by participants.
4. Should I build new, or reuse existing training program(s)- This is actually pretty simple: A business simulation should not replace your existing training content. So don't feel that the simulation will render your existing content obsolete. Just ask this simple question, "Is my existing training program still relevant?" If it is, then definitely continue to use it. If the content is out of date or irrelevant, then its time to throw it out or update it anyway. No matter the case, the simulation is not the training, it is simply a tool for more effective training. A good business simulation should fit nicely into an existing training program.
5. Should I pay a ton for a business simulation?- No. The simulation should not cost too much. If its too much of your budget, don't risk other programs spending everything on a shiny new simulation. Chances are, those dollars could be used better if its really that big of a percentage. Spend your money like investment advisors advise their clients: Diversity!
We hope this helps. Have a great weekend.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Right Tools For The Right Job
Hello SimDevGroup Community-
Have you taken time to think about what tools you're using for your business training or leadership development programs? If not, we actually think this is good. Why? Because most people think heavily about getting the right training tools well before they have clearly defined the job. To take a step even further back, have you taken a look at the core set of business training program needs? Where did your training program come from? Did it come from a program that has been around for awhile, built up over a series of annual need changes? If so, we're guessing you have a few training barnacles. What are we getting at?
We recommend you take an hour or so, look at your most important business training or leadership development program and look at the following: The training program need, the training program goals, and then the training tools. If you instantly look at the latter two, you will wind up with an unfocused training program that is trying to fix too many needs (some of which may no longer be relevant).
This brings us to the final point... what training tools are you using? Are you using a little bit of a lot of things? If so, you're going to get the same results... a little of this, a little of that, and not a lot of focus. This is especially the case when it comes to creating a business simulation for training and development or leadership development.
We bring this up because we just completed a very long and painful exercise of really looking at our backend office systems (which are very complex due to software development). We took a hard and focused look at the tools we use to create business training simulations and/or leadership development simulation software. In the end, we cut out roughly 30% of our development tools. This created an amazing amount of focus and we felt like our development systems went through a very much overdue car wash. Feels great and productivity is already much better and with less complaining. We just decided to apply the same concept to business training and leadership development. Hope the idea got you thinking about how and where your current training and development program come from.
We'll be writing more specifically about business simulations soon.
Have you taken time to think about what tools you're using for your business training or leadership development programs? If not, we actually think this is good. Why? Because most people think heavily about getting the right training tools well before they have clearly defined the job. To take a step even further back, have you taken a look at the core set of business training program needs? Where did your training program come from? Did it come from a program that has been around for awhile, built up over a series of annual need changes? If so, we're guessing you have a few training barnacles. What are we getting at?
We recommend you take an hour or so, look at your most important business training or leadership development program and look at the following: The training program need, the training program goals, and then the training tools. If you instantly look at the latter two, you will wind up with an unfocused training program that is trying to fix too many needs (some of which may no longer be relevant).
This brings us to the final point... what training tools are you using? Are you using a little bit of a lot of things? If so, you're going to get the same results... a little of this, a little of that, and not a lot of focus. This is especially the case when it comes to creating a business simulation for training and development or leadership development.
We bring this up because we just completed a very long and painful exercise of really looking at our backend office systems (which are very complex due to software development). We took a hard and focused look at the tools we use to create business training simulations and/or leadership development simulation software. In the end, we cut out roughly 30% of our development tools. This created an amazing amount of focus and we felt like our development systems went through a very much overdue car wash. Feels great and productivity is already much better and with less complaining. We just decided to apply the same concept to business training and leadership development. Hope the idea got you thinking about how and where your current training and development program come from.
We'll be writing more specifically about business simulations soon.
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