The Outsourcing Game: Frequently Asked Questions
Game Objectives and Background
1. What is the teaching objective of the game?
2. Is the game based on the real-world outsourcing
experiences of companies?
3. In an academic setting, how does the game relate to
other discussion topics?
4. Has the Outsourcing Game been tested and validated?
5. What has contributed to the Game’s success?
Game Scenario and Overview
6. What is the game scenario?
7. What is the sequence of events in the game?
Potential Concerns
8. How much facilitation expertise is required to
deliver the game successfully?
9. The game has been out for awhile. What if
participants learn about the game’s “hidden” information? Will
this ruin their experience?
Appropriate Settings and Users
10. Would you recommend the game given the types of
people I have in my group (participant composition)?
11. Can I use the game given the size of my group
(number of participants)?
12. Do I have enough time in my session to deliver the
game (required session duration)?
Materials Preparation, Room Setup, and Teaching Assistance
13. How much preparation time is required to deliver
the game?
14. Do I need help delivering that game, or can I do
it alone (need for teaching assistants)?
15. What room configuration is required to run the
game (number of break-out rooms)?
16. How should I divide participants into teams?
17. What materials must I prepare to deliver the game?
18. Is there anything else I require to be successful?
Pricing and Ordering
19. The game is perfect, but my needs are urgent.
When’s the soonest that I’d be able to receive and deliver the game?
20. What is the pricing to license the game?
21. Is Jason Amaral available to deliver The
Outsourcing Game in person?
Other Questions
22. I have a couple of questions that you haven’t answered.
How may I contact you?
Game Objectives and Background
1. What is the teaching objective of the game?
The game is a platform for conveying lessons about the changed
nature of decision-making in an outsourced environment. Despite the
clear benefits of outsourcing, many people have misunderstood or
underestimated the dramatic change that occurs when internal
functions are converted into services procured from independent
firms. For example, playing the game:
- Demonstrates how hidden information and hidden actions
affect supply chain power
- Highlights the behavioral implications of various
compensation and incentive schemes
- Examines the concept of trust, and how it can be enhanced
and diminished
- Provides an opportunity for experiencing the emotion of
time-constrained, group decision-making under imperfect
information
** Back to Top **
2. Is the game based on the real-world
outsourcing experiences of companies?
The game scenario was inspired by problems observed during
our survey of outsourcing practices at Fortune 500 firms. See,
for example: Jason Amaral, Corey A. Billington, and Andy A.
Tsay, “Safeguarding the Promise of Production Outsourcing,”
Interfaces, 36(3), May–June 2006, pp. 220–233; Jason Amaral
and Geoffrey Parker, “Prevent Disasters in Design Outsourcing,”
Harvard Business Review, September 2008. The realism
of the game has been validated by numerous industry participants
(see testimonials).
** Back to Top **
3. In an academic setting, how does the game
relate to other discussion topics?
The most prevalent use for the game has been in Operations
courses and electives on Supply Chain Management, Outsourcing,
and Procurement. Because the role-play is designed to elicit a
full range of opportunistic behaviors, participants depart with
a healthy degree of paranoia about managing highly outsourced
enterprises. Therefore, to provide a balanced view, the game
should be coupled with lectures, cases, and discussions
regarding the benefits of outsourcing. The most natural
discussion points relate to: make-buy theories, specialization
and comparative advantage, transaction costs, agency theory and
moral hazard, the winner’s curse, supply chain coordination and
contracting, cooperative game theory, and behavioral operations
(including cognitive biases).
** Back to Top **
4. Has the Outsourcing Game been tested and
validated?
The Outsourcing Game has been thoroughly tested and validated
in both academic and industrial settings. The game was
introduced at Santa Clara University in 2003. Since then, it has
been run with more than 1,000 participants at
universities including: Arizona State U., Emory University, IMD, MIT, Nyenrode Business
U., The Ohio State U., Purdue U., Santa Clara U., Tulane U., U.
of Michigan, U. of Pittsburgh, U.
of Texas at Austin, U.
of Utah, Washington U. in St. Louis, The Wharton School. It was
a key part of a teaching portfolio that was honored with the POMS Wickham Skinner Award for Teaching Innovation for 2007.
The game has also been delivered as part of day-long outsourcing
workshops delivered with iSuppli Corporation, at domestic and
international sites within Hewlett-Packard, by the
Cisco-Fudan-Stanford Supply Chain Leadership Institute, and at Ohio State University’s Center
for Operational Excellence. The author of the game materials and
facilitation guide, Jason Amaral, has personally delivered the
game more than 20 times. For first-hand accounts from five
professors who have used the Outsourcing Game in their courses,
see: Jason Amaral, Andy Tsay, Corey Billington, John Gray,
Geoffrey Parker, and Glen Schmidt, “‘The
Outsourcing Game’ Addresses Supply Chain Power, Incentives, &
Collaboration,” POMS Chronicle, 15(1), 2008, pp.
16-17.
