Business Training Simulations

All SimDevGroup Backend Systems In The Cloud!

2012-01-13T10:24:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

This is more excitement for us than anything, but as of 2:33am this morning, all of SimDevGroup's backend management systems is 100% completely in the cloud. So, what does this mean and why did we do it? Here's why this matters:

- This reduces our IT costs by approximately 27% per year - Lower cost to us means lower costs for business simulation users
- This reduces our time on IT projects by about 73% - This is HUGE! This means we'll spend more time creating business simulations
- This reduces our Carbon Footprint. Its hard to measure and exact amount, but we don't have to run a closet of computer systems any longer.
- Since we're in the cloud, all computer systems sync in realtime. This means all simulation projects for training and development or leadership development are all in sync, all contacts, appointments, etc.

Overall, yes, we're excited, but anyone that uses SimDevGroup for custom business simulations or leadership development simulation should also be excited because this keeps our time to delivery down in addition to our costs of development.

Have a great weekend!

Formats and Methods of Business Simulations- The Big Debate!

2012-01-10T15:00:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

What format do you deliver your business simulation for training and development? Paper, Visual Basic, Flash, Flex, Compiled C, Cocoa, C#, Java, Sign Language? We have to ask: Does this really matter all that much? If the end product is exactly what you were looking for, why do people care? We use all of the above and aren't married or religious about the method and we'd suggest that you shouldn't be either.

Different business simulations have different outcomes (aka: Goals for training). Shouldn't this alone dictate the idea that different tools should be used depending on the outcome specifics of your training program. Note: Not the outcome of the simulation, but the outcome of your training and development objectives. Why do we point this out... Because business simulations should be a second priority, not the first! The first priority is ensuring the goals of your training and development program are met. Then comes business simulations.

Why are we writing about this? Because this old argument keep reappearing and we just kind of roll our eyes. The only time this really matters is if ERP or LMS integration is ABSOLUTELY essential. Why are we shouting absolutely? Because we're not a huge fan of massive overkill in any situation much less for Training and Development. These systems are huge and often massive overkill. Just IOHO ;D.

Anyway... why worry about the development environment? You should worry about the outcome and alignment. This is the most important part. Go with the 80/20 rule and you'll be happy.

Hope this helps. Have a great week!

Business Simulations New Year's Resolution

2012-01-03T06:34:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year SimDevGroup Community!

We've had a terrific 2011 and 2012 looks to be even better. This year, we are cutting back the number of business simulations we create (gasp!). Traditionally, we only do a handful. The reason is that we spend about 25% of our time doing research and development. The goal is to create the world's finest business simulations or leadership development simulations for training and development at the lowest price possible (aka: focus!). 2011 we only spent about 15% of our time in R&D and we want to ensure this doesn't happen in 2012.

With this in mind, we would like to solicit your help!

Please send us an email and tell us what you'd like to learn more about. Most of the business simulation research and development is dedicated to finding ways to teach others how to use a business simulation or leadership development simulation within training and development. To drop us an email, just use the contact form that is at the bottom of most any of our web pages. We use these forms because if we don't, we get an uncontrollable amount of spam.

Again: If you'd like to learn anything about using a business simulation or leadership development simulation, please send us an email and we'll do our best to create a method to share this information.

Happy New Year!!!

Happy Holidays from SimDevGroup

2011-12-21T09:38:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

Wow! The phones and emails sure have slowed down this week! This suddenly caused us to poke our heads out from building business simulations to realize that the holidays are here :) .

This is a just a quick note to say thank you and happy holidays! We've had a great 2011 and have built many exciting business training simulations and leadership development simulations. Thank you for trusting us as your partner. We've had a great time.

Happy Holidays!
- SimDevGroup Team

Collaborating on Business Simulations

2011-12-07T10:38:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community!

Again, sorry for the lag in posts... again, its the run up to developing business simulations for January delivery. Anyway, we just wanted to quickly talk about the importance of collaborating on projects. We don't know it all (Gasp!). Far from it. We know how to build business simulations, but you know your business, your needs, and your company better than anyone else: Especially us!

Thus, we cannot over emphasize the importance you should feel when working with us. When we create business simulations, we hope to get as much input, ideas, and nutty concepts from our customers as possible. Through collaboration, we hope to learn from each other and build the best business simulation or leadership training simulation possible. We're very un-uptight, we don't take ourselves very seriously, and we love learning from others! Thus, don't hesitate to jump in with us, give us some ideas, and learn.

Have a great half week!

Happy Holidays for Our US Based Customers

2011-11-23T14:03:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

Specifically our US based community. We'd like to wish you a happy, safe, and most of all, FESTIVE holiday season. Apologies we've been quiet lately. Its our usual pre-January new business simulation development madness. We'll try to post more often.

Have a great holiday!
- The SimDevGroup Team

Business Simulations and 2012

2011-11-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

We're hard at work creating new business simulations for 2012. Here's what we're seeing in terms of trends for 2012:
- Business Simulations for self facilitation are back on the rise- This is great, but we're being very careful about who facilitates and ensuring the readiness.
- Business Simulations for assessment- This is a new one. Companies are starting to use business simulations for situational assessment. Its fun and interesting to use business simulations in this way.
- Business Simulations for Leadership Development- Nothing new here. Just seems to be on the rise.

Those are our top three so far. It seems that companies are getting their 2012 programs off the ground a little late this year. Usually by November, we're most of the way through development. This year, we're about halfway through which is late. No big deal. Just a little different.

Have a great week!

How To: Taking Training Content and Creating A Business Simulation

2011-10-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community!

A common question we hear is, "How do you take our training content and create a business simulation?" The answer is: Its not easy ;^).

Seriously, SimDevGroup follows a Lean Six Sigma process when developing a custom business training simulation. This is a great model to work with because it focuses very strongly on assessment, info gathering, info management, development, review, and redevelopment. This has worked for us for over 7 years and we have no plans on changing this.

Whether you are creating a customer business training simulation or leadership development simulation, or not creating a simulation at all, we recommend getting familiar with this model and at least following it loosely. To learn more about Lean Six Sigma, simply search online and a very diverse set of information will be returned. Apply what you see to your training program creation or leadership development program creation. You'll find it very easy to apply.

Hope this helps!

Being Product and People Centric

2011-10-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

As you may or may not know, most of us here came from Apple. A few of us worked very closely with Steve and thus, its a terribly upsetting time for us. But we thought we'd take this opportunity to communicate what we learned from our years at Apple. Be product and people centric and delight people with whatever you do in your role. If you work from the user back, focus on ease of use, and relentlessly drive towards best results, you'll forever create great solutions.

Thus, we'd like to suggest that whatever business training solutions you create, work from the user backwards and relentlessly drive towards delighting and over delivering on what others expect from you. Its how we live here and we can't emphasize the wonderful feeling you'll get from beating people's expectations.

Have a great weekend!

Business Simulations: Competing Against The Computer

2011-09-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

Apologies for the tardy post. We moved our offices to a new location. Need I say more? Didn't think so.

Lets repeat a question we're often asked: Do Business Training Simulations require that I compete against the computer? We say, "No! Try to avoid this!"

Having participants compete against a computer is actually kind of a bad idea. Why? Because participants don't believe the outcome and they know it's rigged. Also, people by nature love to have friendly competitions. Why do you think games are so much fun and so popular. This would also explain the explosion in social networked based collaborative games online. We advise you to take a hard look. Are the business training simulations you're currently using forcing the participants to compete against a bunch of computerized assumptions or are your participants competing against their peers?

In some cases, competing against an unreal competitor is fine. In most of the cases where companies are trying to teach specific skills (especially leadership development), this method just doesn't fit. All modeling should be relative to peers, not relative to R2D2. Having an R2D2 based competitor is a cheap way out of a complex solution. Its best if the teams see results based on the decisions of their peers. Just our humble opinion based on what we've see work and not work within the world of business simulations for corporate learning and development.

Have a great weekend.

Business Simulations and Assessment

2011-09-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

Are business training simulations good for employee assessments? Yes they are, but we recommend being cautious with this.

We're not saying its a bad idea. Its actually a very interesting way to assess an employee's business capabilities. We only mention caution because if you try to assess and teach at the same time, most people who are making decisions within the business simulation will focus on trying to score highly. Thus, learning will be a very distant second. Its a great idea. We just recommend separating the two.

We have seen using a business training simulation for assessment and training both succeed and fail. As usual, it depends on the training topics, methods, and content. But, the short answer to, "Can I use a business training simulation for assessment?" is: Yes you can. Just think it through carefully. :)

Hope this helps!

Remember, Business Simulations Are Poor Instructors

2011-09-09T09:01:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

We know, we know. We've said this many times (especially when you talk with us): Simulations are terrible instructors! Shall we repeat it? Thought not.

Ok, why are we bringing up the fact that business simulations or leadership simulations are terrible instructors? Well, this is because we have suddenly received a lot of calls lately about stand alone business training simulations as an instruction program. This is a poor fit for a business simulation. Business simulations are simply a highly effective tool for training content reinforcement. The best business simulations are those that reinforce YOUR training content (not some generic content or remote theory).

An effective business simulation is one that enables your training participants to practice and apply your training content. Instructor led (whether distance or local) is still the best way to encourage collaborative learning and people learn best from people. But a business training simulation is an exceptional tool to enable a safe way for participants to experience the positive impact of your training content on your business.

So, once again, a business training simulation or leadership development simulation is great for content reinforcement and application, but not so good as a stand alone instructor. For now, we'll leave it at that until we feel the need to repeat it once again ;^).

Have a great weekend!

Business Simulations Running on an iPad

2011-09-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

As always, we have been very busy with R&D. We love R&D and wish that this is all we could do. Obviously, this isn't a good business model so we squeeze in R&D on a very structured basis. But, one of the projects we've been focusing on is building a business simulation that runs on an iPad. Well, we've done it. It runs great and is a lot of fun to use. Is it better than a traditional platform? No, not necessarily, but it does have the sizzle factor. We've done user testing and its great for 1 person per ipad, but terrible for teams. This probably doesn't come as a major shocker, but worth mentioning.

These simulations take a lot of time to create because it requires they be written in Cocoa (within XCode) which is a very specialized application development environment that is on Mac OS X only. But... running a leadership simulation on an iPad is a lot of fun. We had a good time building it, runs well, but we're just looking for the right fit. This of course, depends on the customer. Thus, if you're really looking to run a simulation on an iPad, let us know, but be ready for some usage tradeoffs. iPads are still single user devices.

Have a great long weekend!

Quanititative Relavance In Modeling Behavior Within Business Simulations

2011-08-16T12:43:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

How does one go about relating similar or like data and providing incentives to change behavior? Oddly enough, this is usually done in written form by building a story and a set of relevant circumstances. As technical and mathematical as the title of this post may seem, what makes this work for a business simulation is something as simple as a good story. The story really helps connect the quantitative relevancy of the training simulation to the actual real life events the participants are forced to work within on a daily basis.

Why do we bring this up? We want you to understand that you shouldn't worry about the quantitative relevancy model. You should be thinking most about the story, the circumstances, and what you want the participants to learn most. The story really connects participants to the 'why' behind the entire training exercise. Thus, our tip... When you're thinking about creating a custom business simulation, take time to think of the back story of the program. It will be time well spent.

