Welcome to the MIT Project Management Game. You play the role of the project manager for a firm developing software for next generation smart electric power grids. In response to climate change, the grid of the future will integrate power from distributed renewable technologies such as solar and wind, whose output varies over time. On the demand side, smart appliances, electric vehicles, and electrification of heating and cooling systems are changing demand patterns. To balance power generation and consumption, real-time pricing will provide smart appliances, vehicles, battery storage, and other systems with the information needed to shift load from times when prices are high to times when they are lower. These systems require sophisticated software to optimize demand response as power prices vary. The software your firm is developing is designed to manage smart appliances, HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) systems, and integrated battery storage in residential, commercial, and industrial buildings. The software will optimize when systems and appliances like heating and cooling, refrigerators, and hot-water heaters run and when battery storage (both stationary and in electric vehicles) charges and discharges. To do so, the software will integrate the current real-time power price with weather data, past usage patterns, and other information, and will use sophisticated machine learning algorithms to learn and adapt as conditions change. This is a fast-paced, highly competitive market. Your firm believes it can develop novel features superior to every other system now on the market or under development by its competitors, and at lower cost. Your company promoted you to project manager because of your performance as senior designer and coder on prior projects. But you have seen many promising software systems fail due to cost overruns, late delivery, poor quality, and compromised functionality. In accepting this new responsibility, you have vowed to deliver this ambitious new system on time, under budget, and with the high quality required to operate the complex, dynamic electric power system so that the lights always come on when they are needed. Your boss has given you a set number of weeks to complete the project so that your company can deliver the software to customers before your competitors deliver theirs. You must strive to complete the project on time. It is also critical that you complete the project within the allotted budget. The coding team believes that 15% of the high-level design work needs to be complete before they start their coding work. Your boss, the director of product development, has promised you and your team a bonus if you finish the project early and under budget. You also know that the new system's sales, profits, and market share will suffer if you fail to deliver on time or provide the features and quality customers expect. Failing may be a career-limiting move. Your project has two main phases. Phase A is the high level design phase in which your team of engineers and designers work with R&D, marketing, finance, customers, and others to identify customer needs and define specifications for the software. Phase B is the detailed design phase, in which a different group of engineers, coders, and testers convert the high-level functional requirements determined in Phase A into a working product, with documentation, user guides, and marketing material. As project manager, you are responsible for the entire project. You need to make several key decisions for each round of the simulation: Project schedule: How long will each phase last? When will high-level design (Phase A) end and when will detailed design (Phase B) begin? You can set the target completion date to be the project deadline you've been given, or earlier, to provide a margin against contingencies. You also have the option of starting detailed design before the high-level design phase is completed. Overlapping these phases is known as "concurrent engineering." The goal of concurrent engineering is to reduce the time required to complete the project by overlapping some tasks that are typically done sequentially. For example, in a project like yours, some detailed design work, such as designing back-end data management or aspects of the user interface, might be done before the full set of functional specifications for the product are finalized. Your schedule decisions will determine your target completion date. Desired workforce: You will set the staffing level for each phase. You can change your staffing levels at any time, but of course it takes time to find, hire, and train qualified people. Your decisions affect how fast work can be completed and have a significant impact on your costs. Pressure for progress and quality: As the project proceeds, you have the option to put pressure on your staff for faster progress. You can also put pressure on your staff to pay more attention to quality than normal. Your staff may respond to this pressure by working faster and more effectively and increasing work hours. Additional features: The technology and market are constantly evolving. Your company's R&D and marketing groups may propose adding new features to the scope of the project to remain competitive. These changes may arise from changes in the technology or the needs of prospective customers. You decide if, when, and how many of the proposed new features to add to the project scope. Adding features increases the time required and cost of the project, and your boss may extend your deadline and increase your budget accordingly if you add new features to the project scope. Failing to add features may reduce the competitiveness of the product in the marketplace and harm its commercial success. Scope reduction: You can also decide to reduce project scope by eliminating some features. Doing so may reduce customer satisfaction and the success of the product in the market, but might cut costs and save enough time to be worthwhile. Launching the product before the competition is important, and some features can be added later via upgrades or in the next generation. You decide if, when, and how much to reduce scope. Work acceleration: If you fall behind schedule you can authorize your staff to do more work concurrently than specified in the original project plan. Doing more work in parallel within each phase can save time, but might lead to additional rework later. You can decide how much to increase concurrency and speed up progress at any time. When the project starts, you will see the decisions you can make under Manage Your Project on the left side of the screen. The Planning tab in the upper right will help you make decisions about the project schedule and staffing, including the start and end times for each phase and the staffing levels needed to complete the work on time, given the project scope and estimated worker productivity. You will also see a Cost and Budget tab to help you monitor your cost performance. Refer back to these tabs throughout your project to decide whether you should: (1) Change the schedule or staffing levels; (2) Apply pressure for faster progress and higher quality work; (3) Make changes to the project's scope; and, (4) Accelerate work by increasing the degree of concurrency within each phase. The Dashboard provides an overview of your project. Click on the Reports tabs, or on any graph in the dashboard, to access more detailed data on project scope and progress, human resources, and your financials. Finally, be sure to check your email. Members of the team, including people from the marketing, human resources, and quality assurance departments will be sending you important updates and making recommendations throughout the game. You may also receive emails from your boss. Click on the symbols throughout the sim for information explaining each item. You can advance week by week, several weeks at a time, or all the way to the end of the project. After each game, you should examine the results, formulate a new strategy, and then restart to see if you can make smarter decisions for a better outcome. Simulation game report