This is the student's first encounter with the simulation. After playing the simulation, students will generate a short debrief summary that responds to the following assignment questions:

1. As you play the simulation, try to discover how varying decision parameters (target scope, team size, team skill level, amount of outsourcing, target completion date, overtime, and allowed time in meetings) affect project outcomes (tasks completed, cost incurred, productivity, new problems discovered, project completion date) and team attributes (morale, stress level, rates of mistakes).
2. What causes each effects did you identify?
3. What might explain the causal relationships you've discovered?
4. What strategies did you attempt in managing your projects? What worked? What didn't?
5. What assumptions underline your emerging ideas about managing projects in the simulation? In other words: What change would prompt you to reconsider the approach you're discovering is best for managing projects?

Simulation Scenario A: Easily achievable targets, with even weighting between objectives and low level of uncertainty.

Senior management expects you to release a new printer retaining rough parity with the competitor's new printer. The projected schedule allows you to ramp up manufacturing and marketing quickly enough to match the competitor's new printer profile with your own printer. The target budget supports a cost structure that will permit profit margins at a level roughly equivalent to those of the current printer. Market intelligence gathered on your competitor's plans is considered reliable, so the target specifications for your new printer, required to retain parity with their new printer, are clearly defined, well understood, and expected to remain stable throughout the project. Management has indicated that scope, schedule and cost are of equal importance in a successful launch, and they have committed to providing stable access to resources during the project.