Do Business or Leadership Simulations Have To Be Competitive?

2011-08-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community!

Definitely not! In fact, many of our leadership development simulations are not competitive. The primary driver behind why some aren't is very simple: Need for more collaboration.

In many leadership development programs, the topic of cross function or cross division collaboration is a very important competency to build. The problem is that so many leadership development simulations or business training simulations are built with the assumption that teams are going to compete against each other. Does this sound like a very good way for participants to learn effective collaboration? We didn't think so either!

How does a collaborative simulation work exactly? Good question. This is very simple. The participants that are going through the business training simulation program are broken into teams, but not competing teams. Instead, they must work together to accomplish a common goal, but one that not a single team can control on their own. Isn't this really simulating how a company actually works? Of course it does. The groups and participants of the leadership simulation are still scored and evaluated, but in a very different way.

Thus, including a business training simulation within your leadership development program does not require the simulation to be based on a competitive model. Actually, we recommend against it. The trick is to build up the case correctly, group to teams in a logical and applicable way, and foster a collaborative environment and not you vs me environment. This creates a very healthy and energetic environment where participants are learning teamwork, cross collaboration, and effective communication skills.

The result is a very effective, applicable, and engaging leadership development simulation that is easy to facilitate, engaging for participants, and applicable to the business requirements.

We hope this helps!

New! Business Simulation eBooks Section Added! Learn Even More!

2011-07-27T12:45:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community!

We are excited to finally announce that we have opened a new section: Business Training Simulation ebooks

This is where we will load up formal ebooks that are free to download and read. We have separated out ebooks from whitepapers. Whitepapers is where we will post more of our research type results and ebooks are geared more towards light and quick reading on specific topics.

Let us know what you think and we hope this helps you learn more about using business simulations within training and development.

Connecting Behavior and Leadership to Learning Objectives is TOUGH!

2011-07-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community!

Don't kid yourself, connecting learning objectives to leadership development to behavior to business outcomes within a business training simulation is not an easy thing to do. It takes planning, forward thinking, and creativity to successfully accomplish. We have to be honest, its not something we do alone. We don't try to kid ourselves that we have the answers. We create custom business simulation solutions. With custom solutions comes a very high level of collaboration. The good news is that because its a highly collaborative process, the outcomes are usually very satisfying.

If you are thinking of creating a custom business simulation based on specific behaviors (like leadership competencies), buckle up. There is no one size method fits all. Its a learning adventure that is very well worth doing, but is definitely a process and a learning process to boot. If its well done, it will take a high degree of collaboration, commitment, and creativity. Most of all, it takes a grounded sense of what is truly accomplishable and facsilitatable. The fruits are well worth the labor. You'll wind up with a training support and reinforcement tool like no other. It will sing in harmony with the content you want to deliver and the business objectives you want to reinforce. A business training simulation based on leadership behavior is an endeavor that is well worth the time. We just wanted to let you know it will stretch your learning and development organization in ways you probably never imagined. The good news is that its like a good fitness routine: you'll come out stronger on the other side. We'll be right there with you as your workout buddy and trainer. Leadership development is a tough topic to teach. You think its tough to teach, try to simulate it ;).

Have a great week!

Learn How To Facilitate A Business Training Simualtion

2011-07-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

UCXXCR5W6XWY

Hello SimDev Community-

Would you like to learn how to facilitate a business training simulation? Great! It looks like we're probably going to open up enrollment for a small number of participants who wish to learn how to effectively facilitate a business simulation. We're not sure when and where yet, but if you're interested in attending, please let us know soon. This will be 2 days of informal, fun, and useful information.

You will learn the following:
- Manage the technology of a business training simulation
- How to setup for a business training simulation program ahead of time
- How to give insights into the results of a business training simulation
- Manage the participants, technology, and content all in tandem
- How to deal with a business training simulation "crisis"

Of course, we'll post more information when it becomes available. Hopefully, we'll have more information about this training course soon.

Have a great summer-e weekend!

Secret code: UCXXCR5W6XWY

Leadership Development Simulation Training?

2011-07-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community!

Are you interested in learning how to build and facilitate your own leadership development or corporate training simulation? We have been getting quite a few requests for train the trainer solutions. We normally host train the trainer sessions for individual companies that are implementing a leadership development simulation or business training simulation. We do these all the time. But we have kicked around the idea of hosting a few companies at one time. In essence, a build your own leadership development simulation training summit. Is this interesting to you?

If you are interested in either a leadership development simulation training course or business training simulation training course, please drop us a form letter. We're going to take a temperature of the interest and decide in the fall if enough people are interested.

Let us know and how a wonder holiday (here in the states).

Another Revamp of Simulation Development Group's Web Site

2011-06-17T13:06:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community!

We are almost out of this crazy simulation delivery season. Soon, we'll be able to take a breather and work on other things for a month or so. Thus, we're pre-announcing a slow migration to a new web site platform. What does this mean for those who use a customer business training simulation for learning and development? Well, it means you'll be able to learn more than ever. We try our best to make our site educational, but this can get challenging at times due to infrastructure. We plan on creating a new place for you to go and learn more about business training simulations, leadership development, or learning and development as a whole. We hope to finish the transition by the end of the summer. If we don't we're in trouble because the fall delivery season cranks back up and we'll be behind.

Stay tuned! More coming soon!

- SimDevGroup Team

New Advances in Delivery Technology in Learning and Development

2011-06-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

Long time no talk and we hope to be out of the madness soon.

Facilitation a learning and development program is hard enough without having to worry about technology. The good news is: Technology is getting smaller and faster (gasp- Shocker, we know). When thinking about the technology needs of facilitation a learning and development business training simulation or leadership development simulation, you should think about a few things:

Our top 5 list of technology considerations to think about when facilitating a learning and development business training simulation:

1. Use Clean Technology- What we mean here is: Is the technology you're using very non-contaminated? Is the technology yours or are you using participant's technology. Our advice: Use your own clean machines.
2. Test and Test Again- Get your hands on the technology as early as possible and then test your business simulations on this technology as much as you can. You'll thank yourself for it later.
3. Forego Power For Predictability- We have yet to see a business simulation really use up the power of modern computers. Thus, if you can, try to get older machines that your IT department has cleaned up for you. Chances are, there are older computers laying around that will work great.
4. Scrap advanced technology for tested!- Don't feel the need to invite uncertainty into your program. Go without wireless if you can, its more stable. Go without advanced HDMI if possible, its more stable. Go without the flux capacitor, its more stable. Go with what works and has been around for awhile!
5. Keep Technology Local- Try to avoid a highly internet dependent solution. Make sure there are backups if the internet goes down. Believe us, it happens. Whether it be a hotel connection (very unstable), Corporate connections (firewall issues), or anything, make sure to have a local backup solution.

As you have probably guessed, we believe in the show must go on! No matter the case, the technology has to work. Even though there have been advances in technology, go with what works when it comes to using a business simulation within your learning and development program.

Good Luck!

Where has SimDevGroup Gone?

2011-05-25T14:50:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

Let's start off with an apology. Our postings have been less frequent. We warned this was going to happen in a previous post. April, May, and June have training simulation overlap in them. This wasn't intentional, but when it comes to planning outcomes, what really is? In results, we haven't been able to make many postings worth reading when it comes to business training simulations or leadership development simulations. We'll keep trying but until we get through this perfect storm of simulation programs, they might be a bit thin. :) Stay tuned.

Thanks!

Business Training Simulation Facilitation- Give Yourself Some Time!

2011-05-12T11:24:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community!

We are entering the tail end of the mass business training simulation facilitation season. This includes business simulations, leadership development simulation, or just the generic business training simulation types. We have noticed a trend that is worrying us. People new to facilitation are giving themselves very little time to facilitate the simulation. This is not a good idea. We very highly urgently recommend you give yourself plenty of time to facilitate a business training simulation. Think we feel strongly about this :) ? We certainly do.

If you give yourself just a little bit of time to facilitate a business training simulation, you will make mistakes and your prep work will be just adequate at absolute best. Net Net: Give yourself more time than you think you need. We can promise you, its more stressful than we make it look. Why? Because we have been facilitating business training and leadership training simulations for a long time. Thus, we can do it in our sleep.

Please, please... give yourself plenty of time to work with the simulation, look at the results, and build a learning story around the simulation. You will be much happier with your results and your participants will learn a lot more.

We hope this helps!

Mobile Site for Business Simulations

2011-04-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

Last week, Simulation Development Group launched it's mobile site. We're pretty excited. You can now view business training simulations and leadership development simulation related information on the go. The site is optimized for most any mobile device and adjusts on its own. Thus, if you're looking to get information on business training simulation, learning simulations, or leadership development simulations from a desktop or any type of mobile device, the site will automagically adjust.

This is something that is long overdue and we just simply fell behind. But, its up and running. By no means is this final. Its just a starting point. We're going to continue to work on this and refine it over the the next couple of weeks.

To view the site, just to go simdevgroup.com with a mobile device and it will automatically adjust for you.

Enjoy!
SimDevGroup Team

Leadership Development Simulations and "Business"

2011-04-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

We have written extensively on utilizing a business simulation for leadership development. This is a fantastic solution for your leadership development program. Interestingly, over the past few months, we have had an unusually high number of inquireries regarding the business side of the leadership development simulation. Remember, when we say business, we are speaking generally. Every organization, from education to not for profits has a "business" side to it somewhere. Maybe your "business" is measured in the number of people you make smile. Great! We love it. But then you're in the business of smile development.

We post this note because you shouldn't feel like your organization (or sub-organization) needs to be in "business" because it doesn't. It just needs to have some sort of organization to it where somebody can learn something to better it's desired outcomes.

So, when you think of a business simulation, don't think briefcase, big glass building, and cubes. Think "me!".

Have a great weekend!

April Fools Day Simulation

2011-04-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

We love pranks, fun, and laughing. Thus, we had to post something on April Fools Day. Did you know that April Fools Day has been traced back to the 1300s. WOW! People have enjoyed pranks and fun for many many years. Wikipedia has an interesting write up about April fools day here: About April Fools Day. What does this have to do with a business simulation, business training simulation, leadership development simulation, business silo simulation, or custom business simulation? Absolutely nothing. We just wanted to wish everyone a happy April Fools Day!

Have fun!
- SimDevGroup Team

Why A Business Simulation for Training and Development

2011-03-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

We have covered this topic one way or another, but not directly. Why use a business simulation for learning and development? There are many answers, but the easiest is: A Business Simulation helps change things quicker. When we say things, we really mean behavior. The whole goal of training is to create positive change. The best way to create change is to let people try a theory and learn themselves. The learning then becomes natural. Simply telling a manager, "these leadership competencies are good" is rarely enough. They need to try applying the competencies to experience how it positively impacts their business.

This brings us to a second important point. A business simulation is best when it applies to their business. A generic business simulation helps, but isn't optimal. A custom business simulation that is not just tailored, but completely customized around a business works best. This way, the participants are given the opportunity to try the learning content theory on their own business. Thus, the solution is far more applicable. This accomplishes a few important aspects of learning:

1. A business simulation enables participants to try your training and development content
2. A custom business simulation enables participants to try your training and development content on their business
3. A custom business simulation quickly changes behavior which helps a company quickly move in the direction needed

We're going to continue to talk about this in the future, but thought this would be a good place to start.

