The Ultimate Route: Risk Management Simulation

Presented by Tim Kloppenborg

Simulations are one powerful way to help people take concepts from a book, article, or classroom and apply them in a controlled environment where there is no adverse consequence with making "mistakes".

Simulations reinforce learning, and help people see how concepts can be applied in the real world.

The Ultimate Route® is a live (not a computer) simulation, experience that not only challenges participants to apply risk management concepts, but also introduces the human dynamics of teams.
This is important because making effective risk management decisions in organizations requires input and experience from multiple people. To be successful, participating teams must understand risk management concepts plus have the soft skills to interact effectively with colleagues in a team setting.In this simulation, participants are tasked with building a road from point A to point B, and have to choose from among 5 different paths or "route" possibilities. They are given data about the 5 routes, and challenged to assign a 'weight" to selected criteria against which their performance will be measured, including:
– Scope (how much roadway they actually build)
– Timing
– Cost
– Quality

As you can imagine, there are trade offs between these four items - as in the real world. There are also some constraints placed on the teams so that you could not, for example say that Quality has a weighting of 1.0 and all the other factors were worth 0.0.

The essence of the game is to challenge people to manage their risk and make effective trade offs among the four criteria. Trying to go fast, or cheap, for example, may cause an adverse impact on quality, or visa-versa - just as in the real world.

There is no one project pathway that leads to success. It is possible to "win" the simulation game by doing a good job of assessing data that is provided, making sound decisions at each decision point, and by doing effective project planning.

Based on which route you chose, and the weightings you select, things start to happen to your team with each successive "round" in the simulation.

In each round, you are given more information, and have to make a succession of new decisions, trying to manage risk along the way. Also, random things (like landslides) might happen to you that are unexpected, may cause delays, cost overruns, or create quality problems. These unexpected elements create new problems that must be overcome by the participants. As in the real world, there is time pressure during each round to make the decision making sometimes challenging.

Each new experience teams face along their selected pathway, is influenced by the decisions they made previously.

At the end, the “winner" is determined based on what they achieved in relation to the criteria weighting they selected.

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