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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Friday, October 1, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Organizational Silos and Thier Impact
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Business Silos and Business Training Simulations
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!
Monday, August 30, 2010
You're The Business Training Expert!
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
.
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
.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Leadership Development Activities vs Simulations vs Games
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.
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.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Leadership Development Programs Are Back
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 :^)
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 :^)
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Leadership Development Simulations and Games
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
.
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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