Have a great weekend!

Self Facilitated Leadership Development Simulations Made Easier

2011-03-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

Considering the clear upward trend of self facilitated leadership development business simulations, we have been conducting some extensive R&D into how to make the process even easier for the facilitator(s). We have succeeded.

As we have mentioned in many other posts regarding business training simulation self facilitation, its not always an easy task. Thus, we set out a little over a year ago to make it easier. We were so serious about this, we devoted 35% of our entire R&D budget towards making facilitation of a business training simulation easier. We're happy to say that it has paid off.

Its difficult to explain the process in text, but we have the process down to 3 easy steps that takes under 1 minute. Of course, facilitating a business training simulation for leadership development (or any development) is a bit trickier than this. But managing the simulation itself is a lot easier. You already have the expertise to facilitate, now you'll have the confidence to manage the business training simulation on your own.

We plan on integrating this process in April. All self facilitated business training simulations or leadership development simulations will now have this new process.

Many hours went into developing this process and we'd like to thank our engineers for thinking like a user. You have made leadership development simulations and business simulations even more accessible.

Have a great remainder for the week.

250K Calculations Business Simulation

2011-03-06T08:52:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDev Community!

By no stretch of the imagination is this a mini business simulation. We are in the midst of building one of our biggest business simulations yet. So far, we've past the 250K simultaneous calculations threshold. Wow! That's a lot. This solution is built in Obj-C so its Mac based only (or iPhone, but that's a bit much of the iPhone). This particular sim took us about a month to create. We're are estimating this particular business training simulation will land at around 300K calculations in total. The amazing thing is that it runs without breaking a sweat on a 3 year old laptop. This just goes to show the power of running modern business training simulations. The computing power is there no problem.

I know what you're saying, "But you guys are always talking about the advantages of smaller business training simulations for leadership development or organizational development." We know. But when a customer has specific needs, we do the big stuff too. As we've stated before: A business training simulation or leadership development simulation needs to work from the training objectives backwards. Thus, in this case, a larger business simulation was necessary. Its actually a lot of fun to write.

Have a great week!

Competitive Business Simulations.. Good Or Not?

2011-02-25T08:03:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDev Community-

We'd like to quickly touch on the topic of competitive simulations vs. non competitive. SimDev Group creates business simulations that are both competitive and non competitive for a number of reasons. In most cases, adding an element of competition is a great idea. It keeps people engaged, adds and element of reality, and pushes people to do better. It also creates a slightly more competitive environment (by design). But what happens if you're trying to foster teamwork? Is a competitive simulation still a good solution? Our research shows its not always the best solution.

Of course, when using a business simulation, it depends on what the desired outcomes are of the training and development program. This is obvious. What isn't as obvious is when to use a competitive business simulation and when not to. This isn't always crystal clear. Like we always like to get on our soapbox by saying, "You have to start with the end goal in mind!" Basically, we're just saying that you need to start with your training and development goals. Then look to see if a competitive business simulation is going to reinforce the wrong behavior.

So next time you are looking to integrate a business simulation into your training and development program, stop and ask yourself, "Do I want the business training simulation to be competitive or not?" Then think about the goals and objectives of the training and development program and simply work backwards. In some cases, the answer is pretty obvious. As always, integrating a business training simulation can be tricky but amazingly rewarding and engaging.

Have a great weekend!

Humankind Wins!

2011-02-17T20:56:00.000-08:00

Hello World- That was Watson's first remarks. Typical for technology.

IBM's amazing Watson algorithmic analytical computational system took on Jeopardy's best players. The humans won (hurray!). This display of marketing and amazing technology did demonstrate two things:

1) The human brain is beyond amazing. Its one of the true miracles
2) Technology has come a long way in the last 10 years, but still has some way to go.

The question is, "Where are we trying to go?" We just wish that as much money went into Watson and marketing for this television show would go into medical brain and healing research. But, it was very entertaining and very interesting.

Check Out IBM's website here.

Have a great weekend!

Business Simulation Blogposts

2011-02-07T11:01:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDev Community-

We have a very busy February. Thus, we're sad to say that we might only be doing 2 blog posts this month. We'll try to make sure that they are double strength. If you have questions, curiosities, or interests about business training simulations or leadership development simulations, feel free to scroll down to previous blog posts. Or visit any of our pages outlined at the top of this page. Here, you'll find general information about business training simulations or leadership development simulations.

Talk soon!
- The SimDevTeam

SimDevGroup Database Upate Completed

2011-01-29T16:05:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDev Community-

We have some great news to share and are excited to do so. SimDevGroup has successfully completed a lengthy transition to a more modern enterprise database system. You may be asking, "What the heck does this have to do with business simulations, business training simulations, leadership development, or leadership development simulations?" Our reply to that is "Everything!" Most people don't understand that these days, almost all computer systems run off of one sort of database or another. We made a significant investment over the last six months to bring this system beyond up to date. This really is built for the future. The goal is to keep driving down overhead costs to support our ongoing effort to deliver the world's finest business training simulations and leadership development simulations to any corporation in need. The better the systems flow, the more efficient we can be.

Have a great week!
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Leadership Development Simulations Part II

2011-01-25T09:41:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community,

We hope your year is as exciting as ours so far. This will be a quick post. Its pretty funny how if we write a blog post about Leadership Development, business simulation enthusiasts want us to provide them information about leadership development. If we write about Business Simulations, Leadership Development professionals want more information about business simulations. After last week's post, we received a good number of requests to reference a 101 guide to leadership development. We do have a recommendation. Its very basic, but a good intro . Its ASTD Leadership Development Basics. This is a good book to introduce the basic needs, importance, and concepts of Leadership Development Training.

We hope this helps!

Leadership Development Simulations

2011-01-13T15:32:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDev Community

In 2010, the focus from our customers on leadership development simulations jumped significantly. Thus, we developed a lot of leadership development simulations throughout the year. Needless to say, we gained a lot more experience. By partnering so closely with our customers, we collaboratively built some incredibly exciting leadership development simulation solutions. It was a wonderful year of innovation and experimentation.

Since SimDevGroup is in the business of transferring knowledge, we are going to make a strong effort to share what we learned. This includes what worked and didn't work. Thus, stay tuned and watch for more posts about leadership development and leadership development simulations. If you have any ideas of topics you'd like us to write about, please share them with us and we'll be glad to try and assist.

Have a great week!
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Designing a Program For Training and Development Simulations

2011-01-06T08:19:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDev Community-

We hope your new year is starting well. The topic this week: What to keep in mind when designing a training program that utilizes a business training simulation.

The most important thing to remember when thinking about a program that includes a training and development simulation is: Content first, business simulation second. We can't emphasize this enough. There is a tendency in the industry to build a training and development program around a flashy component (the business simulation). We urge you, please resist the temptation and try to recognize it if it creeps into your design thinking.

There tends to be pressure to excite and engage. This is good, but needs to be recognized and controlled. There is a saying by pilots: recognize and avoid "get there-itis. This suggests to avoid hurting yourself in an effort to get to what you think is your end goal. This can cause a loss of fuel and the rest is self explanatory. Build your rock solid and digestible training and development content first, and then build a simulation around that.

The training and development simulation should take your training content and let people apply it. This is a substantial pedagogical difference from assuming the simulation will do the training. To be clear here: Simulation Development companies should not and are usually not very good at making simulations that deliver YOUR training content. You are the expert at developing training content. You are the expert at what your organization needs. You are the expert of modern training and development trends. Why let a software company give you training content? This simply doesn't make sense.

To effectively create a program with a training and development simulation, there should be a highly integrated partnership. When you write a training and development simulation (or hire someone), you should be ready to work very closely at integrating your content with the delivery method of a business simulation.

In summary, it is best to create a training and development business simulation with content that is provided by you. You are the expert in this field and its up to the business simulation developers to effectively apply that content to reinforce and enable participants to apply your content to real world scenarios. This requires an effective and trusting partnership.

Have a great new year and we hope to hear from you soon.
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Top 5 Trends of 2010

2010-12-29T12:43:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

Wrapping up a great year for business training simulations, we thought it would be appropriate to review the top trends we saw for 2010. Ten is too many, so we capped it to five. Easier to digest and in general more informative. Here goes from 5 to 1:

Trends in Business Training Simulations and Corporate Training and Development:
5. Simplicity- We clearly saw the training and development community wise up and we are ecstatic! Simulations don't need to be monstorous and shouldn't be! You need to focus on what's important: your training and development content. A business training simulation is simply a tool to support your corporate training content. Stay focused!

4. Leadership Development- From our perspective, it looks like companies have decided to invest heavily in their top talent. With the background and demographics of top talent changing, it was very clear that the training and development community decided it was important to engage people in the utilization of the internal leadership competencies. We're doing back flips over this and participants love it. People really seem to resonate with applying leadership competencies to the business. It was an exciting year for leadership development.

3. Very Focused, Very Efficient- This has to be the results of a tough economy and in our humble opinions, this is fantastic. Corporate Training and Development managers seemed to have focused brilliantly on what is most important: Apply the critical corporate training and development objectives. Focus is a great thing and corporations usually wind up stronger in the long run.

2. Challenging Participants (and themselves)- We're talking corporate training and development managers going well beyond powerpoint. Corporate Training and Development managers sat around tables and said, "We really need to push participants out of their comfort zone and challenge them." From our perspective, you did a sensational job at achieving this. We watched participants, squirm, sweat, and really think hard about applying your content. Well done!

1. Self Facilitation- It seems as though times have clearly changed in this decade. As a quick statistic, we saw a 47% rise in self facilitation in 2010 alone. WOW! This is fantastic and we applaud your bravery. As many learned, facilitating a custom business training simulation is not for the faint at heart. Most performed very very well, but learned its not as easy as it appears. Keep it up!

This is it. The top five trends we saw for 2010. We think that in general, these are trends in the right direction. Well done and please keep up the good work, focus, and bravery.

Cheers to 2011! Its going to be a terrific year.
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Happy Holidays!

2010-12-20T10:34:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays from SimDevGroup!

The holidays have snuck up on us as it seems to have everyone. We've been very busy developing customer business training simulations for the new year. Looks like many people have big training plans for Q1 and Q2. Thus, we're almost at full capacity. Feels like training and development activity seems to be climbing and we're happy to see everyone very busy.

We'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you. We feel very lucky to have worked with the wonderfully smart and devoted training and development managers this year. We have felt the pressure you have felt and from our perspective, its been a great year of interesting and well thought out business training simulations. We applaud you and your dedication to your profession.

Our holiday hours will be here and there. We have a lot of work to do for Q1 so we'll probably still be floating around the office. Feel free to give us a call or drop us a note. We'd be happy to talk.

Happy Holidays and cheers to new business simulations in the new year!

Its A Cloudy Day

2010-12-08T15:59:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDev Community-

Its a cloudy day here. Its raining outside and inside for us. Yes, of course we're talking about the weather. We're also talking about cloud computing. It's been awhile since we've mentioned this. Instead, we've been focusing on Business Silos, Business Simulation Facilitation, Business Training Simulations, and Leadership Development Simulations. But this doesn't mean we forgot about cloud based computing. Of course we haven't. Cloud based computing is really the future of computing.

