Entrepreneurship Experiential Exercises
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Category Archives: Strategy process/Decisions
seems to be closed down now. They also offered a prize for submissions of the best exercises and tools for teaching entrepreneurship. This looked like a really nice resource. It would be great if people can re-post some of the best exercises here as well. Please feel free to submit if you have run any of them in your class (but be careful to attribute credit to the original authors and provide links to the original post).Escalation and Real Options
This is a humorous commercial (“moment of clarity”) where the protagonist chooses not to buy an option (that might appear valuable to some) because of his vision of the possible downside risk. In theory, downside risk should not be a problem when applying a real option approach. This video may promote a discussion of why this might still be a problem.
Contributed by Russ Coff
Egg Drop Auction: Strategic factor mkts
The essence of this exercise is simple. Teams must build a device that will catch an egg dropped from 25 feet (e.g., a stairwell). The trick is that they must build it from items purchased in an auction. As such, items that are easy to use (e.g., an old pillow) are very expensive while items that are hard to imagine a use for (a brick) are cheap. Profit is determined by 1) succeeding in the task of catching an egg and 2) having the lowest cost function. As such, this demonstrates Barney’s (1986) notion of superior expectations in strategic factor markets.
Now that you see where this is going, here are the rest of the details.
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Daily Show: Energy independence
In a humorous take, Jon Stewart looks at the past 8 U.S. presidents and notes that they all made detailed promises to move toward energy independence. The clip is a little long but can be used to raise questions about difficulties in implementation. Why were none of them successful? Interestingly, today with natural gas and fracking technologies, significant progress has been made on energy independence. However, this might not be the innovation that Jon Stewart was looking for. One might discuss why this is the case in class…
Contributed by Aya Chacar
Complementarities: Inventing a mouse
This is a very funny video depicting the invention of a mouse before there were computers or any other complementary assets. Very silly but it makes an important point linked to any discussion of complementarities (e.g., M&A, multi-business strategies, alliances, new technologies, etc.).
Contributed by Russ Coff
Alphabet Soup: Framing cognition
Alphabet soup is an exercise which focuses students to think about the managerial decision process, and the limits to how we analyze complex problems. 
The key points are that managers deal with complex problems, and often use cognitive frameworks to help constrain the problems. These frameworks tell the managers what information is needed; however, unless the managers understand that all frameworks have limitations, these frameworks can fall trap to cognitive biases.
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Putting Together the Strategy Puzzle
Learning Objectives:
- The importance of being explicit about and challenging existing operating assumptions.
- The importance of understanding what resources are available
- The importance of recognizing & utilizing commonly overlooked resources/expertise within the firm.
- The value of big picture vs. in the trenches perspectives.
Set-up
Requires two 25-piece puzzles. Prior to the exercise, two pieces from each puzzle should be blacked-out with an indelible marker. Additionally, one of the fifty pieces should be placed in the trainer’s pocket prior to the training. Continue reading
Real Option to Defer
Click here for a video that illustrates a Real Option to Defer. How to use the last photos on a role of film…
Contributed by Russ Coff
Tinker Toy Exercise/Builderific
The Tinkertoy exercise is simple but exposes students to a variety of issues linked to formulating and implementing strategy. This deeper application of the common ice breaker has been published by Coff & Hatfield (2003) in JSME (Click here for full text). There are a number of slight modifications that make the exercise very valuable for different topics in a strategy course. For example:
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The exercise can demonstrate key features of the resource based perspective and first mover advantage by having the teams execute in waves and watch how much imitation occurs (often team stick to their planned strategy even if they watch another team fail using that plan).
- Strategy process. The discussion proceeds along the lines of what the vision, key result areas, goals and action steps ought to be. Students often focus on engineering and architecture and ignore management tasks.
- Scenario planning. Ask the students to identify what might go wrong and develop a contingency plan. Even highlighting this, they will be prone to stick to their first plan until it fails completely (something that Eisenhardt notes with respect to “slow” decision-makers).
Planning vs. Luck
Here the lions wait for their food to deliver itself. Did they know to wait under that tree? It is very funny but also explores why planning is necessary…
Click Here to download a video of lions “hunting”
Contributed by Russ Coff
Short Compilation of Experiential Exercises
Quarter-length and Semester-length Simulations
Attention simulation users: It would be great to have a separate page for each simulation below. If you have used it and can summarize strengths, limitations, and some tips for implementing, please submit a full entry on the simulation.
