Bases
of Simulations
Misconception: Simulations reflect
reality.
Reality: Simulations reflect
someone's model of reality. There is an important difference between reality
and a model of reality. This difference has critical implications for the
design and use of training simulations.
Let's assume that you want to simulate the quality-improvement
process in a service organization. Exactly what features and processes you
select for the simulation will depend on your professional discipline and
personal preferences. For example, if you are a behaviorist, you may interpret
the process in terms of stimuli from customers, responses from employees, and
reinforcers from managers. If you are a humanist, you may look at the
customer-service process in terms of customer expectation, employee
empowerment, and manager motivation. If you are a sociologist, you may focus on
organizational norms and individual roles. If you are a lawyer, you may
emphasize contractual obligations, legal violations, and policy issues. If you
are an accountant, you may compare the costs of providing different levels of
service with the short- and long-term payoffs of satisfying a customer.
In addition to these professional filters, your model of reality
depends on your personal preferences and personality characteristics. If you
are an optimist, you may directly correlate better services with profitable
bottom lines. If you are a pessimist, you may introduce such random variables
as policy changes, governmental regulations, customer vacillations, and
environmentalist agitations.
These concepts of multiple realities and of selective emphasis
have important implications in the design of a simulation. You have to
explicitly document what variables and relationships are included in your model
and why you choose to include them (and to exclude others).
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