** Back to Top **
5. What has contributed to the Game’s success?
We attribute the game’s traction to a number of factors. It
addresses a high-profile topic that will only grow in
importance. It has been shaped by the feedback of professionals
concurrently immersed in the real business setting. It is
compact and self-contained, requiring of participants little
advance preparation or prior technical or domain knowledge.
Beyond the provided material set, it deliberately requires no
special equipment or props, and a spreadsheet calculator is the
only software involved. Participants appreciate that it is
fast-paced, team-based, competitive, and involves negotiation.
** Back to Top ** Game
Scenario and Overview
6. What is the game scenario?
Game participants are divided into five teams. One represents
Acme, a company selling a branded product with high-end and
low-end versions that are differentiated by a particular
subassembly. The other four teams are Acme’s supply chain
partners: BuildIT (contract manufacturer), Design (outsourced
design firm), Hi-N (supplier of high-end subassembly), and Loen
(supplier of low-end subassembly). The game focuses on Acme’s
desire to switch to a common subassembly. With its power diluted
by the outsourcing, Acme cannot implement the change by fiat and
must build a coalition of support among its partners. Two
initially favor commonality, but two oppose it.
** Back to Top **
7. What is the sequence of events in the game?
The five teams conduct a series of one-on-one negotiations
that determine the fate of Acme’s plan. A voting scheme with
uneven vote allocations simulates the peculiarities of power
dynamics in multi-firm interactions.
More specifically, the sequence of events is: an introduction
presentation by the facilitator, a first vote, a series of
negotiations, a second vote, a change in information conditions,
another series of negotiations, a third vote, break-out
discussions with a report-back by teams, and concluding comments
by the facilitator.
** Back to Top **
Potential Concerns
8. How much facilitation expertise is
required to deliver the game successfully?
Game delivery will be most natural for people who have
facilitated other educational simulations, such as the Beer
Game. The game comes pre-packaged with a detailed facilitation
guide and all the required materials, including presentation
slides and optional post-game assignments with an answer key.
However, you needn’t follow every aspect of the facilitation
guide to be successful. The structure of the game itself creates
the right learning experience related to outsourcing pitfalls –
poor governance (distributed authority with a
majority-rules, vote-based process), hidden information
(private information), hidden actions (closed 1:1
negotiation sessions), misaligned incentives (multiple
instances), competition (framing as a game), and time
pressure (5 minute negotiation rounds). Human nature drives
the outcome; your job is to guide the flow of events.
** Back to Top **
9. The game has been out for awhile. What if
participants learn about the game’s “hidden” information? Will
this ruin their experience?
We do our best to limit knowledge about each team’s private
information, including asking facilitators and participants not
to distribute or post materials. At the same time, we don’t
think that information leakage will affect the overall
effectiveness the Outsourcing Game. During the testing and
development process, we’ve facilitated the game in “full
disclosure” information conditions. In other words, all teams
had full knowledge of all private information. The game dynamics
were similar and the participants rated the experience highly.
We attribute this to the remaining structural factors for
success (see question 8 above): poor
governance, hidden actions, misaligned incentives, friendly
competition, and intense time pressures. As an analogy,
widespread information about the Beer Game hasn’t diminished its
success as a teaching tool.
** Back to Top **
Appropriate Settings and Users
10. Would you recommend the game given
the types of people I have in my group (participant
composition)?
The intended audience for this game was MBA students in
operations courses. We believe that this is the most natural
audience. However, the game has been run successfully in
engineering Master’s programs and with undergraduate
students. In fact, one of the most successful teams was
comprised entirely of undergraduate business students with very
limited operations training – competing against experienced MBA
students!
** Back to Top **
11. Can I use the game given the size of my
group (number of participants)?
We recommend running the game with group sizes of between 10
and 50 people. Groups of 10 to 25 people can be accommodated
using the One Session version of the game. For larger groups,
use the Two Session version which enables two simultaneous
games. If your group is larger than 50 people, it is best to
schedule a second delivery. You’ll receive a discount for
multiple orders if games are delivered in the same 6 month
period (January through June or July through December). See
pricing for more information. If you’re
at the boundary between the one session and two sessions, the
main benefits of the two sessions are that it provides more
active participation for each person (and typically higher
satisfaction ratings), and it allows compare/contrast discussion
between the outcomes.
** Back to Top **
12. Do I have enough time in my session to
deliver the game (required session duration)?
The game was originally designed for session lengths of 2
hours 30 minutes or longer. Including an introduction, the full
game, breakout sessions, and a summary, it can take up to 4
hours of class time (which provides a nice “change of pace” for
full day or weekend classes).
However, with careful planning and facilitation, the game can
be used in courses that meet twice a week for as little as 80 or
90 minutes. This requires: 30 to 40 minutes of class #1, 80 to
90 minutes of class #2, an optional unstructured “after class”
negotiation session (with agreements submitted within 24 hours),
and 55 to 65 minutes of class #3. In this case, we recommend a
maximum of 20 people for one session and 40 people for two
sessions (see information on sessions).
