A management professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management has created a new web-based flight simulation to instruct MBAs about the challenges of sustainably managing the fishing industry. And through the MIT Sloan Teaching Innovation Resources (MSTIR) website, teachers and students everywhere can try it out for free.
Called “Fishbanks,” the new flight simulator lets individuals or teams confront firsthand what it’s like to be a leader in the fishing industry, having to balance the need to compete against the need to limit your total catch in order to sustain the fishery for future generations. Designed by Sloan professor John Sterman, the game can be played in a single session or over the course of a semester. It was adapted and updated from a board game originally created by former MIT Sloan professor and alumnus Dennis Meadows.
“Management flight simulators such as Fishbanks bring an experiential aspect to learning about complex systems,” Sterman, who also directs the MIT System Dynamics Group, said in a statement. “They have more impact than simply listening to a lecture or engaging in a case study discussion.”
The MSTIR website features other management flight simulators as well, including Salt Seller, a commodity pricing simulation; Eclipsing the Competition, a solar photovoltaic industry simulation; and the soon-to-be-released Platform Wars, a video game industry simulation. Free for anyone to use, each offers video user guides and online instructions for students as well as video teaching notes and slides covering all aspects of the simulation for faculty.
Sloan’s Sterman has been developing management flight simulators since the 1980s and notes that MIT has been a pioneer among business schools in the field of action learning, which comprises a key element in many MIT Sloan classes and laboratories.
“Deep, actionable knowledge and decision-making skills develop when people have the chance to apply classroom theory in the real world with its messy complexity, time pressure and irreversible consequences,” Sterman says. “But project-based action learning in the field is not possible in settings where the stakes are high or the consequences of decisions unfold over years or decades. For many of the critical issues we face, simulation becomes the main way we can discover for ourselves how complex systems work and develop the management and leadership skills we need to succeed.”
To access Fishbanks, click here. For more information on MIT Sloan Teaching Innovation Resources (MSTIR), click here.
Read the full article: MIT Sloan Launches New Management Flight Simulator Focused on Sustainability in the Fish Industry