Some day, the internet will be as common as electricity. No matter where we go, we will be electrified by the internet. Think about it: Cars have electricity, boats have electricity, airplanes have electricity. Heck, even submarines have electricity. Lets apply that to the internet. Some day, no matter where we are, we will have the internet. We're in the early stages of this with devices such as Android or iOS. Much of our lives are connected in one way or another.

Thus, we're developing solution for the future that are entirely cloud based. We're hoping to begin to roll out a cloud based business training simulation in the first half of 2011. Of course, we're going to take baby steps to ensure quality and usability. SimDevGroup actually already uses various cloud solutions. We just keep it invisible and call it "Magic". Our cloud based business training simulations are part of the reason we can offer such world class solutions at canned prices. This is because we don't own or manage much infrastructure. Most of our customers like this even though they don't say, "Hey, thanks for utilizing the distributed redundant live syncing and app services." In any case, we're happy to make business training simulations and leadership development simulations accessible to everyone.

Have a great week.

Attention: Facilitating a Business Simulation

2010-11-29T14:06:00.000-08:00

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!

Leadership Development And Business Simulations

2010-11-22T15:11:00.000-08:00

BUSINESS AND LEADERSHIP- What comes first? Effective leadership or effective business management? There is no right answer.

Pure leadership training programs seem to assume that business management doesn't have to be taken into account. It's either this, or there simply is very little business know-how. We often see this and unfortunately, executives get very frustrated with this.

At the end of any of our work days, almost everything comes down to how effectively we manage our business. Each person’s business may be different from the other’s but we all eventually roll into ensuring that the business we work for is run as a business(aka: effectively). Some people have to worry about profit and loss while other don’t. When it comes to leadership within an organization, leaders have to demonstrate both effective leadership and effective business management. At some point, the two become one. Business relies and leadership and leadership relies on business.

In theory, organization’s that have highly effective leadership are usually business’s that are very successful. Of course, there are exceptions. Thus, we believe if you’re utilizing a business training simulation for leadership development, it’s important to have a business management component. Should it dominate the solution? Nope. It really doesn’t need to be big. But it needs to include a component that demonstrates the relation between effective leadership and business success.

Having the business component also ads a critical component: The business part of the leadership simulation ties your leadership content to tangible and applicable business results. Executives and leaders find this critical and appreciate the connection. Additionally, this helps engage executives around real world outcomes and organically demonstrates the importance of your leadership content.

Question to think about: Does your existing leadership development or executive development content have real world and applicable components that relate to real world business challenges (applicable to the company)? If not, why? These days, people expect an exceptionally high level of applicability. What do you need to do to get to this new level?

Have a super holiday weekend (here in the states).

Training Simulations to Teach Partners

2010-11-15T09:10:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDev Community

A trend that has begun to take shape over the last year is using a training simulation to train partner companies. The idea is that in many cases, changing a strategy requires partner companies to be included. Whether the partner is a supplier, a customer, a sales agency, or a contractor. No matter the case, ensuring that the partner company is on board with your requirements is often essential. How does this work?

The training simulation doesn't need to be multi-day, it just needs to focus on what's important: Teaching the importance and advantages of your strategy. This is best accomplished by enabling the participants to experience the advantage of the new strategy (whether it's financial, market share, or position). When participants have the ability to experience the 'why' behind the strategy, this increase comfort and buy-in.

Using a customer business training simulation is also exceptionally engaging. Participants will listen to you, experience the strategy, and get in line with your mutual goals and objectives. This is a quick, easy, and engaging solution that will have immediate impact on your overall business goals.

If you have a partner, contractor, agency, or outside company that is critical to executing your new strategy, think about running them through your business to help increase buy-in and understanding.

Have a nice weekend.

Training To Reduce Business Silos

2010-11-05T10:12:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

We are now headed towards a new year. Nicely nestled into the Fall season is when companies are traditionally well within their next year's planning process. Let us give you something to think about in the form of a question: "Is it possible to reduce business silos through corporate training and development?" The answer is, "Yes, it's possible." This doesn't mean that it's easy to do.

In our research, business silos are traditionally created due to a lack of communication and a lack of position appreciation. This leads to another question: "How can business training help people to communication more effectively. Even tougher, how can business training teach someone to appreciate another person's role?" There are many many business training solutions to increase communication within a company. We're not going to pretend we are experts at this. We're not.

SimDevGroup is experts at training people to appreciate, understand, and utilize other's roles within the company. How? We do this by utilizing a custom business training simulation. The simulation enables participants to be in charge of another department for a day within the business training simulation. Giving people time in another role without the risk or time commitment to job swapping is invaluable. It's also a lot of fun and highly engaging.

Let's look at an example: How about a simulation where a marketing manager has to be an engineer. At the same time, how about letting an engineer manage marketing. While we do this, how about the business training simulation empowers someone in finance to run a sales group. You probably get the point.

The outcome is traditionally a new culture of appreciation and empathy for other's roles within the organization. It also traditionally increases communication because participants now understand how to better work with other divisions.

All this happens within a single days work. That's a good investment of time.

Have a nice weekend.
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Learning Corporate Strategy Through Experience

2010-10-26T16:23:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

Has anyone ever told you their strategy? If so, you've probably said, "Oh great, I see. But why this strategy and how do I fit into it?" This is a very common reaction. How about the other side of the equation... Have you ever told someone your company's strategy and all you see is a slightly tilted head with squinted eyes? Probably. The best way to learn about the 'why' behind a corporate strategy is to experience it. Experience will help your employees learn why you've chosen the strategy and why its the best solution.

The only problem is experience takes a long time and can be risky. This is where a business learning simulation comes in. In a very short amount of time, your employees can quickly learn about your corporate strategy, how they fit in, and how their division can contribute. Best of all, there's next to no risk and its very quick. In one full day, your employees can experience a day in your shoes. This will help answer the questions: Why this strategy, how can I help, and when is this going to happen. These are critical components to a successful strategic execution. Effective strategic leadership requires your employees to learn about your strategy. A custom business simulation is a key and effective solution.

Adaptive Learning Simulations

2010-10-19T12:59:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

How great would it be if a competitive business learning simulation could learn? Traditionally, competitive simulations have an organic adaptability because we as humans are driving the forces naturally. But what if an additional layer was added at a global level. That would be intense. You may be asking, "What does this mean? And how does this relate to learning simulations for training and development?" Let us explain a little....

Say everyone is making decisions within the simulation as usual. What the simulation would do is dynamically look for trends, patterns, or habits. The sim would then compare this to a standard range. If participants as a whole fell into a new range, the learning simulation would dynamically adjust the entire experience.

In a sense, what this accomplishes is adding linear intelligence. This isn't artificial intelligence by any means. But this changes the rules of the game on the fly. This is similar to what happens in the real world. As crowds congregate, crowd dynamics change organically. The difference here is that the learning simulation would set the new changes based on crowd movement.

We thought a learning simulation that watches, learns, and reacts is the next logic step in the evolution of business learning and training simulations.

Thoughts?
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Software vs. Business Acumen vs. Leadership Development Simulations

2010-10-11T07:35:00.000-07:00

Hello Simdev Community-

We apologize for a tardy post. It's been a little hectic lately, but we're back with a post about Simulation Software vs. Business Acumen, vs. Leadership Development. Here goes:

What is the different between Custom Business Training Simulation Software, Business Acumen Simulation, and Leadership Development Simulations? Answer: TONS! It feels like we have two camps of people who call us: Those that want leadership development training simulation and those that are looking for more of a business acumen simulation. Remember, we are a software development firm that specializes in developing custom business simulations for corporate development. So thus, software would be called a 'Global Parameter' when coding. This means that all of our business simulations are software based (aka: we aren't a consulting firm). But, do to the nature of this job, we have a very very firm understanding of corporate development practices and the needs of effective leadership development.

On to business acumen vs. leadership development. Without going into too much detail: Business acumen could be viewed as a technical skill. This often helps answer questions such as, "How does the business work? How do I manage and income statement? How do I effectively grow the business while managing cash flow?" In comparison, leadership development might answer questions such as, "How do I become an effective leader? How do utilize the internal leadership competencies? How do I effectively manage and grow diverse global organizations?"

Here's the catch: To be an effective Senior Manager: You need both business acumen and leadership development. A custom business training simulation should have both of these qualities. This will help develop your bench for tomorrow.

Ok, in summary: Business Acumen is having a solid foundation of effective business management skills and Leadership Development has a solid foundation of effective people and business leadership management. From our perspective, they are all developed in software to enable your leaders to practice business acumen and apply your internal leadership models.

Have a great week!
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Trends: More Ownership

2010-10-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

A quick post about what the latest trends are from our business simulation customers: Full Ownership! What does this mean?

Traditionally, business training simulations are delivered by Simulation Development Group. But for the past year, full ownership, where the business simulations are delivered by the training and development division, has grown. "How much has business simulation ownership grown?" you might be asking. In 2010 alone, we've seen a 27% increase over 2009. In 2009, we saw significant changes as well.

We think it is important for the learning and development division to deliver custom business simulations. You should be in front of your leaders and we should be the invisible support in the background.

Way to go everyone! Keep delivering those custom business simulations!
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Organizational Silos and Thier Impact

2010-09-22T07:49:00.000-07:00

We have started to talk about business silos or organizational silos recently. The past couple weeks, we've been traveling since the business simulation delivery season is kicking into high gear. But we wanted to take a second to relay some anecdotal information shared with us recently. The topic is organizational silos and their impact.

A CEO sat down with us to share his frustration with the constant fighting between his engineering and marketing departments. He suggested this business silo thinking has always been there since he took over as CEO, but that it had gotten far worse with the influence of the generationals. It has now become a crisis for him. The organizational silos were each driving their own agendas with public disinterest in working with eachother.

The CEO had tried everything to address this business silo problem. This included: Communication training, team building, and forced weekly cross functional meetings. He stated that it only seemed to make things worse. This is where he had the idea to let each department live a day in the other department without increasing risk to the overall organization. Thus, a business training simulation seemed to be the ideal solution.

We'll soon share with you some of the feedback. We are due to begin rolling out this "Business Silo Busting" solution soon. Stay tuned :).

Have a great rest of the week.

Business Silos and Business Training Simulations

2010-09-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

We hope you had a wonderful Labor Day weekend and are looking forward to hitting the working ground running.

We have talked extensively in the past about utilizing a business training simulation within your leadership development or executive development programs. We have another growing trend to bring up that is increasing in popularity lately: Silos.

We're not referring to the large containers that hold grain. We're talking about functional silos, organizational silos, informational silos or business silos. If you work in a larger company you are painfully aware of this "problem".

How about utilizing a custom business simulation to help tear down these silos? Think about it. This blog is going to focus on this for a few posting. This post is just a teaser. More to come soon!

Have a great week!

You're The Business Training Expert!

2010-08-30T12:57:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

We hope you've had a terrific summer and are looking forward to gearing up for Fall.

We want to be clear here: Simulation Development Group creates simulations and exercises around your content. We don't try to be something we're not. You are the expert at your discipline and we are experts at building engaging and exciting tools around your leadership, executive, and corporate development needs.

