Simulation

You will use an online simulation tool (Innovation Simulation: Breaking News) to manage the innovation process for a company. This online simulation provides you with an opportunity to play the role of a product manager within a struggling newspaper company,The Citizen Sun.Your task is to design and execute an innovative new idea to solve a specific problem within the company. The simulation begins with receiving a mandate from the CEO to develop ideas to solve a situation of declining sales, subscriptions, and web traffic (there are four mandates in the game but you randomly will be assigned only one mandate). You will have limited time and monetary resources. In your role as product manager, you may choose one or more initiatives from a set of initiatives for idea generation. Each initiative comes with its own cost and requires a certain amount of time to execute. Each initiative then delivers a subset of potential solutions, generated from a large pool of ideas. You must submit what you consider the best and most appropriate idea that meets the directive of the mandate.

You will be assessed based on your performance and your analysis of your decisions. You must explain the rationales behind them and reflect on your experience/decision-making process. The simulation gives you the opportunity to not only analyse and suggest innovation initiatives but to examine what lessons you might be able to take forward into future innovation projects. For example, consider how you might replicate this decision-making process or make changes to improve the outcomes in future innovation projects.

What needs to be covered:

There is no set structure in this assignment and there is no requirement for the number of references that you should use. You should be able to do the reflective analysis based on the content of unit/simulation but if you would like to use extra resources and cite from other sources you won't be punished. You may write in first person (or third person) as well. This homework should reflect on:

What did you find challenging about this simulation? You may reflect on the issues you faced during the game that had an impact on your final outcome/score (e.g. some initiatives are expensive and consume majority of the time and budget, etc.)

What Initiatives and idea did you choose and why? How did you feel about choosing external versus internal initiatives? (Hint: you should analyse and evaluate the rationales for your decisions)

How much influence did the original mandate have on your strategy and selection of initiatives and idea? (Hint: You may use your original mandate to justify your decisions and discuss why you have chosen that particular initiatives and idea for solving the problem)

What key lessons did you learn for idea generation that can be applied for other new products and services?