CHAPTER

1

Introduction

Copyright ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Overview

bro13556_ch01.indd 1

The primary objective of an experiential learning simulation game, such as FinGame Online 5.0 (FG), comes from learning how to plan, formulate strategies, and make sets of sound decisions sequentially through time. FG provides a decisionmaking setting similar in many respects to the financial management requirements of an actual company. The manager of an FG company has the operating control of an entire company. The manager is the chief financial officer (CFO) who also controls major decisions normally managed by the chief executive officer (CEO) and chief operating officer (COO).
The FG decision environment is much more complex than the environment found in standard texts and case courses for two primary reasons. First, decisions are entered in many interrelated areas in each period of play. Tools and techniques previously examined, analyzed, and employed in only single-decision problems now must be applied in the presence of interrelationships with many other simultaneously derived decisions.
Second, decisions must be entered over several periods of play. The consequences of prior decisions impact the range of decisions available in later periods. To be successful, an adopted strategy must be flexible enough to adjust to a changing environment over time. Avoiding decisions that eliminate a large set of future company options is key to this flexibility. Additionally and most importantly, FG managers receive direct feedback every period of play on the consequences, good or bad, of their prior decisions. They then commonly need to revise their strategy and plan to adapt to changes in their FG world. This adaptation in strategizing and planning is a primary source of learning in the real world, and generally very costly