** Back to Top **
Materials Preparation, Room Setup, and Teaching Assistance
13. How much preparation time is required
to deliver the game?
For first-time delivery, we recommend about 8 to 12 hours of
preparation time, starting from when you open the package of
materials. This corresponds to about 4 to 8 hours familiarizing
yourself with the materials, about 2 hours over several weeks
ensuring proper room setup and logistics, and about 2 hours
coordinating with teaching assistants. The “familiarization”
time primarily depends on your experience delivering similar
simulations and on the time you have available.
For future delivery, you’ll need more like 4 hours: 2 hours
for re-familiarization, 1 hour for room and logistics setup
(which can be “outsourced” to assistants), and 1 hour for TA
coordination.
** Back to Top **
14. Do I need help delivering that game, or can
I do it alone (need for teaching assistants)?
In addition to yourself, you should have one teaching
assistant for the One Session game and two teaching assistants
for the Two Session game. I’ve delivered the One Session game
alone a number of times for groups of up to 25 people. However,
I wouldn’t recommend doing this your first time.
** Back to Top **
15. What room configuration is required to run
the game (number of break-out rooms)?
In terms of your preparation, the most difficult and longest
lead-time task is typically scheduling the break-out rooms. For
a single session, you’ll need three distributed meeting areas.
For two parallel sessions, you’ll need five distributed meeting
areas. The most important success factor is that the meeting
areas are very close together, otherwise too much time
will be lost during the negotiation transitions. As a test, try
a transition. From a sitting position in one room, get up, open
the door, walk to the next room, open and close the door, and
sit down. If it takes you longer than 30 seconds, it probably
won’t work.
Below are some room configurations that have been used
successfully. The facilitation guide has more information on how
to use these rooms.
One Session
- Lecture room and two breakout rooms (best configuration)
- Lecture room, one breakout room, and the hallway
- Front-left corner of lecture room, back-right corner of
lecture room, and the hallway
Two Sessions
- Lecture room and four breakout rooms (best
configuration)
- Three lecture rooms (using left and right sides as
above)
- Two lecture rooms and the hallway (using left and
right sides as above)
** Back to Top **
16. How should I divide participants
into teams?
For each game session, five teams are required. Try
to balance the teams in terms of the number, expertise,
and ability of participants. We recommend that you
divide people into teams at least a week in advance,
ideally when you provide the game overview and
distribute the pre-game reading. If necessary, it’s
acceptable to create teams on the day of the game (e.g.,
by counting off, according to alphabetical order of last
names, by self-selection). However, waiting adds about
30 to 45 minutes to the game time.
** Back to Top **
17. What materials must I prepare to
deliver the game?
You will receive all materials required to deliver
the game in the pre-packaged kit and through
electronic download from our website. This includes
facilitation guides, presentation slides, game forms and
schedules, analysis calculators, and optional post-game
assignment questions. You must only photocopy and
distribute the correct number of pre-game readings (four
pages, one per participant).
18. Is there anything else I
require to be successful?
Ensure that your lecture room has a computer and
overhead projector. Microsoft Excel and Adobe Acrobat
Reader are the only required software packages, and only
Acrobat Reader is absolutely required during the game
itself. By downloading the files ahead of time, you
won’t require an active internet connection during the
game.
We also recommend that you obtain:
- Four flip charts (with markers) for use by
participants during the post-game breakout sessions.
- A digital sports wristwatch with a repeating
countdown timer. You can set this to beep every 5
minutes, which will make it easier to keep the
negotiations on schedule. I wouldn’t recommend
something that you must reset to 5 minutes each time
(e.g., a kitchen timer). You’ll be moving around, so
a wristwatch is most convenient.
- Two pocket USB flash memory drives. Get cheap
ones, as you’ll be storing less than 2MB. You can
use one to transfer files between you and the
participants, and one to transfer files between you
and your TA.
** Back to Top
** Pricing
19. The game is perfect, but
my needs are urgent. When’s the soonest that I’d be
able to receive and deliver the game?
Starting from today, you probably need a minimum
of 7 to 10 days. However, this assumes that rooms
will be available (see above).
I’ll send the game materials as a complete package,
and could do so using rush delivery (depending on my
availability to get to a drop-off location -- please
ensure that I confirm via a personal email). You’ll
want a few days to become familiar with the
materials. Finally, it is best to give participants
an introduction and the pre-reading about 1 week in
advance for a weekly course or the day before for a
multi-day course. In your order
form, select Rush Delivery.
** Back to Top
** 20. What is the pricing to
license the game?
Please see Prices and
Ordering for information on current prices.
** Back to Top
** 21. Is
Jason Amaral
available to deliver The Outsourcing Game in person?
Yes, depending on his schedule availability.
See pricing for more information. The fee includes all game materials.
** Back to Top
**
To learn more, contact Emeraldwise today at learnmore@emeraldwise.com.
|
