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Try BSG (Business Strategy Game) or Glo-Bus. Check their webpages www.glo-bus.com and www.bsg-online.com

Dear colleagues,

I am looking for syllabus and examples of simple classroom simulation games that could be
used for Strategic Planning undergraduate course.

Thank you in advance for sharing your information and advices!

Haiying Lin
Assistant Professor,                                                                                                                                    School of Environment, Enterprise, and Development                                                                       University of Waterloo

,  

Another alternative is BTS Tournaments. It is a simulation in the wireless/telecom industry ( www.btstournaments.com)

Try BSG (Business Strategy Game) or Glo-Bus. Check their webpages www.glo-bus.com and www.bsg-online.com

Dear colleagues,

I am looking for syllabus and examples of simple classroom simulation games that could be
used for Strategic Planning undergraduate course.

Thank you in advance for sharing your information and advices!

Haiying Lin
Assistant Professor,                                                                                                                                    School of Environment, Enterprise, and Development                                                                       University of Waterloo

,  

Try BSG (Business Strategy Game) or Glo-Bus. Check their webpages www.glo-bus.com and www.bsg-online.com

Dear Lin,

You will almost certainly be disappointed in your search. Simple games aren't worth developing-too much trouble for too little gain. The games that are worth using are the ones that will teach you something, like a good case.

Best,

Precha

--

Precha Thavikulwat, Ph.D.
Professor of Management
+---------------------------------------+
| Department of Management              |
| Towson University                     |
| 8000 York Road                        |
| Towson, MD 21252-0001                 |
| U.S.A.                                |
| t. 410-704-3230                       |
| f. 410-704-3236                       |
| pthavikulwat@towson.edu               |
| Skype: pthavikulwat                   |
| http://pages.towson.edu/precha        |
+---------------------------------------+

Dear colleagues,

I am looking for syllabus and examples of simple classroom simulation games that could be
used for Strategic Planning undergraduate course.

Thank you in advance for sharing your information and advices!

Haiying Lin
Assistant Professor,                                                                                                                                    School of Environment, Enterprise, and Development                                                                       University of Waterloo

,  

I used the BSG for several semesters with favorable results. I like the idea of functional diversity and used assigning groups as a class exercise. My last class period would assign the groups for the next semester; students generally thought the exercise would be easy, but soon realized the process was more involved that it initially appeared. This worked in a small school where students knew each other and could evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.

Wade

I have used the BSG and in the final presentation  they also needed to discuss what they had learned from doing this. The range of things the students bring up is surprising. Some examples: maybe debt isn't such a bad thing (that group was debt adverse to the point that it affected their ability to meet demand in a significant way); making these kinds of decisions is way more complicated than I thought; dealing with information overload with tight deadlines is hard (along with what they then did that worked and didn't to deal with this); you can't be an expert at everything so you need to trust your group members and their expertise in areas you are weak (I had had students stand in one of 3 corners of the room based on what they felt was their strongest area - financial, marketing, management related and then the groups of 3 needed to have one person from each corner of the room; if not enough people to go around they instead needed to make sure they had one person person per area who felt confident of their skills in that area)... The list had predictable things on it and some real surprises.

Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service. Get it now.

I would say exactly what wade said regarding BSG. 

Abainesh

I used the BSG for several semesters with favorable results. I like the idea of functional diversity and used assigning groups as a class exercise. My last class period would assign the groups for the next semester; students generally thought the exercise would be easy, but soon realized the process was more involved that it initially appeared. This worked in a small school where students knew each other and could evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.

Wade

I have used the BSG and in the final presentation  they also needed to discuss what they had learned from doing this. The range of things the students bring up is surprising. Some examples: maybe debt isn't such a bad thing (that group was debt adverse to the point that it affected their ability to meet demand in a significant way); making these kinds of decisions is way more complicated than I thought; dealing with information overload with tight deadlines is hard (along with what they then did that worked and didn't to deal with this); you can't be an expert at everything so you need to trust your group members and their expertise in areas you are weak (I had had students stand in one of 3 corners of the room based on what they felt was their strongest area - financial, marketing, management related and then the groups of 3 needed to have one person from each corner of the room; if not enough people to go around they instead needed to make sure they had one person person per area who felt confident of their skills in that area)... The list had predictable things on it and some real surprises.

Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service. Get it now.

