Stimulating Simulations: Compuware Strengthens Situational Leadership October 20, 2008
By Holly Dolezalek
Headquartered in Detroit, MI, Compuware Corporation provides software and professional services to information technology users; it has approximately 6,100 employees globally. For the last two years, Compuware has been using a simulation from Ninth House (a learning technology provider in San Francisco) to teach skills in situational leadership. Managers from all levels start with e-learning modules that include content knowledge on situational leadership, and they encounter a simulation in the context of that e-learning. The program focuses on improving managers' skills at coaching others in these leadership skills. So the managers who go through the simulation actually are coaching other characters in what to do in the given situation, which is a team that is required to go into a gold mine.
Afterward, they go through two-and-a-half hours of instructor-led training, which includes discussion about how to apply the new skills to real business situations. The instructor- led training does not involve any simulations, but it incorporates images from the simulation.
"The owner of the gold mine has to decide who will lead the team into the mine, and then has to coach that leader in making good decisions while the team is in the mine," says Sue Jayroe, manager of organizational development for Compuware. "If the person who leads makes bad decisions from a safety perspective, then people can die in the mine."
Boasting full sound and video, the computer-based simulation stops at decision points and won't continue until participants make a decision.
"For example, if the participant who is assigned the role of the nurse becomes one-sided about what he or she thinks the team ought to do, that person needs proper coaching so the members of the team who need medical assistance can get it," Jayroe says. Although participants can go through the simulation again, they can't turn back and make the right decision. Each decision plays out in specific consequences.
After participants have completed the leadership program, they evaluate how the simulation aspect of the program has improved their abilities to do their job effectively. "We're getting an average of 4.7 on a 5-point scale," Jayroe says.
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