5. Creating Simulations
Schedule a meeting with a GoVenture Learning advisor — we can help you choose and set up simulations that best match your needs.
5.1 Creating a Simulation Competition
You must create a Simulation Competition before you or anyone can join to play. This should be the first thing that you do. Once a Simulation Competition has been created, you can manage it using the options provided on the Instructor Dashboard. Watch the video below.
5.2 Individual & Team Play
For options, see section 8 Individual & Team Play.
5.3 Time Required
It is up to the Simulation Manager to decide how much time will be provided to players between advances in order to make and save their business decisions. The actual amount of time required to navigate the software to make and save business decisions is very short – generally only a few minutes. However, it is the thinking required that is the most time-consuming, such as reviewing reports and contemplating strategy.
On average, it may take 15-40 minutes each period for a player acting alone to make thoughtful decisions (or one hour or more for thorough analysis). With team play, at least one hour or more per period is often needed to allow for communication and consensus. It is up to the Simulation Manager to determine how much time pressure will be applied.
5.4 Schedule and Duration of Play
The Simulation Manager controls how quickly a Simulation Competition will progress.
Automatic Advance
The Simulation Competition can advance as often as once per day, automatically (at approximately 3AM ET) without any intervention, based on the dates chosen. This is the best option for a Simulation Competition that will span days and weeks. Note that the simulation displays UTC time, not your local time zone.
Manual Advance
The Simulation Competition can be advanced at any time with the click of a button by the Simulation Manager. This is the best option for a Simulation Competition that will span a few hours, or one that requires more customized advancing than is provided by the automatic advance option.
Player Advance
Players can advance the simulation to the next period by clicking a button. With this option, players compete on their own against computer competitors, but not against human competitors because each player's simulation is independent from the others. This option is useful when you want to allow players to progress through the simulation at their own pace.
NOTE: A Simulation Competition that is set to Automatic Advance can also be advanced manually at any time.
5.5 Depth of the Experience
When creating a Simulation Competition, there are a number of business modules and features that can be turned ON or OFF to increase or decrease the depth of the experience. The more business modules and features that are turned on, the more difficult the simulation becomes for players because they will be faced with more decisions to make and more factors to consider.
Consider the following:
To determine which modules should be turned on or off, consider playing a QuickStart simulation to give them a try before creating a Simulation Competition for students to play (see Getting Started).
It is usually better to start with a simpler Simulation Competition and advance to a more comprehensive Simulation Competition later, if it makes sense to do so. Have students play a basic practice simulation and determine their comfort with a more advanced simulation.
Having students play in teams may help students learn from each other. Or, consider allowing students to choose whether to play on their own or in teams of mixed sizes (GoVenture CEO allows teams of any size within the same Simulation Competition).
If you have students with varied experience, consider putting them in teams that balance their experience levels.
Consider running two different Simulation Competitions simultaneously, one more advanced than the other, and assigning students to each one based on their experience levels, or allow students to choose one on their own.
When running a practice Simulation Competition, consider making it identical, or very similar, to the actual non-practice Simulation Competition that will follow. Unlike using a very basic practice Simulation Competition, this approach allows students to experience the same business decisions during and after practice, making it easier for them to transition from one to the other.
5.6 Play Several Simulations Instead of Just One
See section 9 Curriculum Planning for recommendations.
Hosting several short Simulation Competitions often provides a more thorough learning experience than hosting one long Simulation Competition. Knowing there are multiple Simulation Competitions provides players the confidence and opportunity to experiment with different strategies.
An approach to consider is to play the first Simulation Competition as practice for only 3 to 7 periods. This provides players the opportunity to get to know the simulation and the decisions that need to be made in preparation for subsequent Simulation Competitions. Subsequent competitions can then run for 6 to 24 periods — 6 to 12 periods is recommended.
A useful approach when running multiple Simulation Competitions is to assign different objectives to each. For example, one Simulation Competition may have the objective of maximizing Equity/Profit, whereas another might be to maximize Market Share. Having different objectives enables players to better experience the various decisions and compromises that must be made to realize different business objectives.
NOTE: If desired, it is possible to host multiple Simulation Competitions that run at the same time, as opposed to waiting for one Simulation Competition to end before beginning another.
5.7 Simulation Customization
The person who creates and manages a Simulation Competition is called the Simulation Manager. This is often an instructor or trainer.
For the Simulation Manager, GoVenture CEO can be set up within minutes, and it will run automatically with no intervention required (unless desired). Every detail is available to the Simulation Manager from a single interface. Simulation Manager account privileges are required to access these features.
A high degree of customization is available for the Simulation Manager, allowing the creation of any product in any industry in any market:
5.8 Advanced Features and Activities
The following advanced features and activities can be enabled from the ACTIONS tile:
TRIGGER EVENT feature allows you to affect a live simulation by modeling weather events that reduce market demand, labor strikes that increase shipping costs, or anything you can think of.
EDIT BUSINESS CASH feature allows you to increase or decrease the money in a business. Use this feature to reward or penalize players based on results from a separate activity, such as a packaging design competition, investment pitch, sales demonstration, or other business activity.
ACCOUNTING features allow you to provide a more comprehensive accounting experience.
CONGLOMERATES feature allows you to combine the results of two more businesses managed by the same Player in different Simulation Competitions. Players can manage separate businesses in different industries (Simulation Competitions) to model multiple product lines, subsidiaries, or lines of business.
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS (M&A) feature allows you to combine the results of individual businesses, similar to how businesses might be combined in the real world of business.
Expand this section for M&A details — click the black triangle
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Watch this video to learn how the M&A feature works.
- Use the Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) feature to enhance the simulation experience for players. The M&A feature allows you to combine the results of individual businesses, similar to how businesses might be combined in the real world of business.
- Combining businesses allows players to work together and align their strategies.
- The combined businesses still operate as independent businesses. Nothing changes with how the simulation operates or the decisions players must make. There is no exchange of money, products, resources, or anything else. The M&A feature simply combines results into a financial report with the merged businesses.
- Any number of businesses within the same Simulation Competition can be combined into a single set of results. (To combine results from different Simulation Competitions, use the Conglomerates feature).
- Players will see the same report shown below in their Performance Reports. (The availability of this report is the ONLY change made by the M&A feature to the Simulation Competition).
- To use the M&A feature, you should inform players that they have the option to merge their businesses and that they must (manually) submit their requests to do so to you. Only the Simulation Manager can merge businesses using this interface. Businesses can be merged and unmerged at any time (and nothing is affected except the report shown below).
- If an exchange of money is desired for a merger or acquisition to take place, the Simulation Manager can use the EDIT BUSINESS CASH feature (in the ACTIONS tile) to take money away from one business and give it to another.
Suggestions for M&A Implementation
- Use the M&A feature in a simulation that is set to play for at least 8 to 10 periods.
- After half of the periods have been completed, explain to students that they must find one other business to merge with. This forces students to have conversations with each other to determine the best fit.
- Require students to create an M&A proposal, which could be a slide deck (“pitch deck”) or document. Students present their proposals to the instructor and the instructor determines if they will allow the M&A to proceed.
- The same business cannot be included in more than one proposal.
- Do not allow the top X ranking businesses to merge — this forces top-performing businesses to merge with lower-performing businesses. Choose X based on the number of businesses in your Simulation Competition.
- Continue playing the Simulation Competition for the remaining periods.
- Host debriefs to discuss the M&A strategies proposed by students and the results.
- Keep in mind that the M&A feature has no effect on the individual businesses. There are no shared costs or economies of scale. They must be run individually as always, but the merged teams should align their strategies.