Performance Simulator: measure and develop competencies

Dynamic markets require fast and efficient learning by organisations and employees. Many companies therefore face the challenge, in an increasingly global world, of reaching employees and leaders quickly and simultaneously in order to develop their competencies further. For reasons of time and cost, however, it is often not possible to start a collective learning process for the employees concerned.

Classic training methods are increasingly reaching their limits. What is needed are concepts of learning, knowledge transfer and communication that meet current challenges. This need is reinforced by the fact that traditional methods hardly generate much enthusiasm among employees any more. Much has been done before, much is familiar, much is hackneyed.

New methods of learning are therefore in demand for two reasons. On the one hand, a company wants to be attractive as an employer through contemporary people development. On the other hand, it is about reaching large groups of employees efficiently with company-specific learning content.

An example shows that a simulation-based learning concept gains recognition. A training simulator for a company in the chemical industry was chosen from 70 entries as one of the twelve best and most innovative projects in the competition for the European Award for Technology Supported Learning, and thus reached the final round.

The Performance Simulator is a computer- and media-supported training tool for targeted competence measurement and competence development. It offers a learning environment in which methods of experiential learning are applied in a situational learning context in order to develop both core competencies and specific competencies. It works equally on attitudes, behaviour and knowledge.

With the tool, even decentralised groups of employees can take part in a collective learning process with a mobile device, independently of time and place. Necessary learning and change processes can thus be established efficiently in the organisation.

Four variants cover different areas of application. The Communication Simulator serves to implement a new strategy or introduce a new corporate philosophy. Its main benefit lies in lower communication costs and faster communication effects. The Sales Simulator increases sales competence and supports product launches and adjustment to market changes. It aims at a higher sales and closing rate with less training effort.

The Service Simulator supports the implementation of a new service philosophy and the introduction of new service standards. It speeds up implementation and reduces implementation effort. The Training Simulator develops competencies for company-specific standard situations in terms of specialist knowledge, behaviour and motivation. It reduces training effort and stands for innovative and contemporary people development.

The mode of action is the same for all four variants. Knowledge, willingness and ability are increased, learners receive immediate feedback, and performance rises significantly. In all four cases, the effects become measurable.

According to this understanding, competencies are a balanced mix of knowledge, that is, expertise; willingness, that is, attitudes and mindsets; and ability, that is, skills. This mix enables an individual to perform. The understanding of competencies and competence enhancement, as well as the development, mode of action and application of the Performance Simulator, draw on the research of Herbert Kellner.

In the course of training, trainees adopt the behaviour shown to them in the simulator as appropriate. The way it works is based on the concept of experiential and situational learning.

The research methods of neuroscience have developed rapidly through the use of computer-controlled imaging techniques. They make it possible to visualise learning gains in the brain. Neuroscientists refer to the adaptation mechanisms in the brain that arise from changed perceptions of the environment due to newly acquired insights as neuroplasticity. It can be captured and mapped by computer, as Spitzer (2003) describes.

The possibility of visualising neuroplasticity characterises learning as an individual process that runs differently in every person. It is all the more successful the more personal experiences learners can link with the subject matter and the more strongly existing knowledge is networked in the process.

According to Beck (2003), neuroplastic changes in the brain are greater when learners explore the subject matter themselves, look for solutions independently in their social environment and when learning content can be presented and explored in varied ways. These insights into brain-friendly learning arrangements were specifically incorporated into the design of the Performance Simulator. The result is a concept for an experiential and situational learning programme.

According to Itin (1999), experiential learning is the process of deriving meaning from a direct experience. One makes discoveries and has experiences with first-hand knowledge instead of reading or hearing about it. Personal experience, acquired in real situations rather than in settings remote from reality, is thus a prerequisite for an effective learning process.

The immediate feedback that learners receive has a lasting effect on attitude and behaviour and thereby creates a learning situation. People do not learn the general in the abstract. They process experiences and produce rules themselves from these experiences, which is referred to as an example-rule sequence.

The situational learning process takes place where a direct link can be established to the learners’ experiences. Trainees can learn from their own experiences just as they can from simulated examples. This is emphasised by Mischke and Haack (2007), who developed and scientifically evaluated a case-based e-learning programme for neuroscience students.

Because the link to context is ensured, this kind of learning is highly specific and operationally oriented. In practice, learners are inevitably reminded of the learning experiences because these are closely linked to solving a problem in the real world.

The Performance Simulator combines experiential, situational and competence-based learning in a virtual, digital environment. This creates a learning environment for enhancing competence. When a person’s competence increases, their performance also increases: knowledge, willingness and ability are turned into performance. With this transformation, the contribution to corporate success can be increased significantly.

In the Performance Simulator, real situations are authentically re-enacted, which learners have to evaluate. Thanks to the immediate feedback from the virtual coach, they can build the experience gained into new knowledge and use it in real situations.

The aim of the Performance Simulator is to contribute to corporate success. It is therefore first necessary to be clear about which corporate goals are to be achieved through its use. In the spirit of strategic human resource management, the people development goals and the associated competence requirements for groups of employees have to be derived from the corporate goals.

Only those who know the strategically relevant competence requirements for their employees can identify the main deficits and make them workable. As a learning concept, the Performance Simulator helps to address these deficits in a new, attractive way. The needs the organisation has with regard to enhancing its employees’ competence are formulated as concrete goals for the simulator.

In a case study with a sales simulator for salespeople, the trained group was compared with two control groups: a group with seminar training and a group without training. The group that trained with the simulator increased its sales, while sales fell in both control groups.