Click the links below to access quarter and semester length simulations
- Business Gaming Simulations (multiple sims) Click Here
- Business Policy Game Click Here
- Capstone & Foundation Sims Click Here
- Competitive Strategy Game Click Here
- Desert Exercise – The desert survival exercise is on paper. I tried to find it online but could not find it for free (see http://www.humansynergistics.com/). The website also explains how the exercise works.
- Forio (multiple sims) Click Here
- Interpretive Click Here
- Looking Glass Inc. Click Here
- Marketplace Click Here
- Mikes Bikes Click Here for my undergraduate strategy syllabus using MikesBikes
- Prisim Business War Games Click Here
- Strategy Dynamics Click Here
- Thiagi’s Sums–Free plus book sims Click Here
Contributed by Mason Carpenter
Learning Through Simulations and Exercises
I’ve been using simulations to tie together segments in my class and to give students a better experience with the process of strategy. It is important to allocate a good chunk of time — from one to three hours — to fully debrief the sim. This debrief includes some sharing of emotions, since simulations can result in conflict and anxiety — I’ve had teams explode and almost come to blows. It is useful to point out to participants that although this is a simulation, part of the results are a reflection of the individual themselves, along with their particular role, and the context provided by the simulation. Three readings that may be helpful regarding sims are (Also see Brian Boyd’s website for additional resources below under OTHER TOOLS & LINKS:
Keys, J. Bernard, Robert M. Fulmer, and Stephen A. Stumpf. 1996. Microworlds and simuworlds: Practice fields for the learning organization, Organizational Dynamics, Spring.
Orbanes, Phil. 2002. Everything I know about business I learned from Monopoly, Harvard Business Review, March.
Stumpf, Stephen A. and Jane E. Dutton. 1990. The dynamics of learning through management simulations: Let’s dance, Journal of Management Development, 9(2) 7-15.
Contributed by Mason Carpenter
Mini Cases
I developed a number (39!) of mini-cases to demonstrate a range of strategy topics. I usually use the cases and their attached questions at the beginning of a lecture or part way through to break up the pace. I find that they provide a strong, shared basis for talking about particular subjects in strategy, and can be used to promote debate and discussion. These are found in the Test Bank accompanying the Hitt, Ireland, Hoskisson Strategic Management textbook, Fifth Edition (2003).
Contributed by Mason Carpenter
Thai Chempest: International JV Negotiation Exercise
“I have the students do an international JV negotiation exercise with the case “Thai Chempest” (available through Prentice Hall’s database of cases). One team plays the role of the U.S. company, one team is the local Thai company, and the rest of the class are individual Thai government agencies (their job is to hash out an incentive package to entice the foreign investment–not as easy as it sounds, as each gov’t agency has its own set of priorities). This exercise takes 2 hours and the students really get into it.”
Contributed by Mason Carpenter
Teaching extended (multi-part) cases
At the 2003 SMS Conference, Mason Carpenter (me), Amy Hillman, W. Gerry Sanders, & Gerry Keim presented a program on challenges and opportunities of teaching extended session strategy classes. The hand-out with several of the pertinent suggestions are provided in the attached handout.
Contributed by Mason Carpenter
Preparing Future Faculty Program
Click here to open the link. This is an NSF sponsored teaching initiative. However the resources are not specific to business or strategy.
Contributed by Mason Carpenter
Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics (various)
The Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics has launched a free online video series, the Masters Seminars in Business Ethics. Topics include: Building Trust with Stakeholders, Creating a Culture of Integrity, Teaching Business Ethics, and History of the CSR Movement.
Contributed by Mason Carpenter
Dell’s Extreme Makeover
Great combo of an interesting BW article on Dell’s morphing strategy and a short video that talks through some of the changes and challenges facing Dell.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_43/b4152036025436.htm
Contributed by Mason Carpenter
A Dilbertian Perspective on Organizations
In business, why do the stupid always rise to the top? And what’s an “action item?” These and other mysteries are explored in this animated series that chronicles the corporate life of an engineer named Dilbert and his talking dog, Dogbert. Just like Dilbert, you could waste days previewing these hilarious digs on business (I open my M&A class with the opening minutes from The Merger video).
Carpenter Strategy Toolbox 