'Simulation' is one title used for training material that is equally well described as 'game' or 'exercise' or 'activity' or 'structured experience'. This means that somebody experiencing one particular 'simulation' may come to feel that this type, and this type only, is what 'simulation' means. However, there are many different types of simulation, serving different objectives and using different methods.

To give an example, there are simulations intended to study the effect of working in a hierarchy. They establish several levels of authority and require the organisation thus set up to carry out some form of 'work'. There are also computer-based simulations that require decisions about the policies which a theoretical organisation (described in a text) should follow. Both are simulations and both exist to study how an organisation works. But what participants are actually doing while the event progresses is very different. The two devices use different media for a similar purpose.

When considering the use of a simulation, the best starting point is the learning objective; this article will consider three common ones.

• Increasing the skills of teamworking, problem-solving and decision-making
• Increasing awareness of inter-personal behaviour and group dynamics.
• Increasing understanding of basic business economics.

INCREASING THE SKILLS OF TEAMWORKING, PROBLEM-SOLVING AND DECISION-MAKING

There are well-understood procedures that help teams to solve a problem or reach a good decision. Simulations can allow participants to practise them. Different theorists use different words to describe the procedures, but one prescription is:

• reach a common understanding about the objective
• reach a common understanding about why it is to be pursued
• agree what outcomes will be regarded as successful
• gain access to the necessary knowledge and skills
• develop alternative courses of action, compare them and decide
• allocate responsibilities, act and monitor
• rigorously review the outcome against the agreed criteria of success.

There are a number of ways to simulate a situation in which these procedures can be practised. Here are two examples.

Simulated situations based on written data

One well-known type of simulation is one where a party is supposed to have survived an air crash in the desert and has only ten items salvaged from the wreck. Their task is to rank these ten items in order of importance for survival. Team members make an individual ranking first, and then discuss the problem together to agree a team ranking. An expert answer is then revealed. Incidentally, a team ranking is usually found to match the expert answer better than individual rankings.

In this type of simulation, teams need to be clear about their objective. Some members assume that the best policy is to try walking out of the desert while others assume it is better to stay put and await rescue. The different assumptions lead to different choices about the importance of the ten items, and if the parties don't realise that different assumptions have been made then this can lead to conflict within the team. This type of simulation offers a useful way to emphasise the need to access and consider all information (individuals are sometimes hesitant about revealing their knowledge) and to compare alternatives. Both good problem-solving disciplines.

Simulations that use physical materials, tokens and toys

Some simulations use physical materials and require the team, for instance, to build a tower out of toy bricks or to conduct an exploration. These simulations have the advantage of providing clear, physical evidence for study. Poor design can result in the structure collapsing. The ordering of parts can be forgotten, so that the structure cannot be completed in time. Details of the specification can be overlooked, so that the customer rejects the structure. These exercises are extremely good at illustrating the importance of quality at all of the various decision-making stages.

Their disadvantage is that - unlike the 'safe' background of survival-type simulations - they may require more careful introduction. Not all course delegates are comfortable with the concept of 'play at work' and adverse reactions are possible. When introducing a simulation of this type the following strategies may be useful:

1. Offer a clear and convincing link between the principles applying in the simulation and their relevance in 'real life'.

2. Select a simulation that requires mental or physical skill of a high order. Toys are accepted if they are seen as the medium through which an adult challenge is presented.

3. Use materials that are well designed and of good quality.

The two types of simulation I have mentioned so far each have the potential to increase the skills of teamworking, problem-solving and decision-making. The choice between them will be influenced by the nature of the group(s) involved, their expected attitudes, and the things they feel comfortable doing. Correctly used, both types are likely to result in increased 'learning' over passive events (such as a presentation or lecture) because of active personal involvement.

INCREASING AWARENESS OF INTER-PERSONAL BEHAVIOUR AND GROUP DYNAMICS

The medium through which the logical procedures (outlined above) are carried out will always be personal communication. Each stage of the problem solving process can be completed well or badly depending on how the team members interact. Sometimes the primary focus of the simulation will be the study of this interaction.