Why do we bring this up? For two reasons:
1. We aren't trying to sell something we can't do a good job at. We're terrible sales people and aren't skilled enough at sales to sell something we don't do.
2. We've been receiving a lot of requests to build entire leadership development program(s). We build the best tools in the world to support incredibly complex programs, but we don't write the courseware. To be honest, you don't want us to. There are exceptionally talented people out there that do this far better than we do.

We hate to un-sell ourselves, but we believe in focus. We create tools, simulations, exercises and solutions that focus on re-inforcing your training content through business applicable action. Who does a great job with content? There are many. There is one that we've been talking with lately that seems to really be on the ball and is a joy to work with. Web site is here: Ratcliff Consultants, Inc. We hope this reference helps. Why this one? Because it's one of the few we've come across that not only is an expert at subject matter, but expert at building a program around tangible outcomes.

We hope this helps you with your leadership development, executive development, or staff development needs.

If you need help creating tools, simulations, exercises and solutions that focus on re-inforcing your training content through business applicable action. Then give a call or drop us a line.

Have a great day!
- Simulation Development Group
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Leadership Development Activities vs Simulations vs Games

2010-08-22T19:49:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

As you can see lately, we've been focusing a bit more on Leadership Development instead of business simulations in general. This is because Leadership Development has come into the spotlight a little more than usual lately. We can't really explain why. The general trend has moved towards reinforcing the importance of leadership development and it's impact on financial results.

This brings us to the topic of this posting: Leadership Development Activities vs Simulations vs Games. What's the difference? There are huge differences depending on what you mean :).

Leadership Development Activities- This is the over arching description (or verb). There are pretty much endless amounts of possible activities. A Leadership Development Activity could include branch activities, speaking activities, teamwork activities, or just about anything. Within these activities might be a Leadership Development Simulation or Game. In general, think about Leadership Development Activities as the container where you choose what type of active learning you want your training participants to choose from.

Leadership Development Simulations- Leadership Development Simulations are simulations that emphasize the impact of the leadership development content on the business or financial results. In a sense, Leadership Development Simulations give the training participants the opportunity to live a day in the life of your CEO. At the executive level, leadership is critical to effective business management. A Leadership Development Simulation will let participants learn by demonstrating the importance of leadership on the business as a whole.

Leadership Games- These tend to lean more to the side of Leadership Development generic examples. This is where a participant will have to run a game such as a lemonade stand or even a board game (pretty outdated in our opinions. But hey, there's a place for everything). As opposed to Leadership Development Simulations, Leadership Development Games tend to be generic one size fits all solutions that aren't customized to a particular organization.

All these definitions are pretty high level and could be open for interpretation differences. The goal here was to get you in the ball park since this is an often asked questions. So, when it comes to Leadership Development Activities, now you'll know which fits you best.

We hope this helps.

Leadership Development Programs Are Back

2010-08-12T20:43:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community

For awhile there, Leadership Development Training Programs seemed to have disappeared. This is obviously because instead of investing in leadership development, companies were investing in survival. This too seems to have passed. In the last six months, the interest in leadership development training activities and leadership development simulations seems to have risen quite a bit.

We're glad leadership development is back! This is what we do best and enjoy the most. Combining leadership development content with a leadership simulation is a blast. It's exciting, rewarding, and challenging for the participants.

Leadership Development: Welcome back. We missed you :^)

Leadership Development Simulations and Games

2010-08-07T08:24:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

For the next few postings, we're going focus on using a business simulation within leadership development programs. We'll focus on:

- What exactly is a leadership development simulation?
- How do people use leadership development business simulations?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages to using a leadership development simulation?
- How do I get started using a leadership development simulation

We're busy outlining what we'll write so stay tuned. Another post is coming soon.
- SimDevGroup
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Business Training Simulations: Various Types

2010-07-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

When people contact us that are new to simulations, they are often uncertain about the various types of training simulations. There really are many, but for ease of classifications, we'll highlight the top 3. These are:
1. Virtual
2. Game Based
3. Branching Stories

Let's take a quick review of these types of business simulations:
1. Virtual Business Simulation ($$$): These tend to be sensory in nature. Most people would argue that a virtual business simulation is visual, but we disagree. What happens if the participant is visually impaired? Does this mean they can't participate? To get back to the point, a virtual business simulation enables participants to interact at a sensory level. Some easy examples of a virtual business simulation is a flight simulator. Here, participants feel and see their environment and must learn to keep the plane in flight or safely landed (for example). When it comes to a business scenario, some companies have played with Second Life. We think this is expensive and a bit "far out" for now. Maybe some day this will be useful. That being said, there are definitely edge cases where this is useful for a business simulation.

2. Game Based Business Simulation ($$): This covers A LOT of territory. This spans from actual games that include a goal of learning through online interactive simulations. Some common tools for building a game based simulation are Flex, Flash, Java, C/C++ (various tools), and many many others. This is the bulk of what is used within a business simulation or business training simulation.

3. Branching Stories Business Simulation ($): These are often the least expensive and very easy to implement. They can be a little unnatural, but they are more effective than a lecture. In a Branching Stories Business Simulation, participants are given a scenario and a few choices to decide from. After each decision, the participant will be given additional information and more choices. In the end, they will realize if the outcome of the business simulation was successful or not. Branching story business simulations are often used for scenario or reaction training. This is especially the case within HR.

Please keep in mind, this is a very very brief overview and not designed to be inclusive. This give you a general idea of some of the more popular types of business simulations that are used for training and development.

We hope this helps and have a nice weekend.

Multi Day, 1 Day, or Segmented Business Training Simulation?

2010-07-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

To build on our last post, we've decided to address the question of, "What's better: Muliti-day, 1 day, or segmented business training simulations or leadership development simulations?"

That's easy to answer: It depends ;)

In reality, this is actually hard for us to answer. It really does depend. But to communicate our thoughts, we'll address the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Multi-day Custom Business Training Simulation- These are good if you want participants to really learn your entire business. We mean REALLY learn it. These usually require many many decision within the simulation and are very detailed. The goal here is to mimic the business within your training and development program. These are traditionally very expensive and exceptionally thorough. Our opinion: Good in some places, but not where trends seem to be moving when it comes to training and development and business training simulations.

1-Day Custom Business Training Simulation- These are very effective. These do a great job of balancing reinforcing your business training content and learning how the business functions. These are a very exciting and compressed day within your training program. This is a fantastic way to apply all the training content from previous days within the program. Our opinion: This is one of the more popular solutions and they work very well (cost effective too).

Segmented Business Training Simulation- These are also very effective. Running little versions of a larger training simulation at the end of each one of your leadership development days is incredibly exciting, applicable, and effective. This trend has grown in the last 2 or so years. Basically, you'll take a portion of the simulation that focuses on the content of that day and run it at the end. People get very fired up and its a great way to end the day. Our opinion: This is very effective and exciting.

We hope this helps you better understand various business training simulations and leadership development simulations. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Business Training Simulations- Where to learn what?

2010-07-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

We have recently been receiving calls from people interested in working with a business training simulation or leadership development training simulation for the first time. It seems people are generally more aware of them, but uncertain where to start. A common question is, "Where can I learn more?" Unfortunately, I can't recommend any books or online resources. The books are a bit "out there" and there aren't any online learning how to's that we know of. But we have a top 5 things to know about a business simulations for training and development.

5. Be prepared with content 1st! Keep in mind, the simulation is NOT the training program. It is a reinforcement tool.
4. Pick the right type of simulation provider. Ask yourself if you want canned, customized, facilitation, or no facilitation. Many business simulation providers will want to supply their own facilitators. This is understandable, but not required. Also, do you need customized or canned? Customized is more expensive, but usually more effective.
3. Virtual or in person? This doesn't need a lot of explaining. We've found companies tried to do virtual and it just didn't work very well (not very engaging). Thus, the trend seems to be moving back towards in person. But there are different types of sims depending on location needs.
2. Have a clear idea of what you want out of the training program. Similar to what we mentioned in 5, you need to have a clear goal of what you want out of the training. The business simulation will reinforce this, but not teach it.
1. Have fun! Business simulations are an amazingly engaging tool. Have fun with the simulation and the program that surrounds it. Relax, the simulation won't bite and if the provider is good, they'll do their best to take care of the rest.

Hope this helps.

Missing Images in Business Simulation Blog

2010-07-07T19:35:00.000-07:00

Hello- Today we launched our entirely new web platform. Nothing looks different, but its and entirely new web architecture. The only problem is: The blog images are missing. We're working on it and hope to have it fixed by Thursday afternoon.

Thanks
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Leadership Development Training and Business Simulations

2010-06-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

Leadership Development Training and Business Simulations

We specialize in combining Leadership Development training utilizing business training simulations. Lately, the demand for this has suddenly exploded. In the past 6 months, we have almost focused completely on Leadership Development Simulations. The question is, "Why now?"

Talking with various training and development managers, the clear answer seems to be, "To engage and demonstrate the importance in an effort to gain acceptance and increase adoption."

Some of the comments we've heard are:
"In the past, we've utilized various exercises and engagements, but they are all still within the theory realm and don't apply to the business fundamentals."
"We haven't been able to demonstrate the importance to the business. It's always just been on a trust us basis."
"Everyone knows leadership is important, but it's impact on the business hasn't been considered. It's now become essential we demonstrate this."

We all know that leadership is critical and unique internal competencies are fundamental to effective strategic development and execution. But trying to connect these to business results are exceptionally difficult. Thus, we're often asked, "How do you do this." Unfortunately, the answer is even harder to articulate. In a sense, this is the baseline formula:

Business performance = (+/-1 */ / leadership effectiveness)

The missing ingredient that can't be explained is each business's uniqueness. This is one of those intangible capabilities where we are able to take business, cultural, market, execution uniqueness and apply it to leadership training. This is the indescribably piece of the equation that we are somehow able to translate. Basically, its a combination of education, business, training, and technology that comes naturally to us.

But, if you have the basic understanding the leadership effectiveness influences business training and growth, creating a business leadership simulation is only a few additional steps when combined with a bit of creativity and tenacity.

Not sure this article helps, but it gives insights into the thinking that goes into developing a business leadership simulation training program. Thoughts?
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Business Training Simulation- Go'in Green!

2010-06-07T19:56:00.000-07:00

In our continued effort to deliver a more green training and development business training simulation, Simulation Development Group is proud to announce that we have cut our computing power requirements in half (sort of) with little to no loss in productivity. How can we create custom training simulations with half the power? Creativity and a good idea from one of our developers. Turn off the processors! What? How can this be done and still be able to use the computer? Well this is quite simple, but takes a little explanation.

First, it's important to understand that we use very powerful computers to create our business training simulations. We use Apple's Mac Pro line of computers.

Yup, we're a Mac shop. Why? Because its far less maintenance and less maintenance means lower costs to our training simulation customers. Yes, of course our business simulations can run on any platform. We just prefer to write them on the Mac.

Anyway, since we write our business simulations on a Mac Pro, there are actually 4-8 processors in each computer (yup, these are very high end computers). This generates a lot of heat and consumes a lot of electricity. Both are bad for the environment. So, why not just turn them off? Well, because it's actually not that easy. After-all, there are no processor switches on the side of the machine.

To drop the energy consumption in half and still be able to create a custom business simulation,

we had to create an application that turns off cores, but still routes data through the right memory buss(es) and caches. We did this.

