Simulations & certification
Jamesson Solutions offers a suite of learning and development business simulations, along with professional certification. We can help you select the simulations you need. Contact us here or call directly if you need more information or suggestions.
Call (336) 298-7170
Polygon Puzzle™ is popular and powerful. It’s a team development tool designed to teach team members to communicate effectively and to collaborate to achieve a common goal successfully.
A challenging, exciting, fun filled, and highly effective development activity, it’s used by hundreds of organizations from all business sectors around the world. It enables you to build a team in less than one hour.
It’s been used in hundreds of organizations, including Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, AT&T, and Krutham. Polygon Puzzle™ was even used by the United States Senate.
Polygon Puzzle is a Level 1 Simulation, so it can be used out-of-the-box.
We recommned pairing it with Team Performance Questionnaire.
How Polygon Puzzle works
The puzzle can be used with small groups with up to 30 participants using a single puzzle, or with hundreds of participants using multiple puzzles.
• Participants (8-30 with one puzzle) are divided into working teams to assemble a twenty-eight piece, two dimensional puzzle.
• Participants are given written clues from a deck of thirty clue cards.
• The clues are evenly divided among the work teams, with no single team having sufficient information to solve the puzzle.
• The process consists of three phases; each phase is designed to allow participants to share information within their small team, then with the other teams, and finally to solve the puzzle as a group.
• The solution to the puzzle becomes clear when the small teams learn that they must work together.
• Works well with Individual Assessments like Change Style Indicator and Team Development Assessments like Team Performance Questionnaire.
“Polygon Puzzle was the highlight of our session. Everybody loved it! We will definitely use it again and again.”
Joni Vetrano, Training Manager
LaQuinta Resort & Club and PGA WEST
“I think why it’s been successful and powerful is because it can be done in less than an hour. We’ve used it with everything from kids to senior executives. And it’s always been successful. I don’t think we never had it not work.”
Donna Reichmann, Author, Polygon Puzzle
The Trust Building™ exercise is an effective, high-energy team development activity for exploring the challenging issues of effective team membership and team leadership, driven by building trust in teams.
Trust Building™ highlights the value of trust in teams while uncovering the gross negative impact distrust has on team morale and performance.
The exercise is based on three factors related to creating trust – competence, concern for others, and authenticity. Trust Building also examines the creation of distrust and how a team can manage distrust and foster trust within the team.
Trust Building™ is a Level 2 Simulation.
How Trust Building works
- Participants (8-32 with one set of materials) are divided into 2-4 working teams tasked with reproducing the facilitator’s prototype.
- Each participant takes on the role of either a Representative or a Builder.
- In addition, one or two of the participants may be Distorters (either a Representative or a Builder), who will be attempting to sabotage the team’s efforts.
- Each team is allowed to send one Representative at a time to view and make “mental notes” for the team related to the prototype.
- The first team to successfully replicate the Prototype wins.
Why use it?
- To learn how restricted or poor communication hinders the task
- Understand how reduced trust has significant consequences for team process and team effectiveness – less information, less involvement, isolation, poor work results
- To understand “labeling” someone as an outsider or untrustworthy makes it difficult for the person to be effective, and unable to recover without someone else’s help – thus others in the team need to accept a leadership role even if they are not in a formal leadership position
- Learn, each team member has more positive and negative power than they realize to affect team outcomes. They can do so unconsciously, or can be aware and take responsibility.
- To consciously build trust and openness increases cooperation and improves work outcomes
- Understand working toward complete transparency provides information needed for problem solving.
Materials
- One set of 36 Trust Exercise pieces for the facilitator to create a prototype
- One set of 36 Trust Exercise pieces for each team to use (total of four sets)
- 40 laminated role cards for team members in a plastic case
- Instructions for different prototype options
- CD-ROM with facilitator materials and resources
- A Quick-Read, 1-page Facilitator’s Guide
- All materials are designed for durability and reuse for many years to come
Logistics
- Exercise Length: 1.5 hours without assessment, 2.0 hours with assessment
- Number of Participants: 8-32 with one set of materials, many more if more than one set of materials is used
- Space Required: 1 large room, 1 break-out room for each team, 1 room or secluded space for the prototype
Senior Executive
Finance Industry
The Acquisition® uses a real business case to promote group problem-solving, consensus decision-making and a better understanding of group dynamics. It is a simulation that asks participants to first solve the problem individually and then as a group, making consensus decisions. The scores are then compared against the experts’ suggested rankings, demonstrating that effective teams generally produce better outcomes than individuals alone.
