Every organisation is different and every programme too, but over time we've found there are common themes in the programmes we run. These have become the foundations of our programme design.
1. Commercial tension
Commercial life is full of competing priorities. Should we invest or preserve cash? Protect margins or grow sales? Our simulations are designed around meaningful commercial tensions and trade-offs. There are rarely perfect answers. Every decision creates opportunities, costs and consequences that participants must weigh for themselves.
2. Dramatic tension
The best films keep us emotionally invested because we genuinely want to know what happens next. The best simulations achieve something similar. Participants stop trying to win a game and instead care about their role in the business, the decisions they make and the outcomes. We don't try to tell participants a story, but we do try to create experiences they later tell stories about.
3. Meaningful consequences
Decisions need to have visible commercial consequences that matter to participants and their commercial world. Those consequences should be believable, clearly connected to the decisions that created them and important enough that participants genuinely care what happens next.
4. Reflection
Whether the aim is develop knowledge, understanding, or judgement, the programme structure should create space throughout for participants to reflect on what’s happened, why it’s happened and what that means for them.
While these are the themes we've found consistently produce good results, we still love exploring new ideas. If you have a different perspective, we'd be genuinely interested to hear it.