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Teaching a Business Simulation Class – Team or Solo Sport?
It’s been said that there is no ‘I’ in Team, but that there is an ‘m’ and an ‘e’. Given that dichotomy, when it comes to teaching a business simulation class, what’s better – a Team or a ‘me’ approach? Like deciding whether to turn a car right or left at an intersection, it depends…
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How Jelly Beans Can Change The World
It goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway: it’s rude and inconsiderate to show up late to a meeting. And while it shouldn’t need to be researched, you’ll find lots of data to support the negative impacts of tardiness, such as this article and this one. Think about it: ten people waiting six minutes…
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Custom Business Simulations – Guest Speakers
Customization of a simulation can be expensive. If you can accomplish 80% of the learning with an off-the-shelf business simulation you don’t need a custom one. However, don’t always assume that the simulation software is what needs to be customized. There are simpler ways to customize a learning experience. One approach that can help bring…
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Top 3 Tactics for Business Simulation Exercise Time Management
I am a time freak. My colleagues know it, as do my kids and family/friends. It’s a problem. During our courses there are many moving parts, all of which need to be coordinated and orchestrated to create an effective learning experience. As the facilitator, if you’re not “on top” of all these moving parts, things…
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Memo-Engine – Unexpected business challenges/disruptors
There are times when a business simulation exercise should be customized to fulfill a specific learning objective (e.g. strategy change, focus on new business metrics, etc…). We have found that companies often believe the best way to customize an exercise is by modifying the business simulation software itself. However, in most cases the software doesn’t…
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Some Business Acumen is Timeless
PriSim is in it’s 21st year of creating and conducting business simulation-based courses. A lot has changed over the years, but it’s interesting to note the consistency in learnings that come out of our exercises. At the conclusion of all of our courses we ask competing teams to present a final debrief, or After-Action Review. They answer…
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Boost Knowledge Retention by Adding Some “White-Space”
Want to turbo-charge the amount of knowledge that your students take away from your training classes and actually apply in the real world? Try providing “white-space” for reflection during each training day. Research has shown that people in training sessions who spend time at the end of the day actively thinking and reflecting on what…
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Best Practices – Building and Using Business Simulations: Part 1
In PriSim’s 20 years of experience running business simulation exercises targeted at leaders and managers, we’ve developed many best-practices that drive successful “experiential learning”. We list some of these best practices below and will add to this list in future posts as well! Set clear objectives, define the process and “realism” expectations – Some participants…
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The Freakout Zone!
A clear articulation of value is an important element of any training class. If a learner is going to invest their time in your course, forgoing the 1,000 other things they could be doing, they deserve to be told exactly what’s in it for them. And it better be good… A simple but effective diagram…
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Board Games
Physical Business Simulations to help drive awareness of financial principles Boardgames are physical, limited-scope exercises that utilize a gameboard and moveable gamepieces. The tool can be very powerful in “spotlighting” the inner workings of specific financial transactions and concepts to help drive an understanding of the impacts that business decisions have on the financial statements….