Acting in teams of 4-6 people, participants play the role of members of the Enceladus Expedition, the first commercial space mission to Saturn’s moon Enceladus, whose south pole provides the only reliable source of liquid water beyond Earth. The UN, hoping to speed up the terraforming of Mars, has offered this valuable resource to whomever can claim it, and the Expedition is not the only effort to try to do so. The players find themselves racing against two other rival commercial missions, with the first to successfully land near the south pole gaining mining rights worth nearly a trillion dollars. A second ship can secure a lesser claim, worth billions, while the third would get nothing. Of course, this assumes that the missions can avoid complete disaster…
Though the setting is fictional, the debrief connects the lessons to the real world, revealing that the challenges encountered by participants are actually the same as those faced by organizations like Amazon, Apple, NASA, and Boeing. The skills learned in the game are immediately applicable to work environments, and research shows that these skills will be more deeply integrated and retained longer than might be accomplished with other methods.
Coming soon.
Company: Wharton Interactive
Approximate price: Unknown
Playtime: 8 hours
Learning objectives: Team Leadership in Crisis and Normal Times Process loss: hidden profiles, miscommunication, Abilene Paradox, groupthink, role conflict Science of team management: Chartering, psychological safety, coordination, motivation Action teams: closed loop communication, after action discussions, backing up Strategic Leadership Determining strategic action under pressure Ambidexterity and planning for the future while executing today Expected value and decision-tree based planning Organizational Leadership Goal setting, goal communication, and delegation Motivating organizational change Managing organizational conflict
Link to simulation home page: https://interactive.wharton.upenn.edu/experiences/saturn-parable/