Generally, material used for this purpose is likely to be open-ended in that it does not have an objective measure of success. This is particularly useful where there is a need to avoid the result being used to justify behaviour, such as a situation where a team member behaves abominably to his colleagues but gets the answer right and therefore dismisses any criticism.

Learning from such activities comes in two forms. There is an academic and intellectual element which can be explained and demonstrated, and is usually accepted. A good way to introduce this is through behaviour-typing disciplines, which classify contributions under headings like 'Proposing' or 'Building' or 'Supporting' or 'Bringing in (others)'. They describe the function that the words spoken are performing. Another method is the identification of team roles in the manner recommended by Dr. Belbin. Words like Finisher apply naturally to the sort of person who is concerned to avoid the half-finished job and ensures proper completion. People find it easy to accept that they tend to be 'one of these' or 'one of those'.

The other form in which learning comes is direct and personal feedback. Two areas of risk become apparent here: the possibility of unacceptable feedback and the possibility that the opportunity for feedback will not arise at all because of the uncertainties of group dynamics. Feedback might be received, for instance, indicating that one is perceived as dogmatic, inconsiderate and over-bearing. This is hard to take if all one was trying to do was state an argument with proper clarity and emphasis! Unwelcome feedback may make a person deny the validity of the circumstances and conclude "This exercise is a load of rubbish".

The uncertainty of group dynamics means that the facilitator must have some flexibility over objectives, since it is not possible to predict exactly what will happen. All possible types of behaviour may or may not be demonstrated. For instance, a facilitator might say "I am going to simulate a situation in which there will be serious differences of opinion so that we can study conflict-resolution behaviour - Win/Win or Win/Lose and so on." It might then be that the participating group reaches agreement immediately and amicably! Circumstances can arise in which the facilitator is rather like the science teacher who says "Watch the litmus paper turn black" - and then it fails to do so!

Are such high risk activities worth the effort? The answer lies in the concept of self-directed learning. All of us have difficulty understanding how we are perceived by others. All of us have difficulty in modifying our behaviour. All of us have a need to learn in this sense. All of us can learn something from taking part in activities of this sort if we want to do so. They are, therefore, potentially valuable tools. The facilitator can minimise the risk factor by:

1. Developing personal skills that will maximise the probability of useful and observable behaviour being demonstrated

2. Fostering a climate in which each participant seeks to extract personally-relevant learning from the experience

3. Setting clear boundaries for post-exercise discussion so that all participants seek to improve the skills of their colleagues, as well as their own.

When introducing this type of simulation the facilitator may be asked "What will I learn from this?" The honest answer is "I hope that the group will learn something about XYZ. I also hope that each person will gain valuable lessons about his or her own personal behaviour. But I don't know beforehand what lessons these might be." The facilitator should aim to become familiar with the exercise so that what actually happens can be turned to advantage and there is less reliance on what was supposed to happen. It is also essential to take account of the attitudes of the participating group. Iit can be re-assuring to reflect that for every participant with a negative attitude:

"I have been sent here so that they can tell me what they want me to learn I did not much want to come. Now I am here, I expect the instructor to go ahead and instruct. What is this rubbish about identifying my own learning needs?"

there will be another participant with a positive attitude:

"This company has changed so much over the last twelve months that I need to take every chance to increase my knowledge and improve my skills."

INCREASING UNDERSTANDING OF BASIC BUSINESS ECONOMICS

Many simulations used for the purpose of analysing and demonstrating behavioural and inter-personal skills are short and open-ended, but it is also possible to use business and economic models, which do have a stated outcome. Many of these simulations make use of a computer. The computer interprets the results of team and individual decisions to produce an outcome, which is expressed in numerical or financial terms.

These type of simulations are quite different from those described above. They present an imaginary company and ask players (individually or in teams) to make decisions about how it should be managed. The decisions are usually about numbers, and cover subjects like the number of sales staff, the price of the product or service, the promotion budget, and so on. The decisions are input to the computer which then determines what commercial results will follow based on a set of rules (called the model). Enthusiasts for this type are frequently accountants, marketing specialists or business managers. Simulations range from presenting simple business models to dealing with enormously complex organisations.