Based on this understanding, five questions have to be answered. Which focus groups in the company are to be trained? What is the current situation of each focus group with regard to its contribution to implementing the corporate strategy? Where are development needs and potential for improvement seen? What is the goal of using the Performance Simulator? How can development progress be measured?

It is important to define the goals as concretely as possible and to describe points of observation and measurement. These make it possible to establish goal achievement, employees’ development progress and the increase in performance for the organisation.

To identify and specify employees’ success-critical challenges, various methods are used, for example individual interviews, group discussions or online surveys. Employees are asked to describe critical situations from their everyday work. This form of involvement ensures that the situations that pose a particular challenge for them become known quickly and efficiently.

With the involvement of key players and high performers from the organisation and, where appropriate, internal and external experts, the competencies needed to perform in practice are worked out. The practical situations and competencies identified in this way together form the basis for the Performance Simulator.

Up to four competencies can be trained with the Performance Simulator. They have to be described concretely at the levels of knowledge, willingness and ability. A dedicated vocabulary was developed for this, with which behavioural indicators at these three levels can be described so that they become observable and therefore also evaluable.

The three levels of competence description come from a competence model for the change process in which Herbert Kellner was involved. At the level of know-how, that is, knowledge, trainees have the necessary knowledge. At the level of motivation, that is, willingness, they have the necessary attitude and motivation. At the level of skills, that is, ability, they have the necessary skills.

The success-critical challenges identified are combined with the corresponding behavioural indicators of the competencies to be trained and described as so-called vignettes. According to Willy Schley and Helga Breuninger, a vignette is the written or filmed reflection of the experience and mastering of a challenging situation.

A vignette describes the starting point, turning point, point of intervention and experience of effectiveness in concrete, identifiable contexts. It enables insight and experience to be built through understanding and intervening. In the context of competence training, it describes a scene of professional practice in the form of a short story with a scenic sequence.

The vignettes are built into the Performance Simulator as simulations related to practice and context. Simulating situations relevant to success enables goal-oriented learning.

Another essential element is the virtual coach. In the simulator, the coach explains the case examples shown and gives learners immediate feedback on the situation shown and evaluated by them. This supports experiential learning and triggers an effective learning process.

To use the Performance Simulator as effectively as possible, transformis recommends integrating it into blended learning systems or into a learning architecture. Such a blended learning concept is developed together with the company and individually tailored. It allows a didactically meaningful interlinking of location-independent online learning and flexible forms of in-person sessions.

According to Sauter, Sauter and Bender (2004), an integrative blended learning concept allows the available possibilities of networking via the internet or intranet to be used optimally in combination with classic learning methods and learning media in a meaningful learning arrangement.

Such a concept enables learning, communicating, informing and knowledge management independently of place and time. This is combined with exchange of experience, role play and personal encounters in classic in-person training.

The concept combines two forms of learning. The first is individualised online learning, which is associated with the construction of knowledge. It is independent of time, place and device and is self-organised at an individual pace. The Performance Simulator and supplementary e-learning offerings belong here.

The second form of learning is organisational learning through reflective in-person sessions, which is associated with instruction. This includes action-oriented workshops, guided in-depth webinars and exchange among learners, online and offline. The didactically meaningful combination of both forms produces lasting organisational development through blended learning.

The path to the finished simulator leads through three phases. The first phase is simulator design. In the preparatory work, a project team is put together and a project plan drawn up. A kick-off meeting serves to define the goals, analyse the problem and identify the relevant competencies. Test and comparison groups are also defined.

This is followed by an online survey, which is carried out and evaluated in order to identify critical cases from the trainees’ everyday work. The behavioural descriptions for the competencies to be developed are then worked out, the success-critical real situations identified and the script written. The results of this phase are the competence descriptions for increasing performance and the script. It takes four to six weeks.

The second phase is production. First, suitable locations and actors are selected for filming the success-critical real situations. Filming takes place on location and in the studio. The footage is then edited, the company-specific interface created and the footage imported into the Performance Simulator.

Production ends with the creation and delivery of a simulator with 20 to 40 real situations, divided into two to four modules. This phase takes four to eight weeks.

The third phase is competence development. The infrastructure needed to use the simulator is set up for the people to be trained. Accompanying materials explain the objective and how to use it. A kick-off event introduces the Performance Simulator, and a suitable monitoring system for measuring performance is set up and implemented.

Training takes place in three to seven runs of short, successive learning modules. The result of the third phase is increased performance.

Compared with other training methods, the Performance Simulator offers several advantages. Even decentralised groups of employees can be reached quickly, within manageable time frames and at costs that can be clearly calculated in advance, independently of time and place. Employees can learn flexibly, when and where they want, at their own pace and without significantly impairing productivity in their everyday work.

The organisation meets individual needs without creating coordination effort in the HR departments, and it encourages personal responsibility for one’s own further training. Competencies are developed in a company-specific way because the company-specific success factors that lead to high performance are taken into account in the simulator’s content.

Successes can be clearly traced because the Performance Simulator can measure competence precisely. This can be used to make employee development transparent and measurable, or to validly assess the competencies of applicants in recruitment processes.

In the areas of leadership, service and sales, the focus is on the goal of enhancing competence. The Performance Simulator can also be an instrument for disseminating and deepening communicative content interactively in the company. Large groups of employees can thus be mobilised at short notice, which is an essential success factor, especially in change processes.