This means we can continue to create our custom leadership training simulation, business games, business acumen simulations, and business training simulations without any loss in productivity. When it comes time for the training simulation to compile, we simply turn on the additional processors on the fly. Just like a light switch.

So the next time you're thinking about a leadership training simulation, business acumen simulation, corporate development simulation, business training simulation, or any business simulation, know that we are continuing to find creative and innovative ways to reduce our footprint and still delivery the best darn business training simulation available on this big beautiful blue marble we call home.

Have a green day!
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Upgrading The Business Training Simulation Engine!

2010-05-26T20:24:00.000-07:00

Buckle up business simulation race fans! Are you ready to run your training, organization, leadership, or executive development programs on pure alcohol. Well, rev up and start your engines. SimDevGroup is over haul'in it's core training simulation calculation engine with some super charged components. These training simulation components include:

- Advanced behavioral prediction capabilities. Wow! What ever that means, it sounds fast! It is, sort of. This will enable the training simulation to actually predict what participants are going to do next. This means that during your leadership development or executive development, the training simulation will actually be able to react to participant behavior. Think of it like trying to outsmart your leaders in your leadership development training programs. Kewl!

- Advanced supercharged statistical analysis and behavioral modeling. Wow! That also sounds fast. It is. This means that the training or leadership simulations will be able to calculate decisions quicker (and in smaller file size). If floppies were still around, we'd still fit on those (only the core but still pretty neato).

- Dynamic predictive file loading and unloading. Wow! That sounds like it's really smooth through the gears! It is. For anyone that wants to run their leadership development or business training simulations virtually, no problem! This is more efficient cloud computing at it's best.

- Finally, up to date graphic simulation CODECS- Bye Bye are the days of 1990s file formats. We are going into the next generation and beyond. Wow! That's sounds like it's good look'in too! It is. This means we can reduce file size and increase quality. This is again great for virtual programs. This means when you're doing your leadership development, leadership education, executive development, training, or anything that requires a business training simulation, it will run smoother and be better looking. Win Win Win!

In summary- our business simulations, business training simulation (s), leadership development simulations, or executive development simulations are shiny, new, and ready to rumble. Let's go take 'er around the blog. Start your engines! (burn out sound).

Have a fast holiday weekend!
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Virtual vs. In Person Business Training Simulation

2010-05-24T10:17:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

In talking with one of our customers, the repeated debate of Virtual vs. In Person training came up. Specifically with relevance to using a business training simulation. We have a pretty strong opinion on this topic. If two of the goals are:

1. Leadership Development
2. Learn the entire business

Then in person business training is far more effective. In our experience, we've seen amazing results that come out of general discussions that are not achievable from virtual solutions. In person business training allow participants the ability to talk through scenarios and challenges. They are also given the opportunity to work as a team on a leadership simulation. Finally, in person gives the facilitators the opportunity to observe applicability of leadership competencies.

By no means are we saying that virtual is out all together. There is certainly a place for this. We're just saying that if it's leadership or know the entire business, in person is preferred. But in general business training that includes leadership development is very effective in person.

Have a great day!
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Business Leadership Simulation

2010-05-11T08:31:00.002-07:00

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

Today we're going to talk about utilizing a business training simulation for leadership training. The question is: How can a training simulation be used to help teach leadership and leadership competencies. Here's the summary:

A business training simulation can help reinforce internal leadership competencies by reinforcing the positive impact of demonstrating YOUR internal leadership competencies has on business outcomes. Business outcomes? What exactly does that mean? Basically: Profitability. Or... Whatever business metric that is currently driving shareholder value.

You may be asking, "But how does a business training simulation exactly work with leadership competencies?" There's a combined solution of heavy facilitator involvement (you?), and building the importance of effective leadership into the business training simulation. We work with you to ensure that participant's demonstrate effective leadership and that that behavior is reflecting within the simulation.

So if you're working to try to better integrate the effectiveness of leadership competencies within your training program, feel free to give us a call. It doesn't have to be business training related. We have seen many interesting ways to accomplish this task and are happy to talk through some ideas.

Have a great day!
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Training Simulations: Freedom at last!

2010-05-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

We are very excited to announce SimDevGroup now offer's our custom business training simulation in full unlimited license versions! "Wow! But what does that mean exactly?"

This means the following:

All custom business training simulations will:
- Give you the freedom to run as much as you like without additional costs
- Give you the freedom to run them yourselves (you don't have to pay us to facilitate)
- Give you the freedom to run when, where, and how you wish.
- Drastically reduce the costs of using a custom training simulation

You are free to sim the world over!

If you run your programs more than 5 times a year, then the savings are huge! Leadership and executive development will never be the same.

This means you're executive development and leadership development programs can use a custom business simulation without extra costs (woa, say that again!) It's true. Once you own the business training simulation, you are license fee free! Yipee!

Give us a call or drop us an email for more questions.

Have a nice weekend.
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Business Training Simulation on Facebook!

2010-05-06T10:04:00.000-07:00

Hello World- From Facebook that is.

We've finally launched a facebook fan site. Go to facebook and do a search for Simulation Development Group. You should be able to find us. If not, let us know. This fan site will be dedicated to new information regarding advancement and activities related to business simulation activity including business training and training simulations.

Just today, there was an article in the WSJ about executive training and utilization of business training simulations. It was a quick read, but just goes on to prove they're advantageous usage within large companies. Training is changing and using a custom business training simulation will make a huge difference.

Check us out on facebook and start following us there as well!
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Site Updated- Finally

2010-04-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community!

Finally, we've updated the web site. Amazing looking, isn't it? Actually no. We made significant changes, but nothing you can really see: yet. We Did a few things that should make accessing business simulation related news and information easier.

- Changed the architecture of the site so it's more easily expandable
- Changed the core navigation links so it's geared towards Business Simulations and Training & Development
- It's more green! No, not the color. But when people want to print pages, it uses more than 39% less toner. We eliminated the header images from being printed which drastically reduces the amount of Toner. Yea!
- Under each section (such as Business Simulation and Training & Development), there are now easier to access sub topics (such as Business Games, Training Simulations, Leadership Development Simulations).

That's really about it. We are hitting a few speed bumps which we'll hopefully iron out soon. Most of them you probably can't see.

Happy browsing!

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Where In The World Is SimDevGroup?

2010-04-09T09:43:00.000-07:00

Hello SimDev Community-

Wow! It's been over a month since we've sent out a business training simulation related update. This is shameful and we're sorry. "But why?", you ask. It's the classic 'we've been busier than we'd like'. The good news is that we've been busy with much needed and highly focused business simulation related R&D. As a team, we stopped traveling and locked ourselves in a room for over a month trying to solve a particular training simulation problem that has frustrated us and our customers for a long time. We can't announce it yet since its still in testing, but this was time very well spent. Stay Tuned! We'll be helping you out when it comes to custom business training simulations soon.

The other reason we've been out of touch is that we are once again, preparing for a web site update. We know, we know: We just did this. But this is part 2 of 3. You will hardly notice any changes. All the changes are at an architectural level. Some of the improvements to the web site are:

- Faster page loading
- More modern Java
- Printing style sheets
- A foundation for expansion
- No Blog Mungie-ness

The key takeaway here is the expansion component. We plan on offering more and more learning tools for our community and we'll be able to post business simulation related tips, tools, tricks, and resources that will help our followers. We hope to launch this site in the next 30 days. This should align with our ability to announce results that came from our business simulation related R&D.

Stay tuned, great things to come this Spring!
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5 Tips for Facilitating a Business Simulation

2010-02-25T12:29:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone-

Our last post talked about the fact that the trend is clearly moving towards you facilitating a business simulation more. This is great! We thought we'd help with 5 tips for facilitating a business simulation program. Here goes:

5. Get Involved!- Be involved in the development of the business simulation. You'll know the program better.

4. Keep a Secret- Remember: the participants don't know what's inside the business simulation. Keep it this way.

3. Quiet Time- When you are looking at the results of the business simulation, do it in a quiet place without distraction.

2. Tell a Story- When providing the 'what happened' in the simulation, look for a story or theme. Its more interesting and educational.

1. Be Prepared!- A business simulation is complex. Make sure you really take the time, concentration, and focus when preparing for a results presentation. Its critical!

Have fun! Feel free to contact us if we can help.
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Business Simulation Facilitation: Less Us, More You!

2010-02-15T11:46:00.000-08:00

Times are certainly changing when it comes to facilitating a business simulation. In the past year, our customers are facilitating more and more business simulation programs. We couldn't be more excited. This is especially the case now that we can help you facilitate without the travel- This is great for everyone. In the past, facilitating a business simulation in real time was exceptionally challenging. With the trend moving more towards rapid delivery (aka: more manageable), and utilization of cloud computing, More and more customers are facilitating themselves.

We couldn't be more excited. We strongly believe that having you in front of leaders is critical. Its impressive to show a business simulation in action. Especially when it has an impact on business strategy. We say: Keep it up! Get in front of business leaders and show off utilizing a business simulation for training and development. We'll make sure you look great!
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Google Likes SimDevGroup

2010-02-14T11:43:00.000-08:00

Dunno why we're talking about this, but its kinda fun. A customer told us yesterday that when you do a Google search for custom business simulations, SimDevGroup is number 1 and 2 in the organic search category. We must be doing something right :). This will probably change over time (usually does on Google), but its fun for now.
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Business Simulation- Cloud Computing Article

2010-02-08T11:26:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone-

In a past post, we talked about a cloud computing based business simulation we're rolling out. We've received a few questions about cloud computing. Today, the Wall Street Journal talks about cloud computing and its a pretty good article. Very basic, but interesting.

Click here:
Cloud Computing- What is it exactly

Happy reading!
- SimDevGroup
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Business Simulation Facilitation: You’re The Rock Star!

2010-02-05T14:07:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDev Community-

We want to take a moment to remind you that when it comes to business simulation facilitation, you are the star! For some reason, when prospective customers call, they are surprised that we encourage your team to facilitate the simulation program. As a reminder:

It’s important for you and your team to stay in front of the leaders of your organization.

When it comes to business simulation facilitation, we make sure you’re the rock star! Don’t forget to take your bows at the end of the program :^)

Have a great weekend,
- SimDevGroup

PS- Sorry, we couldn't resist posting this image. ;^)
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Business Simulations, Tailored Simulations, and Custom Business Simulations

2010-02-03T09:13:00.000-08:00

We’ve touched on this before, but the question seems to be asked with more frequency lately, “What’s the difference between a business simulation, tailored simulation, and a custom business simulation?” This is a good question and tough to answer.

It’s important to note that everyone seems to have different definitions of simulation and this gets confusing when compared to business games (serious games). We can only tell you how we define business simulation in context to our services.

Business Simulation-
This is software solution that bears strong resemblance to part of or an entire business. It is important to understand that this can be any business. A business simulation is often canned. It might be similar to all or part of your business, but it is not a model of your actual business. A business simulation is useful when you’re trying to teach general business skills (acumen). If you’re trying to create strategic shift, these aren’t usually very useful.

Tailored Simulation-
This is the same as a business simulation, but may have some basic changes that might more closely resemble your business. An example of some changes are product name changes, company name, or general high level changes. In many cases this is a business simulation with some straight forward changes. In general, this is still considered pretty canned.