No simulation can completely mirror every aspect of a complex business, so the creator makes choices about which features should be included and which should be left out. The areas of potential learning are therefore defined and the user knows in advance what objectives can be aimed for. To give an example, one can't say "This will teach you about international marketing" if only the national market is simulated. Commercially available simulations offer a great deal of choice, and a facilitator seeking to increase business awareness within an organisation should first identify the key relationships that make for success or failure within the home context. One can then begin to search for an off-the-shelf package that features these relationships strongly. It is also possible to have a simulation created specifically for an organisation. It costs more than buying a ready-made version, but in certain circumstances, the advantages of a tailored simulation may outweigh the additional cost involved. Such a project can be very good for generating commitment to the training, and the process of creating a simulation can be a valuable learning experience in itself.

The use of simulated business models has another advantage - it is possible to demonstrate the desired learning objectively. Consider the complaint sometimes made by finance directors about sales and marketing people. "They don't know the difference between turnover and profit." The problem could be approached through a simulation in which sales were determined by manipulating price and advertising. Sales volume (if the price were held steady) might generally increase with extra advertising. But the rules would be so written that after a certain level each extra pound of advertising won a smaller increase in sales than the last one - until a point was reached where extra spending was no help at all. Under those conditions there would be a point at which extra spending did produce extra sales value but did not produce extra profit. After the game it would be possible to demonstrate this phenomenon from the records to prove that it existed and (probably) to prove that some teams never noticed it.

In one sense computer-controlled business simulations are easier than the human relations type. They are more predictable, less dependent upon a self-directed attitude to learning and more objective. Against this, they present two problems. Firstly, they almost always present a technical subject with which many trainers will be unfamiliar. Secondly, they conceal the way decisions are turned into results. When faced with the question "Why did this happen to us?" the facilitator may be forced to say, "I don't know, this is what the computer said".

One solution to this problem is to become personally familiar with the simulation. Read it and play it. Then compare the decisions made alongside the results and try to figure out what the program did. This can be difficult for non-financially oriented facilitators, but not impossible. And there are usually financial experts within the organisation who can offer assistance in interpreting the results.

On the other hand, a facilitator with limited financial knowledge can take comfort from the fact that lessons about business economics are often not the main benefit derived from these simulations. Common responses from people who have undertaken business simulations include "I learnt how the whole thing fits together - the interdependence of different departments" and "I learnt a great deal about co-operating with other people as a member of a team". So lack of business expertise should not be a deterrent to using this type of simulation. They are a valuable means of helping a team to work together and to make the best use of their resources. And they offer an excellent opportunity for coaching.

VIRTUAL TEAMS

All the simulations mentioned so far have assumed that facilitator and delegates are together in one place. What happens if this can't be done? The World Wide Web now makes it possible for participants remote from each other to enjoy the benefits of simulations. But remote doesn't mean isolated. While working in virtual teams players can usually gain instant contact with other team members: the role-playing managing director in (say) Dublin can 'talk' to the role-playing marketing director in Brisbane. A corollary of this spatial freedom is that a team of limited skills and abilities (limited to the people able to be present together) is enabled to call on unlimited skill (because wherever the ultimate expert is, he or she can still be included).

The difficulties that virtual teams might encounter include:

• decreased inter-personal understanding due to the absence of face-to-face contact.
• technology failures which limit the participation of a team member and/or the experience as a whole.
• de-motivating delays in response because each team member reads and responds to their e:mails at their own convenience.

Simulations played on the internet, or by organisations on their own intranet, are at present few in number. However, as technology advances and more products become available this type of simulation is likely to be a valuable training aid for those wishing to develop disparate teams.

This article set out to give a broad overview of some of the more common ‘simulations’ available in the market. It details some of the advantages and some of the pitfalls that might be experienced with each type and suggests when each might be suitable. It suggests that when looking for a simulation the phrase ‘one size fits all’ is not applicable. If you want the simulation to enhance your activities then careful examination of the audience and learning objectives is crucial.