War-Games for Executives

  

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Forge an Unstoppable Team in Two Days
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These two days of experiential training are to a team of executives as war-games are to a squadron of war-fighters.  The value of the team's experience stems from an accurate, highly transparent, physical simulation of a product-development business that is managed as a matrix.  This shared-resource simulation compresses the time-scale, as it generates identically the same problems and conflicts that we observe in real corporations.  The team encounters and resolves within two days the most improvement-limiting conditions that real corporations experience over the course of years. 
 
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The 1st Day for the Leadership-Team
 
The first day begins with the team-members, organizing themselves as a small product-development company that is managed as a matrix, i.e. as an organization that performs projects continuously and shares resources among many of its projects.  Thus organized, the team-members perform simulated projects according to different rules, thereby simulating distinct operational models, for companies that perform product-development projects.  The effects, on project-duration, rate of completion, financial performance, and quality of work-life, are evaluated for the following operational models:  

  1. Multitasking (prevailing model):  Participants discover how two seemingly logical policies interact with a third, politically correct policy, and create multitasking to such a degree that it devastates productivity.

  2. Multitasking plus Hiring:  Participants maintain all aspects of the first simulation constant, save one.  They modify the capacity-model, to evaluate the popular solution of hiring additional resources, for groups whose work appears to progress at an unacceptably slow pace during the first simulation.  Participants learn that, under frequently observed conditions, this popular solution creates a counterintuitive mechanism that damages performance severely.

  3. Fast Matrix[1]:  Participants evaluate the Fast-Matrix model for product-development.
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The Leadership-Team’s Go/No-Go Vote
 
With the three simulations that they perform during the first day, the members of the leadership-team evaluate their company’s current operational model, they evaluate the popular hiring-solution, and they evaluate the Fast-Matrix model.  Consequently, immediately after the first three simulations, the team-members are (nearly) ready to decide, if the team should deploy the Fast-Matrix model, or if the team should retain the company’s current operational model.
 
Before taking this important decision, everyone should appreciate that a successful and permanent improvement in performance requires a number of changes that must not be taken lightly.  The required changes, listed in the order in which they must occur, include the following:
  1. Permanent changes in the behavior of the team's leader.
  2. Permanent changes in the behavior of every member of the leadership-team.
  3. Permanent changes in the behavior of every resource-manager.
  4. Permanent changes in the behavior of every project-manager.
  5. Permanent changes in the behavior of every developer.
  6. The creation of a senior position, that of Chief Matrix Officer.  This position may be filled internally.
  7. Permanent changes in the reporting-structure.
  8. The creation of a technical position, that of Enterprise Analyst.  This position also may be filled internally.
  9. The formation of the Matrix-Management Team.
  10. The installation of new, rigorous processes and all the learning that each requires.
  11. Permanent changes to the manner in which the leadership-team measures productivity.
  12. Probable changes to the compensation-plan.

A permanent improvement in performance requires even the use of some new software.  However, when compared to all the other changes that are required, the use of some new software can appear almost trivial.

Once everyone appreciates the decision before the team, it is necessary and appropriate for the team’s leader to bring the team-members to a team-decision, by calling for a vote [2].
 
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The 2nd Day for the Leadership-Team
 

The initial conditions, which are appropriate for the 2nd day’s exercises, discussions, and simulation, correspond to those of time-step 20 of the first simulation.  These conditions also parallel those, which one observes readily in many product-development companies.  The set of conditions includes the following:  

  1. An excessively large number of active projects.

  2. Widespread conflicts for resources that are overloaded heavily, among multiple projects.

  3. Massive amounts of multitasking, accompanied by extreme levels of workforce-utilization.

  4. Unacceptably poor measurements for project-duration, rate of completion, productivity, efficiency, and financial performance.

Duration-to-Completion: Once the correct initial conditions are established, the 2nd day begins with a role-playing exercise, during which the team-members are asked for estimates, of the time-steps when they sincerely expect to complete some of their active projects.  To respond to this request, team-members must estimate the duration-to-completion for each of the projects in question; as they attempt the estimates, they recognize the extensive information-vacuum, within which their real development-operation exists.  This indispensable recognition serves as the foundation for the rest of the day. 

The Transition-Minefield:  This is a presentation-segment, during which participants learn, from the painful experience of others, the conditions and events that bring an improvement-process such as this to a rapid end.

A Strategy for Successful Change:  With a bit of guidance, the team-members develop a deployment strategy that eliminates risk to, both, their company and their improvement-effort. 

The Enterprise-Model:  During this segment, team-members use the display of the simulation to construct a predictive model of their entire set of projects.  This is where they discover the need to update more than just the individual projects. 

The Deployment-Simulation:  With their deployment-strategy defined and their predictive model in full view, team-members transition their simulated operation, from the nearly catastrophic initial conditions discussed earlier, to a steady-state operation that offers not only considerably greater productivity but also a much greater degree of manageability.  As they simulate the transition, the team-members are able to observe the effects of their transition-process, on productivity.  Finally, the team-members experience the financial turn-around created by the new operational model, albeit only a simulated turn-around. 

Step-by-Step Plan:  During the last exercise of the day, the team-members modify a step-by-step template for the deployment of the Fast-Matrix model, thereby converting the template into a deployment-plan tailored to their specific company.  The team’s leader receives the modified plan.
 

By experiencing the financial turn-around of the final simulation, every team-member gains an important degree of closure.  However, by converting the transition-template into a practical plan for transforming the company successfully, the entire team gains a powerful sense of confidence.  You gain an unstoppable team, eager and fully prepared to convert your vision into your company's reality. 

 
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[1]  For purposes of representing individual projects, Fast Matrix uses the critical-chain model, which is popular with practitioners of the Theory of Constraints (TOC).  However, due to the rigorous application of the principles, the concepts, and the proven methods of engineering, the Fast-Matrix model scales reliably, from pilot-efforts to entire corporations with multiple, product-development businesses.  Fast Matrix also resolves the sustainability-problem, for product-development businesses, which limits to a few years the lifespan of otherwise successful performance-improvements based on TOC, Lean, or Six Sigma. 

[2] The discussions and simulations of the second day serve to develop and test the process, with which teams can deploy Fast Matrix effectively and without risk.  Therefore, if the team votes to retain the company’s current operational model, there is no further need for the second day of simulations, and the workshop ends immediately.  Under such circumstances, PDI waves all fees related to the participation of the team-members, and invoices only for those direct-expenses incurred for the event. 

 
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