Custom Business Simulation-
This is a business simulation that bears very close resemblance to your actual business (or part of). Most importantly items such as core values (competencies), strategy, products, and methods are incorporated within a custom simulation. A custom simulation may have a similar core calculation engine to a business simulation, but everything else is different. All the results that come from a custom business simulation are developed around your learning goals. These simulations are most useful when strategy shift or process change needs to take place rapidly.

Now, the next logical question is, “Which one should I use?” This is a good question and very much depends on your needs. If you are looking to teach generic skills or provide and experiential general overview, go with a canned business simulation. If you’re looking to create rapid change or introduce your leaders to the overall business, a custom solution is the best fit. Here’s a pictorial overview:

We hope this helps.
- SimDev Team
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Cloud Computing Simulations = Reduced Travel Costs

2009-12-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDev Community-

For those customers that have been working with us for a long time, you know that we are obsessed with finding ways to drive down costs. For those that may not have worked with Simulation Development Group, we are dirt cheap. Cheap to a fault at times. We can create a custom business simulation for surprising low costs (often for less than canned business training solutions). The fault comes in that we'll sometimes put this as the highest priority and our customers need to adjust this sometimes (yes, we know, there are worse problems).

"Where is this going?" you're probably asking. Its going here:

We have good news: We've figured out a way using cloud computing to create significant savings without impacting quality. WooHoo!

A custom business simulation for training or business acumen almost always requires a facilitator to be effective. A sim on its own is pretty ineffective. Sometimes we fly out to facilitate, sometimes you may want to facilitate, but we still need to be there for support. Either way, there are still travel costs incurred.

So we asked ourselves, "Is there a way for us to be there without us being there?" The answer is yes... Cloud Computing! Cool. To simplify the idea:

- You facilitate, we support you, but from our offices instead of yours. Why pay for travel when technology can let this happen remotely?

This isn't something we want to explain how (our competitors watch us closely enough as it is) within this posting. If you have questions, give us a call.

Our research shows that this creates costs savings of anywhere from $2000+ on average per delivery. This won't help if you want us to facilitate, but hey, if you want the glory, we'll give it to you.

All the best,
- SimDev Team
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Wow! Micro Sims Are Massive!

2009-12-06T11:52:00.000-08:00

Hello SimDev World and Happy Holidays,

About a year ago, we started talking to existing and new customers about the idea of small rapid delivery custom business simulations. We did a blog posting on it in February. At that time, we called them quick sims. We are happy to report that this was clearly the best solution we could have offered our customers in 2009. This isn't just because budgets were tight. It was actually more because very focused simulations seem to have a better effect on learning than on the larger multi-day programs. We also have to say: We Love Them Too! Why? Because they are more exciting, very high energy, and people leave feeling invigorated and excited about what they've learned and how they'll apply it. In other words, it was our most popular solution by almost 2:1 in 2009. We're happy you like it.

Now, here are a few common questions we get with regard to Rapid Sims:
Q. What exactly is a rapid delivery custom business simulation or game?
A. These are simulations that combine your training content with running all or a portion of your business. The goal is to create very rapid "rounds" (maybe 1 or 2) running your business that includes having to utilize your training content.
Q. How long do the sims take to execute?
A. This can vary from 1 hour to much longer. It really depends on how complex you wish to make the simulation exercise.
Q. How complicated is it to get started and run the simulation?
A. Its really not that tough. Because the sim solution is small and applicable to your training content, the simulation fits nicely into the program. Most of the facilitation is done by us (you're welcome to if you wish). This relieves you of additional worries and complexities.

Overall, we just wanted to say that we're happy that you're happy with the rapid delivery simulation solution and there will be much more innovative solutions to come in 2010.

- SimDev Team
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Corporate Leadership Competencies' Effect on the Business

2009-11-04T12:32:00.000-08:00

Most larger companies have company specific core leadership competencies. In our experience, these are formed from the basis of:

- People
- Action
- Thought
- Personal

There are many company specific branches of these, but the four above are usually the foundation. In our discussions with Sr. Leaders, they tend to firmly believe in the demonstration of the corporate compentencies, but are very challenged with how to demonstrate their importance. The past few weeks we've heard this concern more often then usual. Probably because of the slow turnaround from the economic downturn and the more proactive position Sr. Leaders can take (instead of reactive).

We talked about how to measure and demonstrate corporate core leadership competencies in a previous SimDev Group blog posting. If you're interested in how to put core competencies into action and measure it's effect on the business, read this.

The reason we bring this up again is to simply have you ask the following questions:
1. How does my corporate competencies fit into my L&D strategy?
2. How does my company's current strategy fit into my L&D strategy?
3. Is the corp strategy tightly integrated into my LD content?
4. How are my company's core competencies demonstrated within my learning content?
5. What am I communicating to Sr. Mngt regarding how I'm utilizing the corp strategy and competencies considering this is what usually drives a company?

The reason we're having you ask these questions is that we are often asked these questions too often on behalf of the L&D divisions (we defer to them). These are core questions that everyone should have very clear strategies and answers to.

Go ahead and ask yourself these questions and see what the answers are. Feel free to drop us an email if we can help you think through this. We're very accustomed to the questions :).

- SimDevTeam
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New Look, New Solution

2009-10-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

The Site-
A new web look and solution all in one! As you can probably already tell, SimDevGroup has a new web site. This site is actually smaller than the previous site. Its more focused, cleaner, and easier to navigate. The amount of text has been reduced by over 50% and is more focused on custom simulations. Let us know what you think. We hope you like it.

The Solution-
This is only partially new. We’ve previously talked about saving 55% on a custom simulation. Ends up this is incredibly popular within the training and development community (we’re glad this helps!). Thus we’ve decided to officially talk about this within our web site.

The solution is quick to develop, quick to deliver, custom simulations that fit within an existing program (or content). Traditionally, custom sims are “the program”. This takes a very different approach. These mini sims are designed to be very easy to integrate within an existing program.

These sims have the following attributes:
- Customized to your existing content or program
- Rapid delivery rounds (around 1hr each)
- Highly aligned with your goals and corporate strategy
- Supercharges existing program content and goals

And is valuable because:
- Applies and ties your content to your business
- Enables managers to walk a mile in the CEO’s shoes
- Low cost and accessible

See More Here.

Thoughts? Do rapid delivery highly relevant, low cost custom sims help you? We hope so!
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Images Are Missing (temporarily)

2009-09-28T04:28:00.000-07:00

Hello World- As you've probably already noticed, we have a new look as of this weekend (yea!). Only problem is this has caused a bit of turbulence with our blog images. We hope to have this fixed by end of today, early tomorrow. Stay tuned.

- SimDev Team
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Learning Simulations for the Rest of Us!

2009-09-10T13:04:00.000-07:00

Business Learning Simulations and Games for the Rest Of Us

There has been a trend over the last decade or so to make custom simulations more and more complex. This may be due in part to the fact that development tools have become more and more sophisticated. The problem with this is that it seems to have defied the natural progression of technology: Cheaper and cheaper while being more effective. Why is this? Thinking about this, it may be good to go back to MBA strategy 101 and look at the business simulation market from Porter's point of view:

In general, strategically speaking, the business simulation and games industry hasn't felt many of these powers. The rivalry has been pretty low, substitutes haven't been so great. If anything, the simulation industry has positively substituted itself. Buyer power hasn't been strong because creating a custom business simulation is a sort of black art (its far more difficult than in looks). Finally the barriers to entry are pretty high. Why are they high? Because creating a custom business game or simulation requires a broad and specialized set of skills such as economics, finance, marketing, computer programing, and of course, learning. That's a tall order and really hard to balance effectively. But, one thing is starting change (from our view): Customers don't want massive programs. They don't want the simulation to be the program. The don't want heavy weight, massive programs that require a huge time investment (and money of course). This is going to cause a problem in the business simulation and business games industry. The trend is going towards light weight, low cost, integrated simulations.

Is Bigger Really Better?

A custom business simulation or game needs to integrate into an already existing program as a light weight tool for learning. The Sim's job shouldn't be to train the people. That's the program's facilitator and content's job. The job of the simulation should be a very rapid learning reinforcement tool. Learn, apply, and do it again. That's it.

Light Weight, Low Cost (Woo Hoo!)
Simulation Develop Group started in late 2008 to develop a method of creating very customized yet light weight simulations. We enjoy creating delivering these types of custom business simulations just as much as the multi-day programs. What exactly does light weight mean? This means that it can be delivered entirely within 1 day or in pieces throughout your program. It can also be easily adjusted to match exactly to your existing content (example: Leader Development Competencies). The point is that the Simulation Development Group's solution isn't to be the entire program, but to be the reinforcement tool.

How about simulations for the rest of us? Custom simulations don't need to be big, they just need to be effective.

Thoughts?
- SimDev Team
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Current Economics, Leadership Development, What Now?

2009-08-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

We have a new fed chief (again), new home sales have risen a surprising 4.9%, national home prices are up (what?), responsible consumer credit card behavior (double, what?), 6Mo Dow up ~33%, 6Mo S&P up ~36%, 6Mo Nasdaq up ~45%. Are we talking about current economic snapshots? Yup, you better believe it. Does it feel this way? Is it sustainable? How are companies reacting? What does this mean for professional/leadership development.

Granted, we have economists employed here, but we don't have all the answers to the questions above. Then again, neither do the government, hedge fund, or private equity economists. What we can talk about is what we're hearing from senior managers within companies we work with. To sum it up:

"We are cautiously optimistic, and it feels great!"

We have also had our phones ringing far more steadily with companies that are now ready to get their strategies in line, leadership in place, and fire on all cylinders. It feels like the sun is beginning to warm the skin of many who have been in the trenches weathering this storm. Its a welcome break.

As you know, we work many public companies and their senior teams. SimDev would like to take a moment to say, "Job well done." An executives job is rarely recognized. Times have been exceptionally hard for executives the last few months. Hard decisions were made, experience was put to the test, and risk was taken. From our standpoint, it looks like the time, sweat, and late nights are beginning to pay off.

What this means for leadership development is that its a good time to take account of how aligned the troops are within your organization. Does everyone know exactly the why and how behind the new strategy. Does everyone actually know the strategy. If the answer is no to any of these, its time for you to get the organization development needs in place and be ahead of the wave instead of just riding it out. This will put your organization at a competitive advantage and better positioned for optimistic change that the economy looks to be on the cusp of enjoying.

"Cheers to a new 2nd half"
- The SimDev Team
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Leadership Development Simulations' New Home

2009-07-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

Hello Simulation Development Group Community. This is going to be our new home for our notes/blog. We'll slowly transition over to this site. Welcome!

Getting Greener

2009-07-27T12:48:00.000-07:00

We’re getting greener by the day. In January of 2009, SimDevGroup implemented improvements to reduce overall global waste. This includes waste from travel, office waste, program waste, and other sources. We’ve made huge improvements. We found that not only is this good for the environment, much of it is a big cost savings which is great for our customers as well. This is one of those rare win-win-win scenarios. Many thanks to Bill for taking this on and developing the program. So far, so good.