The Acquisition is a Level 1 Simulation
How The Acquisition works
You and 1-4 team members are told by your board of directors that your company is adopting a strategy of growth through acquisition. Senior management is well aware that over 75% of mergers and acquisitions fail to meet expectations. However, senior management believes that with careful and thoughtful planning, a growth strategy through acquisitions can be successful and will provide the most direct and least costly method to meet their long-term objectives.
As a member of the acquisition planning team, you are to define a comprehensive plan for approaching and conducting future acquisitions. Through a preliminary study, numerous steps have been identified as critical for a successful acquisition process.
Your assignment is to rank order these steps in the appropriate sequence from first to last. To ensure the best results, you are to first sequence the steps individually and then sequence the steps as a team, reaching consensus. You will meet with senior management to present your results.
Why use it?
- Reveal barriers to effective team decision-making
- Better utilize individual expertise in transition
- Highlight the value of team decision-making
- Explore the fun and frustration of team problem-solving
- Highlight the necessity of good communication
- Enables participants to understand and value the need to communicate and sell ideas
- Learn how to work in teams more effectively
- Explore effective team problem solving and decision-making
- Learn how to be a better individual contributor to a team
- Experience giving and receiving feedback
Logistics
- Program Length: 1-2 hours
- Space Required: Depending upon # of teams, a large training room or ball room
- Accommodates: Multiple teams with 2-5 participants each
The Acquisition® is a registered trademark of Discovery Learning, Inc.
EdgeWork® goes beyond individual and role-level tensions and conflicts, generating these issues on a group level. Groups are drawn to work on key challenges related to more effective ways of talking, thinking, deciding, and taking action together. EdgeWork® is a simulation of dynamic relationships, trade-offs, and conflicts that naturally occur whenever people work together in an organization.
EdgeWork is a Level 3 Simulation
How EdgeWork works
Two companies find themselves interacting with regard to emerging technology. They discover in the process that they have some similar and some different goals, perspectives, and values, yet their mutual survival is at stake. The simulation helps participants explore personal and group responses to changes in boundaries, identity, perspectives, and values. It explores the conflict of investing for long-term growth versus maximizing profits now. It also explores the values of bringing conflict into the open versus seeking harmony and agreement.
Why use it?
- Individuals deal with the challenge of transitioning from a functional manager to more general or cross-functional managers
- Work groups identify difficult issues that may be limiting their performance
- Challenge groups to think about working in new ways to produce results
- Create awareness around what comprises a team and who is a team member
- Increase sensitivity to diversity and identity
- Call attention to changing perspectives and values
- Provide a common experience for intact teams to use in discussing their organizational challenges.
- Explore changing work arrangements from “self-contained” to “alliances”
- Create opportunities to explore alternatives to traditional organizational relationships
- Confront participants with a rapidly changing environment that demands reassessment of fluid boundaries
- Manage cross-group boundaries, perspectives, and initiatives
- Build effective decision-making processes
- Explore the cause-and-effect relationship between organizational culture and performance
- Explore leadership amidst complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty of the new world economy
- Understand the uses and effects of influence, power, and conflict.
Logistics
- Program Length: 6-7 hours
- Space Required: 1 large training room and 1 large breakout room; 2 breakout rooms desirable
- Accommodates: 12-24 participants
EdgeWork® is a registered trademark of the Center for Creative Leadership®. EdgeWork is co-owned by Discovery Learning, Inc., and the Center for Creative Leadership. Discovery Learning, Inc. is the sole distributor for EdgeWork.
Paper Planes, Inc. is a Level 2 Simulation
How Paper Planes, Inc. works
Participants are employed by a plane manufacturing company that has the opportunity to sell as many planes as they can manufacture that meet specific quality standards. Each participant plays an individual role in the production process, i.e., inspector, tester, etc.
The simulation consists of three production runs. After each run, group members discuss and evaluate their efforts measured by production cost, quality, customer satisfaction, delivery time, and worker satisfaction. After evaluating the effectiveness of their efforts, workers are allowed to redesign the production process to their specifications. Serial interventions from the manufacturing company’s customer complicate the work redesign and production process.
