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The most satisfying experience in training or education, no matter what the subject, is the so-called "aha!" moment, that instant when sudden, spontaneous insight cuts through the tangle of loose ends in a learner's mind to reveal a simple, memorable truth.
Having spent nearly 30 years designing experiential simulations, I am convinced that this form of training is uncommonly capable of producing "Aha!" moments. In a simulation called "Star Power," the moment occurs when trainees, who might be police officers or corporate managers, unexpectedly realize that the only way to keep power over others is not to use it. In "Bafa Bafa," the moment comes when trainees suddenly grasp the idea that good intentions can actually worsen cultural misunderstandings. In a team-building simulation called "Pumping the Colors," it happens when trainees abruptly comprehend that the rules a team operates under are actually the team's responsibility.
When combined with other unique strengths of simulations--their ability to simplify systems, to demonstrate other people's perspectives, to develop "battlefront" skills in safety and to solve problems from the inside out--these eye-opening moments can endow trainees with a vivid, often deeply personal understanding of even the most abstract training concepts.
Simulations, however, are widely misunderstood. The most experienced trainers, called upon to design a simulation, often create a workaday version of the board game "Monopoly." These are sometimes successful as play but rarely effective as training.
Here are 10 secrets for creating successful training simulations. They represent lessons learned from my own hard-fought struggles to understand the elusive, often perverse human dynamics at work in simulation training. Taken in sequence, they can supply relatively safe passage through the tricky terrain of simulation design.
1 DON'T CONFUSE REPLICATION WITH SIMULATION.
The temptation in designing a simulation is to make a small-scale replica of some full-blown reality. It seems logical that the closer the simulation comes to reality, the more valid and memorable the experience will be. If you're designing a flight simulator for airline pilots, this may be so. But in "soft skills" training, the opposite is usually true. The job of the designer is to look past the details to the essence of a reality.
Two Navy projects taught me that lesson.
A sailor on shore leave in Athens, after...