TASK

As an ARBUS 400 student, I’ve participated in competing in an online business simulation called Capsim for the Winter 2017 term. To compete in this simulation, I worked in a team of five people for four months to operate my company, Chester, within a competitive sensor industry. Running a business is demanding and it requires that my team and I work together to make decisions for how to run our R&D, Marketing, Production, Finance, HR and TQM departments in alignment with our overall 8-year strategy. In addition to this, as an owner of the company, my team and I need to present results at Annual General Meetings (AGM) with the company’s Board of Directors. Through ARBUS 400, I’ve inherently practiced several professional skills, which are, responsibility, by coming to team meetings prepared and on time; teamwork, by communicating effectively and expressing ideas clearly; decision making by choosing a course of action, and oral communication by using an engaging and memorable manner during presentations.

 

MY ACTIONS

As mentioned, responsibility is the first skill that I practiced when coming into this simulation. When my team and I first got together, we decided that we would make decisions together, but everyone would have to come prepared to discuss and choose a course of action. During the team’s first couple of meetings, I needed to understand what Capsim was overall and learn how each department functioned. To inform myself, I read the Capsim handbook, completed the Capsim tutorials, and tested out how to make decisions in Capsim. Later on, I was assigned as my team’s Project Manager, and I was responsible for having a high-level view of what was going on in our industry. To prepare for meetings, I read the Capstone Courier after each round and I took notes on key insights and findings. I came to meetings with my tasks completed beforehand, helping improve the efficiency of my group’s discussions.

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The second skill I used was teamwork. Teamwork skills are integral to making company decisions. Since my team and I were managing a company together, Chester, we needed to understand how we would work together as a unit to achieve our overall strategies. While working with my team, I inherently encountered situations where people had different perspectives. Due to this, I chose to be an effective communicator to make sure my ideas were communicated clearly and were understood by my peers. I respectfully communicated my ideas by only speaking when no one else was talking. When I didn’t understand something, I listened to my peers and sought for clarification to better understand their perspectives (refer to Figure 1). I took note of my ideas on a shared Google docs for everyone to hear and see. I was ultimately conscious of my communication and how others communicated in an effort to better understand my team members and work together to brainstorm and come up with decisions.

 

The third skill I used was decision making. As mentioned throughout, my team and I had to make decisions every week for our company. We needed to decide a course of action for each department based on our overall strategies. I helped choose a course of action by gathering information from the Capstone Courier. In the Capstone Courier, I learned about our results and competition, and I reported this information to my team. I listed all possible routes we could take for our decisions and consulted them on my proposals. I suggested the pros and cons of potential solutions we had and gave my insight as to what I thought worked best. My team and I were often able to all choose a course of action and I think I helped by gathering information and providing the feedback to my team.

 

The last skill I used was oral communication. After rounds two, three and four results came out for our company, we needed to report our findings to Chester’s Board of Directors. Oral communication was inherently involved as I verbally communicated what my team’s decisions were made for these rounds, what happened, and what our next steps were. During these presentations, I wanted to be engaging and memorable so I took steps to prepare for these situations. I met with my team to discuss the presentation, and I suggested what content to choose in our slides. Once slides were assigned, I completed my own slide and chose to include high-level, robust information. Once my slides were completed, I made cue cards and I practiced my presentation aloud. I practiced with a strong voice in preparation for the AGM. In the actual delivery of my presentations, I used hand gestures, changed my tone of voice, and paused for emphasis when necessary. My oral communication skills attributed to helping my team deliver strong presentations overall, as I emphasized key learnings and insights through my speech.

 

RESULTS

As a result of practicing the four professional skills of responsibility, teamwork, decision making and oral communication skills within Capsim, I’m a more confident and capable business person. My responsibility lead to more efficient group meetings since I got my individual work done; my teamwork skills encouraged me to communicate my ideas more clearly to my team for their understanding; my decision making skills challenged me to make more informed plans of actions, and my oral communication skills helped me present results to key business stakeholders. I can apply all of these skills when I’m actually working on a team to achieve a company’s goals. Similarly, I’ll need to use my responsibility skills to complete designated tasks; I’ll employ teamwork skills when working collaboratively with peers; I’ll practice decision making skills when making strategic company decisions, and I’ll use my oral communication skills to communicate important business information to stakeholders, like a Board of Directors. Ultimately, ARBUS 400 has given me the opportunity to practice these skills, and with four months worth of experience developing these skills, I’m more confident that I can apply them to real world applications.