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Designing a simulation game

Di, 03/27/2007 - 21:11 – Nynke Etk Fokma

Just because someone has turned up and nodded their head, have they actually understood the importance of communication and collaboration, or the reason why they were in training?

In simulation settings we use test driven development of knowing (not the same as knowledge). We test through the system simulation to make sure that participants actually demonstrate an understanding of what they’re being trained in. Sadly, only after the training, they can assess and quantify how effective the training has been.

When people move to that new business system based on professional optimism, what we understand is what the skills gap can be for participants in the system. That’s where you will see the return on your investment using simulation games as training tool—when we know what people are doing in the moment and what they need and desire to be doing in the new system, in well-connected ways and designing the business from vision and dreams together.

And that can start with some simulation games that some key players in your organisation can propagate. To be useful, a simulation must model all of the important skills necessary for a successful transition to working in the new system. It must be sufficiently complex to be credible to participants, sufficiently comprehensive to be played in a day or half a day, and sufficiently uncomplicated to be used by key players who may be unaccustomed to facilitating experiential learning.

Benefits

  • Because the usual work environment details are not in the simulation, the essential elements of the workplace are experienced, but without its attendant hazards and inconveniences
  • Learners are provided with opportunities for active experimentation in solving realistic problems which require the integration of knowledge, skills, personal attitudes, and positive work values.
  • Participants can formulate and test hypotheses, identify patterns in their own and other peoples' behavior, make decisions and observe consequences which might, on the job, take weeks, or even months to manifest
  • Simulations offer opportunities for modifying decisions and actions and observe the effects of such changes.
  • Serieus misunderstandings can be corrected more readily and with less interpersonal cost.
  • Players discover that individual work effectiveness and the success of the business are a complex, interactive system.
  • The connections between profitability, team success, and individual work skills can be demonstrated.

What do we need to make a simulation effective?

  1. An accurate underlying model of the workplace, containing realistic representations of the workplace, a high degree of similarity between decisions in the simulation and those required in real-life, and realistic, real-life consequences.
  2. Objectives which reflect desirable knowledge (facts, concepts, generalizations), skills (appreciative inquiry, focused conversation, problem solving), and attitudes (collaboration, leadership, initiative, thinking and learning ways).
  3. A method for assessing a participant's current behaviors, skill levels, and preference-related knowledge and attitudes.
  4. Activities that engage and challenge participants, while providing opportunities for frequent, overt reflection and participant responses to increasingly complex situations; stalking the positive and negative consequences of personal decisions, valuing these explicitly, and predicting future outcomes.
  5. Self-reflection through participant record keeping (Book of proceedings, blog, paper reports, video, podcast or whatever channel. Open up that multi-channel!)
  6. Multiple evaluation methods built in to the work process, like trainer observation checklists, book of proceedings, break-out group discussions
  7. Enough structural flexibility to allow the simulation to be adapted to meet the needs of particular trainers and learners and availability of facilitation of internal trainers or other forms of support for trainers who are not familiar with the use of simulation games and experiential learning.

The effectiveness of a simulation game in a particular context depends on:

  • Preferences and characteristics of the learning environment, like the availability of resources (time, space) and materials to play the game.
  • The goodness of fit between the larger business strategical topics and the simulation design.
  • Particular participant needs and preferences.
  • Key player willingness to use experiential learning, including effective debriefing and feedback.

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