How does a metallurgical engineer end up designing board games and business simulations? I am never sure of that answer. But I can usually make the leap from designing a business simulation to saying ‘we can use this to look at financial results for any company’ which is how The Company Board business visualization came about. And from there, it is just a hop-skip-jump to saying, ‘you can look at corporate finance terminology in the context of the income statement and balance sheet’, which is how the Contextuary happened to happen.
Recently, several people have told me how their career path was impacted by our Income/Outcome Business Simulation. I am hoping they will tell their stories here.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Robin and Eliza!
Hello all Income/Outcome people!
I was an Income/Outcome facilitator for 3 years.
Before that I did product development in textiles. I worked with new products with little regard to the real world of manufacturing.
My business knowledge was very limited, but after playing and facilitating the game, I started learning from every session. The game was a conduit to experiencing the business world through every group of participants.
It was a real treat to watch them realize they could suddenly understand how their company functioned and how they could make a difference.
Today I work for a major sportswear brand. I work in quality with a variety of manufacturers. The Income/Outcome board I carry in my head allows me to understand my suppliers and the challenges they face every day; to balance my quality needs with the realities of inventories, manufacturing processes, and costs.
I believe Income/Outcome has made me better at my job and helped me in develop better relationships with my suppliers.
Robin & Eliza,
I wanted to take a quick minute to thank you (and especially Debbie Hutz) for helping me kick off our company’s quest for improved business acumen. I’ve spent the last 2 years developing our company’s culture to one of a learning organization. With a team primed for learning opportunities, the question quickly became where to focus and how to deliver?
With the challenges that the recent recession has delivered to our diverse “job shop” metal finishing business, intuitive business decision making has become essential. Managing 1200+ cutsomers and over 700 “unpredictable” orders each week, the only chance we have to ensure profitability is to have great financial decision-makers. The Entrepreneurial Challenge business simulation was a fun and exciting way to introduce our organization to the core financial concepts. My scheduler admitted to me later that, on the ride from or plant to the class, she and the production supervisors we’re nervous that 4 hours of financial “training” was going to be painful. HEr feedback was, “Instead it was lots of fun. Everyone learned a lot and had a blast doing it!” I look forward to working with Andromeda Training as I attempt to propogate this financial knowledge all the way down to the shop floor level to 45 more employees within our organization!