Innovation Simulation: Breaking News, a ‘Serious Game’ from Harvard Business Publishing about managing innovation, has won gold honors in the 2018 International Serious Play Awards competition in Education Corporate category.
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Harvard
Business Publishing is a leading provider of teaching materials for management
education. HBP-Higher Education offerings include ‘Serious Games & Sims’, departing
from the background assumption they are powerful learning experiences that use real-world
contexts to reinforce student learning.
In the 20 to 30 minute simulation Innovation Simulation: Breaking News, students
manage the innovation process for The Citizen Sun, a struggling newspaper
company.
The Story
Once a thriving news outlet, The Citizen Sun
has been struggling in recent years due to smartphones and social media. After
receiving a mandate from the company’s CEO, you are tasked with developing new
ideas to bolster sales, counter declining subscriptions, and improve your web
presence. Working within the constraints of limited budget and time, you must
produce a list of potential
innovations and present the best idea to the
CEO.
Players must generate a list of potential innovations such as design open innovation campaigns, focus groups, and R&D projects. After narrowing down a selection of new ideas, players are tasked with choosing the best possible innovation for the news organization.
Gameplay
Introduction — Students
prepare by learning about The Citizen Sun’s history, organization, and current
challenges. They also receive a mandate from the CEO explaining the task at
hand.
Limited Resources — Students
have 12 weeks and $50,000 in internal and external resources to find the best
possible innovation for the organization.
Four Mandates — Different
students receive slightly different versions of this initial mandate, each
representing different levels of organizational risk-tolerance and specificity
of the problem presented. In the debrief, the instructor may explore the
different choices made by students who were given different initial ‘missions’.
Sourcing Ideas — Students choose from among 12 possible types of
innovation initiatives—open innovation campaigns, internal R&D projects,
external consulting—to generate a pool of new ideas for the organization. In
many cases, students can customize the initiative’s target audience and
incentives offered.
Results — After
running the initiative, a subset of innovation ideas are revealed to the
student. Based on the initiative run, results will vary in quantity and
quality.
Evaluating and Selecting An Idea — Students evaluate the available ideas, testing them
if needed, and submit their recommended innovation to the CEO.
Results — At the
end of the simulation, a Results screen summarizes the different types of
innovation used—as well as the quantity and quality of new ideas generated by
each initiative. Students also receive feedback from the CEO about their final
submitted idea.
Administration Reporting and Debrief — Administrators have a variety of features and tools
at their disposal, including simulation customization options, detailed
reporting screens, debrief PowerPoint slides, a comprehensive Teaching Note,
and author commentary videos.
Aimed at undergraduate, graduate, or professional
students studying innovation, the “Serious Game” teaches students about the
challenges of innovation management, the tradeoffs between different types of
innovation, the role of organizational context in innovation, and the potential
of open innovation. It has been used in a wide variety of classroom contexts,
from entrepreneurship and marketing courses to courses on management, leadership,
strategy, and organizational behavior.
Developed by Tucker Marion, Sebastian Fixson, Harvard Business School
Publishing, and Forio,
this simulation meets WCAG 2.0 Level AA Accessibility Guidelines
Registered Educators can request a free trial at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/8675-HTM-ENG