Daniel Hanawalt - UnEARTHing Iowa, College of Growth in Iowa - Leadership Iowa University

UnEARTHing Iowa, College of Growth in Iowa

Daniel Hanawalt

 

Today we did a simulation at Pella Corp. in the city of the Dutch, Pella, IA. I had little idea of what the simulation was actually going to be like other than what I had read from the email that our simulation guide Dan Topf had sent us. Also, I had never done a simulation before. Thus, I was excited and a bit nervous as the simulation began. Our team started out in first, but gradually slipped down as the simulation progressed. Right away, I learned to be patient as we tried and tried to figure out why we continued to lose ground on the other teams. It was also a good experience to be able to put a couple minds together to problem solve by bouncing ideas off the other team members.

I feel that after our initial positive beginning, out company became too spread out with too many product lines. Therefore, we lost focus by trying to do too many things. Instead, we should have zeroed in on a few product lines in which we could have controlled a majority of the market share. After we had tried to do too many things, I felt like the rest of the simulation we were scrambling to try and figure out the solution to our problems.
 
I think the thing that remains the most unclear from the simulation is the complex formulas that gave us results from our actions that we did not foresee would happen. With each click there were consequences that we expected, but clearly there were unexpected results as well. Overall, the simulation was a great new experience and a fun activity.
Aug 11, 2009 9:20 AM |Add a comment
* denotes a required field.
Add Comment
 
Name: *
E-mail:  
URL:  
Comments: *
Verification Code: *
 
Copyright © 2012 Iowa Association of Business and Industry Foundation. All rights reserved.