10 Fun Things to Do with Simulations

Some people ask me what I mean when I say I work with simulations.

I explain that the best learning happens when people practice real tasks in simplified real-world conditions. This simulates what they would do on the job.

The more that learning activities feel like real work situations, the better the learning transfers to the real world. Typically, by 50% or more over traditional methods!

Real-world relevance is why this simulation-enhanced learning strikes a better balance of complexity, engagement, power, and ease of use.

Here is my Top 10 list of fun things you can do with simulations. After the list, I’ll show you the 5-Step Simulation? method I developed to make it easy to build and use simulations for training.

The Top 10 List of Things You can do with Simulations

1. Pretend you don’t know that simulations don’t have to be computer-based.
2. Fail to win the largest sale in the company’s history without suffering any repercussions or unannounced visits from the CEO.
3. Put real job skills to use doing something fun and unusual, like running a cruise ship or starting an entirely new business.
4. Design, build, and launch a successful new product that completely dominates its market niche… or fails miserably… in only an hour or two
5. Wrestle with difficult ethics problems that never occurred to you before, without having to face the corporate lawyers to explain yourself.
6. Figure out why “those guys over in [name any other department in your organization]” keep asking you for all of those crazy things they do.
7. Do everything you can think of to screw up a major customer order, just to see what would happen.
8. Get revenge on your friends by being a really tough roleplayer and watching them squirm… until you remember that you have to go next.
9. Make every training event into a Star Trek? holodeck experience.
10. Get your learners really engaged and active as they practice dealing with situations they have to handle on the job, and making yourself out to be a “super trainer” at the same time!

What would you add to the list?

Or, give me material! If you have a wish list of situations you’d like to see turned into training, drop me a message and I’ll take a look and spin you up a scenario or two.

Effective learning simulations can get pretty complicated. In order to make simulations as accessible as possible to trainers, I created the 5-Step Simulation? method.

Each 5-Step Simulation? works like this:

• Step 1. Set the Stage. This sets up the story, the problem, and the relevance for the learner. There must be enough detail available in this step for the learner to understand the problem, care about it, and see a way to take action.
• Step 2. Start the Action. Start with the first logical decision or action the learner would have to take to overcome the challenge. This decision must be important enough for the learner to feel that it is meaningful and relevant, without being too complex. This is the beginning of the story for the learner, and often represents how the learner will approach the situation.
• Step 3. Make the Most Meaningful Decision. The next decision should logically follow from the first, and the consequences of the first decision should affect the second one. This is the middle of the story, and is often the most difficult part of the challenge. This gets at “solving the problem” in front of the learner.
• Step 4. Take it Home. The final decision should address the remaining actions and consequences that the learner must deal with to resolve the situation. This is the final action the learner can take to wrap up the loose ends of the story before learning how it all turned out in the end. Often this is something like, “How do you close the deal?” or “What do you do to get agreement and assign action steps?”
• Step 5. Reveal the Outcome. Every story deserves a solid ending. The simulation outcome step presents the consequences of the decisions the learner made. This can be done with a simple scorecard, but is much more effective when the instructor can describe a different end-case scenario for each of possible outcomes of the simulation.

Check out the resources on using simulations to increase the relevance of learning on the LearningSim website at www.learningsim.com/resources.

All the best,

–Steve

P.S. - Seriously. If you’d like me to create a scenario for you to use for training, send me a message. I can always use more situations to add to my library, and you’ll get a free simulation packet or two for suggesting the ideas.