Experiential eLearning

The Case for Custom Business Simulations

At Harvard Business School's Publishing group we've been a longtime fan of custom business simulations, and took thet custom development approach when we designed the platform and portfolio of our own business simulation games.  It's nice to see that the idea of creating custom simulations has only gained prominence in both academic and corporate settings.  BTS, a creator of experiential learning solutions for strategy implementation including custom business simulations, recently released a whitepaper called "Navigating Strategy Execution: The Case for Custom Business Simulations" (see their whitepaper page to download).  It's a great overview of the benefits that custom simulations can provide in corporate environments but also includes some great universal truths about the impact of this type of approach on learning.  We're heard great things about BTS and their approach and a few years back I had interviewed Executive VP Rommin Adl as part of an interview series on business simulations.  Check out the white paper - it's a great, short read and a nice synopsis of this great approach to experiential learning.

Why Educational Simulations?

Experiential learning and simulation guru Clark Aldrich has a great new piece called "Why Educational Simulations? Designs to Develop Competence Plus Conviction" in the UK magazine Inside Learning Technologies & Skills.  It's a great short piece that distills his theories of "learning to do" (vs. "learning to know") down to two powerful value propositions for educational simulations: the ability to foster Competence and Conviction in users.   For more on educational simulations, experiential learning, and serious games, see the collection of works and articles at the Clark Aldrich Designs website.

Rethinking the MBA -- Without Simulations?

This year my employer, Harvard Business Publishing, published Rethinking the MBA:  Business Education at a Crossroads.  Authored by Harvard Business School professors Srikant Dakar and David Garvin and research associate Patrick Cullen, the book provides "an in depth look at the current state of business education and a blueprint for the future".  It identifies eight essential business needs for the future that today's schools fail to teach sufficiently and ultimately illustrates "a diverse set of approaches for responding to these challenges, including: radically redesigning curricula, offering greater customization, linking knowledge to application through experiential learning, and more".  Sounds great, but I was really disappointed at how little simulations-- or any eLearning products, platforms, or tools -- are mentioned in the book.

The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games

It's a great week for anyone interested in and involved with the world of simulations and serious games.  Clark Aldrich's new book is out: The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games: How the Most Valuable Content Will be Created in the Age Beyond Gutenberg to Google (Pfeiffer).  Clark spoke about this book during the simulation interview I did with him a few months back.  We're big fans of his blog and all of his work -- looking forward to getting a copy and diving in.

Teaching with Business Simulations: UK Workshop October 2009

I'm excited to be co-facilitating a workshop entitled "Teaching with Business Simulations" on Wednesday, October 28, at Imperial College Business School in London, UK.  David Lefevre, Senior Learning Technologist at Imperial, is the co-designer and host of the event which is geared toward business school faculty and educational technologists.  The cost of the workshop is US $400 and you can find more detailed information and register here. 

The seminar will cover the what, why and how of using simulations in business school teaching programs. Speakers will include representatives from Harvard Business Publishing's simulation product group, faculty experienced in the use of simulations, simulation developers and researchers. The full agenda is posted below.

Participants will become familiar with benefits that simulations provide for learning, the practicalities of using them and the range of options available for both using existing simulations and creating your own. Actual assessment data will be used to illustrate how to evaluate student learning.  Experienced users of simulations will share the knowledge they have gained through user presentations and group discussion. And the entire group will experience a simulation along with a subsequent debrief. To close the workshop, lessons learned and best practices will be reviewed and discussed with the group.

Looking to Adopt, Design, or Learn About Business Simulations?

Looking to adopt, design, or learn more about business simulations?  Below are links to our interview series on business sims. I'd like to thank all of the experts who took the time to provide interviews. Every single A-list vendor and researcher that we wanted agreed to be interviewed - this list of contributors to me represent the best minds associated with business simulations in the industry.  Here are the interviews (alphabetical by participant's last name):

Rommin Adl (Executive VP, BTS)

Clark Aldrich (author, simulation designer)

Bjorn Billhardt (CEO and co-founder, Enspire Learning)

Mark Chussil (founder, Advanced Competitive Strategies)

Stuart W. James (founder, Interpretive Simulations)

Jan H. G. Klabbers (author, researcher, simulation designer, and former Secretary General of ISAGA - International Simulation and Gaming Association)

Willy C. Kriz (author, researcher, simulation designer, and former President of ISAGA - International Simulation and Gaming Association)

Dan Smith (founder, Capsim)

Roger Smith (CTO, US Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation)

Joseph A. Sullivan (Director, MOVES Institute, Naval Postgraduate School)

Dick Teach (President, ABSEL - Association for Business Simulation and Experiential Learning)

Rémi Triolet (Chief Science and Financial Officer, StratX Simulations)

Greg Warman (co-founder, ExperiencePoint)

I would probably get fired if I did not mention that we also have a line of business simulations that we are producing at Harvard Business Publishing.  I've written many blog posts associated with our process and products, including:

• Overviews of many of our simulations including those on pricing, leadership and teams, operations management, strategic innovation, supply chain management, etc.
• General overviews of experiential learning environments for business education and a framework for assessing learning outcomes in business simulations
• An overview of our RolePlanner platform for negotiation role-plays
• And more - click on the Simulations & Games category to see all posts

War Games and Simulations: An Interview with the U.S. Army’s Roger Smith

As stated in the last interview, no exploration of simulations and gaming would be complete without an examination of the work that the military is doing in these areas.   That last entry focused on work at the Navy’s Postgraduate School so for a different perspective we now turn to the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training, & Instrumentation (PEO STRI).  This program office is a series of military, government civilian, and contractor teams that jointly develop, acquire, field and sustain simulation, training and testing solutions.  We were fortunate to speak with Roger Smith, CTO of PEO STRI, to learn more about the Army’s use of gaming and simulation for training.

Military Simulations and Training: An Interview with the MOVES Institute’s CDR Joseph A. Sullivan

No exploration of simulations and game-based learning would be complete without including the groundbreaking work that the U.S. military does in this area.  The Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California is a graduate university attended by all the United States Armed Services, the Department of Homeland Security and numerous international allies. It specializes in education and research focused on national security issues. Within it is housed the The MOVES Institute (Modeling, Virtual Environments, and Simulations), a center for learning and development whose mission is “to enhance the operational effectiveness of our joint forces and our allies by providing superior training and analysis products, education, and exemplary research in the field of modeling and simulation.”  We were thrilled to discuss their work with Commander Joseph A. Sullivan, USN, the Institute’s Director.

Business Simulations: An Interview with ExperiencePoint's Greg Warman

Continuing the interview series on business simulations brings us to ExperiencePoint.  We've been fans of their work for some time and we constantly come across both corporate and educational customers who have used (and are happy with) their simulations.  The company is founded on the premise that "excellence in any field requires a disciplined approach to improving performance."  We were happy to sit down with co-founder and principal Greg Warman to find out how ExperiencePoint simulations provide that disciplined approach to performance improvement.

Business Simulations: An Interview with StratX’s Rémi Triolet

Markstrat is one of the best known business simulations in the world.  Created by Jean-Claude Larréché and Hubert Gatignon over 30 years ago and developed by StratX since 1984, this sim now comprises just part of a robust product line of three dozen simulation offerings.  Their simulations are now used at the top business schools and most influential corporations in the world. The company was founded by Jean-Claude Larréché, a professor specializing in strategic marketing at Insead.  With him since 1991 has been Rémi Triolet, partner and Chief Science and Financial Officer at StratX.  We were delighted that Rémi agreed to sit down with us to discuss the history, products, and future of this seminal simulation enterprise.