Production Runs:
Run #1 – A Functionally Designed System: Participants manufacture planes using an established production design.
Run #2 – A Group-Designed System: Participants experience first-hand the impact of employee involvement on quality, cost, commitment, and morale by working within a system they helped design.
Run #3 – A Continuously Improving System: Participants learn that through collaboration and continuous improvement efforts, significant changes can take place. These changes are easier to implement and maintain because of the participants’ ownership of the change process.
Why use it?
Awareness of the problems inherent in compartmentalized work and just how effective a team can become.
How participation affects work ownership
Innovation of continuous improvement.
Elements of successful work redesign and re-engineering are identified.
Critical connections between systems, quality, and an organizational customer orientation.
Effects of work redesign on cost, quality, and overall team productivity.
In addition, the business simulation:
Quickly reveals barriers to organizational success
Provides insights into creative solutions.
Effectively transfers workshop learning to the workplace
Logistics
Program Length: 5-7 hours
Space Required: 25 sq. feet per participant
Accommodates: 12-30 participants
Paper Planes, Inc.® is a registered trademark of Discovery Learning, Inc.
Paper Scrapers is a Level 1 Simulation
How Paper Scrapers works
Team members are asked to design, build, and market a product. The product is a structure to be built out of materials provided in a supply kit. The finished towers are evaluated on the following criteria:
- Height
- Stability
- Use of material
- Aesthetic appeal
- Originality
Teams consist of four to eight team members that are in competition with each other. After the construction is completed, each team makes a presentation of their structure and teams vote on the structure that best meets the criteria. Each team casts one vote and cannot vote for their own structure.
Why use it?
- Experience team problem-solving and collaboration
- Exploration of the total process of designing, implementing and selling a project
- Learn and appreciate the value of the diverse contributions of team members
- Explore the trade offs between creativity and implementation
- Explore the utilization of different team talents in different stages of a project
- Create an opportunity for individuals and groups to stretch themselves creatively
- Enable a team to examine the impact of competition on project implementation
Logistics
- Program Length: 1-2 hours
- Space Required: Depending on the number of teams, a large training room or ball room
- Accommodates: 3-15 teams each with 4-8 participants
Call 336-298-7170 or [captainform id=”1346391″ lightbox=”1″ text_content=”use this form.” type=”text”]
PaperScrapers® is a registered trademark of Discovery Learning, Inc.
Participants in PressTime® are managers in the second-largest manufacturer of offset printing plates. The company currently holds about one-third of the total market share. The company’s major competitor recently introduced a superior plate that sells for the same price.
A cross-functional team of managers has been assembled to put an improved printing plate on the market in six months or less.
The team members include a marketing manager, planning manager, manufacturing manager, business manager, HR manager, and technical managers who report to a product development manager (up to eight team members total) in a matrixed structure. The team is charged with selecting, developing, and bringing a product to market. While meeting this challenge, numerous complex technical, financial, marketing, and personnel decisions must be made.
PressTime is a Level 4 Simulation
How PressTime works
- Compresses real-world situations calling for decisions into a learning opportunity
- Compels individuals to interact in ways that reveal their typical interpersonal styles
- Creates learning opportunities through feedback from trained observers
- Produces multiple sources of feedback on team and individual performance
- Employs measurable factors to determine the success of the team
- Provides a model for planning and implementing projects
- Builds negotiation skills and teamwork to meet goals and objectives
- Promotes the value of cross-functional teams
- Develops strategic leadership and decision-making capability
- Models quality management and personnel decisions
- Creates team effectiveness through group interaction
Why use it?
- Improve teamwork and interpersonal communication skills
- Develop strategic leadership and problem-solving skills
- Develop improved decision-making capabilities
- Identify participants’ team leadership strengths and development needs
- Enhance the ability to lead critical organizational projects
Logistics
- Program Length: 1 ½ days
- Space Required: 1 training room, 1 breakout room per team
- Accommodates: 5-8 participants per team
- Facilitators: Requires 1 certified program facilitator and 1 additional certified facilitator for each team
- Equipment: Two laptop computers for each team
Call 336-298-7170 or [captainform id=”1346391″ lightbox=”1″ text_content=”use this form.” type=”text”]
PressTime® is a registered trademark of Discovery Learning, Inc.