Simulation-Based Online Curriculums

Fluent in Finance-Effective Online Learning That Teaches the Language of Business

Fluent in Finance is a comprehensive online curriculum in business finance for non-financial managers. By melding clear instruction, real world examples, powerful learning activities, and the flexibility of online delivery, this simulation creates an unbeatable learning experience.  It equips managers with the financial knowledge and tools they need to excel and drive measurable results to your organization.

Includes:

• Interactive Case Studies frame each chapter and pique learners’ interest in the material by immersing them in realistic business problems. Learners internalize finance concepts by applying them to their analyses and case solutions.
• Rich Media Tutorials introduce new financial concepts and serve as reference tools after the experience is complete. Interactive, visual media make abstract financial concepts concrete and intuitive.
• Exercises based in a wide range of business scenarios allow learners to further hone their skills and verify their understanding.

Mastering Management - Coaching

Mastering Management™: Coaching is an interactive, simulation-based online curriculum focused on improving the coaching skills of veteran managers and introducing new managers to the difficult task of coaching.

Presentation Challenge

Presentation Challenge™ uses a carefully balanced combination of e-learning modules, presentation-building-and-delivery simulations, and coached practice sessions to improve manager communication skills and best practices.

Computer-Based Business Simulations

Business Challenge

Once you’ve learned the language of business, you’ll need to practice!  What better way than by using an online, multiplayer simulation that allows managers to apply finance concepts in a way that closely models real-world managerial decision- making. Learners manage virtual businesses and compete for market leadership. They make investment decisions, fund their strategies, and view the results in terms of financial metrics. Business Challenge is like a lab; learners put theory into practice, conduct financial experiments, and experience the results – with safety goggles on!”

This simulation can be deployed in a classroom setting or virtually, via WebEx.   (You can also utilize Business Challenge at any time as a follow on to your own internal business acumen training or as part of your management development curriculum.) 

During this simulation, participants will have the opportunity to:

• Run a business using financial metrics
• Understand the impact of how different decisions across the organization impact one another
• Align operations, sales, and research in order to become a profitable business

Strategic Leadership and Market-Driven Business Strategy

Using a sophisticated, award-winning, computer-based business simulation, your managers are placed into teams and provided with the opportunity to run competing companies. They each assume responsibility for formulating strategy, designing and implementing programs, and developing and managing growing product lines. Lectures provide information to address your learning objectives and via the PC, teams have immediate access to financial and market information, decision spreadsheets, and management tools. Between playing periods, the program calculates the consequences of each team’s business decisions. The total time required to complete a simulation exercise is around 16-18 hours, making it ideal for courses lasting from three to five days.

The Leadership Challenge: Developing Leadership Skills and Business Acumen, Using an Award-Winning Multiplayer Business Simulation.

In this simulation, each participant plays a specific role leading simulated companies. Lectures provide information to address your learning objectives and during the simulation rounds, each player contributes to the success or failure of the business by making decisions and completing tasks as an individual — therefore, every participant is actively involved in the process. Engaging the entire team underscores the need for a sound strategy and ensures that every participant understands his or her role in the execution of that strategy. During the simulation, teams operate in a competitive marketplace. As pressures mount, participants' true behaviors emerge, providing rich opportunities for experimentation, self-reflection, self-correction, and feedback. The impact of these evaluations is enhanced by debriefs led by experienced facilitators.

 Action Learning Offerings

 War Games -  Unlocking Opportunities and Creating Competitive Advantage

Success is a result of out-thinking and out-executing the competition.  Challenge your senior team along with your agencies to take a rigorous look at your company’s position in the marketplace.   How are you are going to take market share away from your competition?  How might they take market share from you?  Our multi-functional war gaming session will identify winning strategies and competitive responses tailored for your current market challenges.

Adventure Based, Experiential Offerings

Are you planning an off-site of meeting for a large group and looking for ways to make it more memorable and interactive while injecting some energy into an otherwise packed agenda?  If so, integrating one of our activities will powerfully launch your meeting, shake things up in the middle or end it on a high note!  Consider some of these sample programs which frequently lead to participants saying,  “It was the best part of the meeting!”

Take Two™

We’ve heard the corporate message.  We’ve seen the numbers.  We know the new buzz phrase (side note: for our purposes here, let’s assume it’s World Class).  But WHAT does it really mean and how can you apply it in the real world?  In Take Two, teams, equipped with video cameras and a host of other resources are sent out into the streets to create and capture on camera a captivating story bringing, for example, World Class in Action (or insert your own buzz phrase) to life!  While meeting specified criteria in areas such as Casting, Scripting, Directing & Props, teams will be required to really think about the meaning of the phrase in new and different ways.

Note: This program is highly customizable based upon your desired outcome.  See Insight Edition below for a pure team-building experience!  Focus On:      

Creative Thinking, Collaboration, and Active Application. 

Insight Edition™

Lights, Camera, Inter-Action:  Now is NOT the time to be camera-shy!  The clock is ticking and the newscast must be ready in 2 hours!  Teams, equipped with video cameras, spill out onto the streets with their assignment: to create a concept/storyline for a select segment for the evening news and then capture it on video (i.e. sports, weather, international news, entertainment etc.). 