Some of ways we’re reducing waste:

Office Waste Reduction:

Paper reduction- We’ve reduced paper by over 50%
Successful switch to all Energy-Star compliant LCD displays
Recycling laser toner cartridges
Sharing less office space with European style open air layouts
Biking to work rewards program- almost all of bike at least once a week
Computer equipment recycling
Overhead lights dim or off. We use natural light now

Travel Waste Reduction:

Encouraging less travel- We’ve reduced travel by over 50%! Care for a video conference?
Utilizing public transportation when traveling
Re-using towels when in the hotels (if possible)

Program Waste Reduction:

Printing 50% less at programs
LCD projectors when possible
Smaller/lighter equipment shipping containers

As mentioned above, most of the above has also reduced reoccurring costs which is great for everyone. If you have any other ideas for ways to reduce waste, feel free to drop us an email or make a comment.

Cheers to going green!

Leadership Competancies in Action

2009-07-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

Let’s start with a chart. Here’s an example of somewhat standard leadership competencies:

Now that we have the great big colorful competencies up there, let’s assume the following:

Your company has its own leadership behavior model (if not, that’s ok too)
You have an entire program built or under construction that delivers this model (or close)
You are unsure how to blend measurement and accountability into the program.... no prob!

You and/or your team are probably the pros at delivering the content. If not, don’t ask us :^) there are companies far better than SimDev to help with these competencies (ex: Caliper or PDI). Deliver the content as usual in your superb style.

The simulation maps very closely to your existing business. This includes market, internal, external, and cultural uniqueness. The difference is that while the participants are under pressure to execute their business plan, a facilitator is watching how they exhibit leadership competencies. The net net is that if they are great at leadership, their business execution is very effective. If their leadership behavior is very poor, they have a very difficult time executing their business plan. Thus, they loose market share, loose income, and quickly learn how important it is to invest in leadership and their people.

Basically, to win the simulation, they will have to be very competent at the following:

Its simple, to win, a team must be competent and leadership, business, and execution (teamwork).

What better way to put in play what you have delivered? This gives them the opportunity to practice and see how the importance of this drives EBITDA.

Business Leadership Simulations are exciting, applicable, and an effective part of leadership development.

Thoughts?
- SimDevTeam

Simulation Blog Comments Provider

2009-06-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

Hello- SimDev community.

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

Soft Skills and Business Simulations or Games

2009-06-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

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.

Virtual Data Storage and Dynamic Sim Learning (Technical Post)

2009-05-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

This is a relatively technical post that mainly focuses on concepts. Here, we’ll talk about the possibility (and experimentation) of a training simulation’s ability to take real time market/team data and apply it to a program in real time.

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!

Further Cost Reduction Techniques: Distributed Real-Time Development

2009-04-14T18:48:00.000-07:00

Its funny how the world is round. In our experience, past trends tend to find their way current. One of us just returned from the Spring CLO Symposium. There were two clear themes.

1. Times are tough (as if we have to say this)
2. People want to re-explore distributed learning

The first point was driven into the ground, dug back up, and driven multiple times in a formal manner. In other words, this was the topic of almost all the presentations. The second point was a much stronger, but far more informal theme (informal chit chat with people).

After talking with very seasoned CLOs or development managers, it was clear companies want to reinvestigate the ability to conduct customized training over a distance. We’re not talking about e-learning, but more team oriented, real-time, applicable development (challenging to say the least).

Thankfully, this is something we’ve been working on for the past several months. The ability to deliver a customized simulation experience without the exceptionally high cost of travel. We’re at a point where we’ve experimented with the solution and it seems to be working. By partnering with Adobe, we can delivery real time simulation collaboration and video within 1 program.

We’ll post more details soon on the main web site once the final details are ironed out. We just wanted to share this with others since its at a point where it’s going to become a solution.

UPDATE: Timing is everything. The WSJ published an article today about the need for distributed learning - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123974778994418393.html

Sims, Games, and Stories

2009-03-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

Are you looking for a Business Simulation, a Business Game, a Story, or an Exercise? Wait, what’s the difference? This has become a more common question or uncertainty. To be honest, it’s not an easy question to answer these days.

Let’s start with a branching story-
In summary, some business training can utilize a branching story more effectively than other training methods. A branching story is a linear story (from left to right) that contains various stops where readers (or participants) can make decisions (vertical movement). In general, there are only a few possible outcomes (not so good, good, better, best). By creating the opportunity for participants to actively engage in a story, they can more effectively live through a situation.

Branching stories tend to be effective for quick team building exercises where you want teams to solve basic problems through team work. These methods are incredibly easy to deploy, manage, and utilize minimal budget resources (they’re cheap!).

Business Games-
This is making learning fun. An example would be the late 80s/early 90s game “Where in the World is Karmen San Diego”. This is a game for kids that teaches all sorts of skills but you’d never know it. This is like eating your vegetables covered in Hollandaise sauce. They taste good and are good for you (sort of). The term Business Games is more often used to stand for simulation games that are challenging and have a component of competition. We tend to use games and simulations interchangeable even though we probably shouldn’t. This is probably because interactive simulations are fun, challenging, and competitive.

People may argue us on this one, but pure games are more often used by kids and not often found within business circumstances. Employees don’t want to feel childish. That being said, they are fun!

eSimulations-
This is the tough one to define. An IT simulation will often focus on a business problem, process, or management challenge. The form of this is often on the computer and is developed in anything from Spreadsheets through C/C++/Java or online utilizing various tools (i.e. Flash, SQL, Flex, etc). These are very non linear and can have an infinite number of potential outcomes. For the purpose of business training, these often take the form of teams driving a business in competition with each other in an effort to teach specific (or broad) business skills or strategies. Simulations are very effective at developing business acumen while helping participants learn and exercise intangible skills (ex: new strategy, process, or procedure). They are also very exciting, rewarding, and fun to utilize.

Electronic Business Simulations are exceptionally effective for management re-engagement, training, and team building. This is basically learning by doing without the risk. Sims can help businesses align employees behind strategies while enabling them to live through the experience of executing the new strategy and see first hand what happens if someone doesn’t.

The above examples are a generalizations. Like all generalizations, there are many exceptions to the rule. We decided to write on this because people have been asking us the difference between a business IT simulations, business game, or branching story. These are all forms of simulation and it can really come down to splitting hairs and preference of names. We accept all the above and don’t mind what you call them.

- SIMDEVGROUP

2009 Accessible Sim Solutions Package- Low Cost QuickSims!

2009-02-05T09:59:00.000-08:00

First off, our apologies. We don’t usually like to talk business solutions in this section, but in this case it seemed to fit.

In our last posting “More with less?” we talked about ways customers could save substantial amounts of money while still being able to offer world class simulation based development. We’ve taken things a bit further.

Since October of last year, we’ve been working on building a simulation framework that would reduce the amount of repetitive work that is required in a custom simulation. We’ve succeeded in reducing the amount of this work by as much as 55%. This technically means our sims are now as much as 55% off (wow!).

There is still customization work required, but this will save you substantial amounts of money while still enabling you to offer world class customized training simulation solutions normally reserved for top executives.

We can now build you a custom simulation for well below the cost others charge for stale canned business training solutions. And to boot, development time is in as little as 2-3wks (another WOW!).

Click here to contact us.

Click here to learn about simulation.

We hope this helps!

More with less? 3 BIG tips to saving loads on a business simulation

2009-01-19T18:32:00.000-08:00

Today’s challenging times calls for doing more with less.

This is especially true for corporate development and training divisions. Today’s posting could be viewed as a controversial one coming from a business simulations and business games provider. The topic today is how to substantially save money while delivering more. Another way to look at this is a method to deliver world class simulations program for substantially less. Here we go:

Here are three costs saving strategies for delivering a business simulations based training course that can save you an estimated 63%. WOW!

Tip 1: Go from a two or more day solution to one
Tip 2: Require only one facilitator from the simulations firm
Tip 3: Buy a Hybrid Business Simulation Solution

The details:

Tip 1: The One Day Business Simulations-
Let’s assume you have 25 participants in the program. Lets also assume these executives make approximately US$200K per year. This means each participant’s time is worth approximately $563 per day (assuming 10 days vacation). 25 * $563=$14K in savings. Oh, but wait, there is also hotel, food, space rental, consulting time, consulting travel costs. Wow! This is expensive. All in all, going from a two day program to one can save you an estimated $40K or about 17% on total program costs. This is amazing savings and in many cases, a very aggressively filled full day will be an appreciated cut back while still delivering world class cutting edge business simulation based training.

Tip 2: Demand Only 1 Facilitator or Consultant-
We understand that the conventional trend is to have 2 consultants from the simulation development company. Well, its time to be unconventional. There are two benefits of requiring only 1 consultant.

When combined with tip one, saving can be at least 18%
You’re internal facilitators will have more exposure and be given more responsibility with delivering the program. This is fundamentally important because it builds the relevancy, skills, and job satisfaction within your own department.

Tip 3: Go with a Customized Hybrid Simulation (what the heck does that mean?)
Ok, this is going to get a little technical, but read through because this is important.

Customized IT simulations are usually made of 5 pieces.
1. User Interface: This is what the participants see when they make decisions
2. I/O (input output) interfaces: This is what the simulation talks to that makes magic happen. For example, when decisions are made, how does it magically make it’s way into powerpoint? This is where the I/O interface comes in.
3. Logic Kernel (what?): This is where much of the calculations happen. Its the icky models, math, assumptions, and other data that calculates the results of the participant’s decisions.
4. Low Level Interface: This is the portion of the simulation that enables the simulation to speak with computer. For example, this is what enables simulations to create print outs, create color on the screen, etc...
5. I know I said 5, but there are usually two I/O interfaces so take a look at 2 above.

So now this is where it gets interesting. As someone who has developed and delivered many IT simulation solutions I can tell you I live most of the time in part 3: the Kernel. This is because if it doesn’t work well, everything falls apart. Bad data in creates bad data out. What’s interesting here, is that many of the models I create have much of the same logic or methods.models. The real difference is that assumptions are different. With this logic, why can’t much of the kernel be reused? Do you think the participants care if the Kernel has been reused from a standardized model? Think of it like this? Do people care if the same motor in a BMW appears in the 330i and X5? Nope! Its a darn good motor (one of BMW’s best) and reusing the motor saves consumers money (a lot).

The questions is why not have a hybrid of custom and reusable components in a custom business training simulation or business games? The answer is it should be done this way. The interface and learnings are customized for your needs. This saves an amazing amount of time and thus money. The results for you are an inexpensive custom business simulation or inexpensive custom business game.
The result: We’ve estimated that the cost saving for a custom business simulation is about 63% with these 3 relatively simply steps for you. Heck, most of the work is passed off on the business simulation provider so its even better for you. With some basic assumptions the cost of a program can go from about $225K to $84K. Wow! That is less then half the cost.

In other words, you’re doing more with less! Comments?

Welcome to SimNotes 2.0

2009-01-02T18:14:00.000-08:00

We’ve had a notes section in the past, but with the site redevelopment there was a bit of a delay bringing it back to life. Unfortunately, 2008 was a very busy year for us and thus, we’ve decided to start a new one instead of bringing the older one over. We’ve had a lot of requests to have a notes section and this is the fastest way to bring it back to life.

Thus, welcome to SimNotes 2.0. We’ll have the comments section up by January 15th, I promise.

Thanks for all your support and I hope this is as useful as SimNotes 1.0.