Using Business Simulations to Navigate Change and Build Agility

Using Business Simulations to Navigate Change and Build Agility

With the flux that 2020 has brought to our lives, turbulence is no longer something you prepare for but a reality you live in. Buzzwords like adaptability and agility are common parlance and change is the only constant. In this free-falling world, resources are scarce and swiftly-depleting, and businesses are hard-pressed for solutions to problems they have never faced or even visualized. Where do we go from here? Douglas Adams would propose 42 as the universal answer – I vote for simulations.

So what exactly are simulations? They are methods of training that create multiple hypothetical real-life situations and use changing variables within the business environment to predict behavioral patterns and responses to systemic stimuli. Too complex? Let’s break it down.

• Simulations start with a fictitious scenario using the business environment the user is already part of.
• The user is then presented with a series of decisions, which are essentially choices among seemingly equal options.
• Qualitative and quantitative inputs are seamlessly woven into the storyline for the user to take better-informed decisions.
• What users select will dictate the learning path, and could also impact resources, deliverables, or even further scenarios.

This tells you a little bit about what simulations are, but it doesn’t even begin to skim the surface of why they should be an integral part of every training program today. The true power of a simulation is in its ability to identify the business needs and pain points before they are encountered. Let’s take a look at how simulations can assist employees and entire organizations with navigating change and building agility.

• Prioritization: By being able to weigh options against each other on the basis of perceived impact, users are able to organize work and conserve virtual resources like time, money, or labor. Simulations give you the flexibility and agility to manage smaller chunks of work.
• Visibility: Simulations allow users to see patterns across the board, so they can choose to allocate resources in a manner that coordinates effort around bite-sized and easily-accessible goals. They organize, prioritize, and break down meaningful work into quick tasks rather than lists of requirements.
• Value Creation: Simulations answer the question that is the eternal dilemma for any user – WIIFM (or what’s in it for me?) When you walk through a simulation, you are able to articulate changes you want to see in a precise and iterative manner, making it easier to imagine the value you are creating, and who it is for.
• Resource Optimization: One of the biggest learnings from simulations is that there are always going to be multiple resources in a business, and the challenge is in utilizing them cohesively and completely. Working backward from the outcome to the implementation helps leaders wrap their heads around the consequences.
• Relatability: A scenario is effectively a story of the pain points, business needs, and desired outcomes an organization deals with. Simulations can effectively create scenarios that empathize with leaders and their predicaments, while never losing sight of the end goal and maintaining the right level of granularity.
• Customization: The self-paced nature of a simulation is an ace in the pack, addressing any potential attention deficit as well as helping the user allocate time for tasks they would face in the actual workday. Optimal and sub-optimal behavioral patterns emerge, are evaluated, and must be discarded to achieve success.
• Vicarious Learning: Simulations throw up situations and decisions that are real and nuanced, but the kicker is that wrong decisions in the simulation do not have real-world consequences. This helps users develop confidence and be prepared for all possible scenarios.
• Performance Orientation: Users are encouraged to be agile in their thinking, by evaluating the relevance and importance of inputs they receive. Strategic thinking and decision-making skills are tested in simulations, and feedback is given on the overall performance and areas of improvement, if any.
• Aspiration-Ability: Simulations base their models on the human desire to do well, and map that to the individual ability of each user, to create a perfectly usable assessment program for any organization. Individual characteristics interact with the environment to determine patterns and allow users to map goals to their online personas.

The literary genius Lewis Carroll has this extremely layered scene in Alice through the Looking Glass where Alice (of Alice in Wonderland fame) is running full throttle with the Red Queen in the forest. As she whizzes by, she notices everything around her seems to be the same as it was before, and mentions this to the Red Queen. Alice evinces surprise at trying to get somewhere but ending up exactly where she started, unlike in her own country where she would have gotten somewhere else if she ran at this speed. In the Queen’s response lies a world of wisdom for businesses grappling with uncertainty today. “A slow sort of country! Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” Make of that what you will.

– By Charulata Razdan, Manager – Instructional Design at MPS Interactive Systems