In order to accomplish what may seem like “Mission Impossible”, your entire group must pull together to make the 6:00 deadline.  This could be your chance to send your Nielsen Ratings soaring.  Go get ‘em!  Focus on– collaboration, creative thinking, Decision-making and time management

Team Adventures

• Team members work together on a series of ‘roll-up-your sleeves’ activities that require real teamwork, creativity, leadership and fun!
• Activities are matched to specific team, organizational needs or meeting theme.
• Teams conquer challenges such as ‘Chasm Crossing’, ‘Radioactive Waste Removal’, ‘Tall Towers Construction’, 'Labyrinth!' (over forty indoor or outdoor portable activities to choose from!)
• Lighter, fun or more serious business for any level of discussion.
• Team members follow the specially prepared map with many clues and team challenges (optional) along the way, to find their treasure!
• The metaphor of small teams working together and only succeeding as one large team connects the dots to the workplace.
• The clues can be ‘themed’ around an industry, business issue, product, or fun trivia! *Special design requires all teams to collaborate.*

Group Size / Time Required: Any size group (even 300+) divided into teams of 5-10 each / about 2 to 3 hours depending on number of people and challenge level of the route, clues and included team challenges.

Team Hunt

Representative Tailored Programs Include::

The DaVinci Adventure - Teams hunt through museums (or a multitude of site options) to find clues in the artwork that will help them open the CRYPTEX

Cell Phone Hunt – Teams hunt using SMS messaging 

Team Gourmet

Team members plan, prepare and eat a team meal.

•  Lighter, fun orientation; or moderate team debriefing for lessons learned and workplace application.
• The experience is reviewed and discussed to the level desired.
• The team makes decisions on recipes, decides on roles and responsibilities, plans, solves problems, coordinates timing for a team meal.
• The team receives a menu, ingredients (partially pre-prepared), tools and utensils, but not recipes!

Group Size / Time Required: 8 to 80 / 90-120 minutes. Previous cooking experience not required.

An enjoyable time is guaranteed for all!

 Out of the Box Programs to Enliven Your Sales or Offsite Meeting

Send in the Clones:  a 100% customized Corporate Comedy Roast

The Ad Agency Game - provides your participants with an opportunity to develop an advertising campaign for a new product – and to practice and receive feedback on their presentation. 

Custom Experiential/Action Learning Experiences

Our diverse team and leadership development programs range from high-energy, fun team activities to learning-focused workshops and courses. And they always focus on real-world applications.

• We’ve created ½ to full day events for 10-1000 participants.
• We’ve helped participants excel at strategic account management, become more aware of the importance of creating a culture of inclusion and diversity, launch a process improvement initiative to take $7MM out of a corporate budget and become positive change agents.

 Let us create one for you!

Board Game Simulations

The “Beer Game” Simulation

The Production / Distribution Simulation (also known as The Beer Game) creates a competitive work-process-oriented environment in which fictitious beverage companies respond in “real-time” to changing market conditions and make decisions based on supply-demand information to manage their inventory and profitability. Although based on a supply chain manufacturing operation, the Beer Game has as much to do with assumptions and decision-making processes in multi-functional organizations that drive behavior both in the marketplace and within the organization—and can often lead to the people within the same company being their own worst enemies in achieving—or not achieving performance and results. The Beer Game itself, and the extensive debrief that accompanies it, provide real and tangible hands-on learning on the importance of new-paradigm / systems thinking to solve business problems and helping people see themselves an active “part of the solution”—no matter where they sit in the organization.

Interplay™

Most business simulations measure value primarily by the worth of a company’s tangible assets. Yet, value and growth reside in the value potential of a company’s intangible assets. This untapped and often underappreciated potential is responsible for generating most corporate growth and shareholder value and accounts for well over half the market capitalization of public companies. Interplay™ provides an intense simulation experience where leaders get to participate on management teams and apply cutting edge management practices to grow their “firm” and emerge as market leaders in a competitive knowledge-intense marketplace. The key learning concepts embedded in the interplay experience include: Strategic Thinking and Acting; Competitive Advantage; Growth; Alignment; Value Creation; Intangible Assets; Knowledge Management; Collaborative Decision Making; Talent Management; Financial Acumen.

Accountability Means Everyone

AME™ uses a color-coded interactive game board to engage learners and make learning the fundamentals of finance easy. Participants learn how to read and interpret their company’s financial statements. This knowledge will boost the participant’s confidence level to make more informed decision-making based upon a true understanding of what the numbers mean to the company.

The Global Diversity Game

The Global/Diversity Game is a successful, highly interactive training tool that uses a game board (or quiz) format to explore facts about global diversity covering Demographics, Jobs, Legislation and Society as well as how to effectively manage in a multicultural workplace.

Project Management Simulations

Stays and Days and Dragons (One Day Event)

This exciting day of simulation games combines individual initiative, team cooperation, analytical insight and some fast moving dice to develop the background necessary to "game" participants' individual projects. The debrief from the day will focus on how to make gaming the project plan a productive part of the planning process. Implications for senior management will be explored.

Herding Cats

This experiential learning simulation gives you the opportunity to test and apply your understanding of project management in a risk-free yet realistic environment. Anyone who works on complex technical projects that are difficult to manage will benefit from attending Herding Cats. This program will arm you with powerful, practical new ideas to apply to your current projects – immediately.