Project Management Simulation: Evaluation of Scenario Session 2
This session should probably be shorter than the first session, because students are now already familiar with the simulations and won’t be surprised by the unexpected events in the scenario. It’s best to allow time to play each scenario, B, C and F, one or two times. These scenarios will be more challenging for students than scenario A, so students may want to play longer, in order to try to master the new challenge.
The instructor has some control over how surprised students are likely to be by the staff, crises in Scenario B and the competitor announcements in Scenario C, and the many sources of uncertainty in Scenario F. For example, situation the simulation within a course topic explicitly called something like “Managing Risk and Uncertainty” can obviously forewarn the students. Even without complete surprise, the simulation will be effective. The situation in the simulation will not be much different than the situation facing a real project manager. He or she knows to expect something unexpected but doesn’t know what it might be.
Before beginning, suggest some questions that guide student thinking in the direction of managing risk and uncertainty but that do give away too much.
Submission Instructions
After playing the simulation, students will generate a short debrief summary that responds the following assignment questions and provide screenshot that shows that you played the simulation.
What’s different about the project context in this scenario?
In this scenario, how have causal relationships been affected or changed? Why have they changed?
What strategies did you use to deal with this scenario? What worked? What didn’t? Were you able to complete the project successfully?
Having dealt now with different project scenarios, how would you revise your project management advice? If so, how?