Lin did ask specifically for "simple, class-based simulations". The big games others mentioned are powerful, but take a lot of class-time and are demanding for faculty to manage. Many small, in-class exercises exist that deliver powerful learning – see for example the 'microworld' business games at www.strategydynamics.com, These can be run in 1-2 hours, either in groups of 2-3 in class on laptops, or in larger break-out groups. For undergrads, with no business experience, well-known contexts are important, such as restaurant companies or airlines.

Still smaller games are useful too – see a small consumer brand simulation at http://www.strategydynamics.com/choice-pipeline-exercise that takes no more than 20 minutes to run in-class on laptops, but still brings out powerful learning points.

If you don't want PC-based games, there's a paper-based, competitive football strategy game at http://www.strategydynamics.com/football/ for mid-large classes that highlights RBV-type intangibles.

Dear Lin,

You will almost certainly be disappointed in your search. Simple games aren't worth developing-too much trouble for too little gain. The games that are worth using are the ones that will teach you something, like a good case.

Best,

Precha

--

Precha Thavikulwat, Ph.D.
Professor of Management
+---------------------------------------+
| Department of Management              |
| Towson University                     |
| 8000 York Road                        |
| Towson, MD 21252-0001                 |
| U.S.A.                                |
| t. 410-704-3230                       |
| f. 410-704-3236                       |
| pthavikulwat@towson.edu               |
| Skype: pthavikulwat                   |
| http://pages.towson.edu/precha        |
+---------------------------------------+

Dear colleagues,

I am looking for syllabus and examples of simple classroom simulation games that could be
used for Strategic Planning undergraduate course.

Thank you in advance for sharing your information and advices!

Haiying Lin
Assistant Professor,                                                                                                                                    School of Environment, Enterprise, and Development                                                                       University of Waterloo

,  

As someone who has used Capstone, BSG and now Glo-Bus, I do like to know others' perspectives on the comparison of these packages, because I'm torn between Glo-Bus and Capstone for the next semester.

We used Capstone for both the undergraduate and graduate Business Policy course for a few years- I loved the straightforward/intuitive nature of the interface, and it's robust enough as someone else has already pointed out for students to have a great learning experience. However, I grew tired of it after 6 years and decided to try BSG for the MBA capstone course last summer, and loved the global aspects of this game, which Capstone obviously does not provide. I was so happy with BSG that I decided to use that again in my MBA course this term, and started Glo-Bus for the undergraduate capstone course at the same time.

But I have to say I'm a bit frustrated with Glo-Bus after using it for a few weeks. It's supposed to be an easier version of BSG (somewhat like Foundation to Capstone), even though it's in a different industry setting (digital camera, instead of athletic shoes). But I have found the level of difficulties in Glo-Bus seems to be higher than BSG, because it not only deals with four different geographic markets (so does BSG), it also has four quarters for each year. There's a lot of information for students to digest and it is not that easy to navigate through the way they are organized. Of course, I do like the built in three year plan feature and end-of-simulation presentation, peer evaluation and other components in BSG and Glo-Bus, which are not provided by Capstone or Foundation. I also like the "Learning Assurance" feature in BSG and Glo-Bus --I know Capstone and Foundation have similar component, but it's provided by another software (XM?), which I have not used before.

Sorry for the rather long comment. I wonder if anyone has similar experiences/observations about these different packages.

Thanks.

Jun

Jun Zhao

Associate Professor of Management
College of Business and Public Administration
Governors State University
University Park, IL 60485
(708) 534-4953

________________________________

From: Business Policy and Strategy List on behalf of Jorge Zavala
Sent: Fri 2/19/2010 7:31 PM
To: BPS-NET@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: Syllabus and classroom simulation games for Strategic Planning course



Try BSG (Business Strategy Game) or Glo-Bus. Check their webpages www.glo-bus.com <http://www.glo-bus.com/>  and www.bsg-online.com



From: Business Policy and Strategy List [mailto:BPS-NET@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Haiying Lin
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 7:12 AM
To: BPS-NET@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Syllabus and classroom simulation games for Strategic Planning course



Dear colleagues,

I am looking for syllabus and examples of simple classroom simulation games that could be
used for Strategic Planning undergraduate course.

Thank you in advance for sharing your information and advices!

Haiying Lin
Assistant Professor,                                                                                                                                    School of Environment, Enterprise, and Development                                                                       University of Waterloo

,