• PSL in Albuquerque with Esther and Jerry. We have 7 spots left.
• Agile Program Management in Stockholm
• Working Effectively with Distributed Agile Teams in Sydney

I’ve had some inquiries in Pragmatic Project Management as a public workshop, here in the Boston area. Email me if you’re interested.

With a simulation, you create a safe environment in which people can experiment with learning a new skill or seeing how they operate. There are two critical pieces to the simulation:

1. Creating a safe environment in which people can work. No one can learn if they feel unsafe.
2. Debriefing the simulation. If you don’t debrief, you can’t tell what you learned.

There are more pieces, but the setup for safety and the debrief are critical.

What I love about simulation-based training is that people are never wrong. Whatever happens in the simulation reflects their reality. Because people recreate their behaviors in the simulation, they (and the instructor!) get immediate feedback on what happens in their work lives.

If you want to consider experiential learning, that’s what I do at conferences, when I lead tutorials. The AYE conference is all experiential learning. (The current discounted registration of $1500 expires July 1.) My workshops are all experiential learning.

If you are trying to learn something without practicing, stop it. Fire the instructor. Do that kind of work in practice, preferably in a simulation, so you can learn from it.

At PSL, we invoked one idea repeatedly: the zeroth solution. The zeroth solution is the simplest thing that could work. So, if you need a simulation for a workshop, you look at what you have already: could one of them work? That’s your simplest solution. I had several that could work, but I wasn’t thrilled with them. But I had one, a fallback position. (If you don’t already have one, what’s the simplest simulation you could create?)

As I iterated on the design, I kept asking myself, what’s the next simplest thing that could work? Is there something else that would allow me a new zeroth solution? That allowed me to build the simulation incrementally and iteratively. (No, I didn’t timebox myself :-)

You’ve heard “The perfect/best is the enemy of the good” (Voltaire). The same thing happens at work, in projects, in any sort of endeavor. If you try for perfection at the beginning, the pressure is too much. Instead, try for a zeroth solution, the simplest thing that could work, and better it over time.

Esther, Jerry and I are teaching another PSL March 22-27 in Albuquerque. Email me for more information.

We have only two registrations available for PSL in Sweden left. Take a look at the information page if you think you’d like to participate.

From 1974-2002, Jerry Weinberg, taught Problem Solving Leadership. Jerry thought he was done teaching in 2002, but is co-teaching PSL again with Esther and me June 24-29, 2007 in Albuquerque, NM. Want more information? Send me an email.