Course categories

Dear students,

As part of the learning and practice in this course you are being employed to run a construction company as a team of consultants. Your brief (see below) is to turn the traditional company as it stands now into a company that specializes in the IPD and NEC markets. This is a Capstone experience where you get to use many of the lessons learnt during the course and you are being thrown into the highly competitive environs meant of the construction industry. For you, this will be a nice lifetime experience and one that past students treasure as the highlight of the program.

You will be working all day on 21 & 22 March and will be allocated to teams of five or six and will work in your groups over the weekend. You will be allocated rooms on the 5th floor in which each group will work. You will have opportunities to consult with your teachers through social media (WhatsApp), Moodle, and face-to-face throughout the Weekend in order to receive feedback on your progress. There will be a briefing session that introduces the simulation, and there are videos posted showing how to run the laptop-based system (named AROUSAL) that you will be using. You will also need to read the briefing materials prior to this briefing session as, before you start to run the simulation, you will need to devise an "Objectives and Strategy Statement" for your company. Also, before the first simulation, you will need to agree on your roles and responsibilities as a team.

You will be able to start the simulation after the briefing session, but before you come to the briefing session you must submit your "Objectives and Strategy Statement" for agreement. Deadline for this submission is midnight on 14th of March. I will give you feedback, in each group, on this during the first session we have together on 21st March.

After the two days of running the business, you are required to produce a three part report on this business experience that will include:

Part A 40% group mark

Presentation by video. Please prepare a 10-minute (max) presentation on how you ran your business and how successful you were at achieving your objectives. This presentation should be recorded and uploaded.

This should include a review of your company's objectives, strategy, performance, and future prospects; it should take 5 minutes at most.

After the presentation you will prepare a group report of 10 pages maximum summarizing your performance. Do not include your AROUSAL results in the 10 pages but put all simulation output into an Appendix to your 10 page report. Please ensure that you have uploaded all of your AROUSAL results, as I will use these for verification.

Part B 30% individual mark

A review of your own performance as a team member, highlighting your strengths and weaknesses.

INDIVIDUAL WORK: Two pages minimum

Part C 30% individual mark

A personal reflection of what each of you as an individual have learnt from the experience.

INDIVIDUAL WORK: Two pages minimum

You will also be asked to complete a peer assessment for your group.
- All videos for AROUSAL - please watch before class Folder
  
  These videos are designed to give you an overview of the simulation and the decisions that you will need to make.
  
  It is ESSENTIAL that you WATCH these videos BEFORE the class on Saturday. This will take 60mins approximately.
  
  These videos cover all of the processes that you will need to use such as Functions, Tasks, Training and "Rumours" - areas where you may have problems in your company, on your projects and with your employees.
  
  Please ignore the first 5 minutes of video 1 as we will provide you with laptops with the simulation installed
- Other material that you may find useful in analysing your own performance in this business simulation Folder
  
  The three documents below give you different perspectives on:
  
  national culture and cultural difference;
  
  the roles people play in teams.
  
  Think about both of these as you conduct this business simulation and make use of these ideas in your reports (particularly parts B & C)
- Instructions for running AROUSAL Folder
  
  Once you have started Arousal, your designated responsible person will need to navigate through AROUSAL to abstract information for all team members to digest and analyze. These data will form the basis for your decision-making for each of the eight simulations. Your responsible person will also need to collate all of your decisions, input them into Arousal, and have them checked by the team before running each simulation.
  
  The videos below walk you through all of the steps you need to take to fully explore your market and company as part of your decision-making process. The videos are divided into sections that correspond to the drop-down menu of AROUSAL. Please take note of any "tips" you are given in the videos.
  
  All team members should review all of the videos, the briefing document, and the worked example (pdf copies posted previously) before embarking on a discussion and agreement on your company's objectives and your strategies for achieving these objectives.
  
  You should prepare a one-page document listing these objectives and explaining your strategies before running the simulation. This should be submitted in the Dropbox below for review by your tutors before you start running your first simulation. As a prerequisite to running the first simulation, we will give you constructive feedback in the form of questions for you to think about.
  
  You should devise a name for your company that can be used throughout the simulation.
- Briefing Materials Folder
  
  Please review the two documents posted below before the workshop. One is a Briefing document and the other is a Worked Example. You will see that the briefing document asks you to prepare an Objectives and Strategy report (page 5). I would like you to prepare this prior to class on April 6th.
  
  Below, a series of videos walk you through all of the functions and outputs available in the business simulation AROUSAL. This will be a very detailed briefing, and I expect you to refer back to it throughout the coming weekend of this simulation.
  
  You will need to distribute lots of information that is within the simulation or is output from the simulation to all of your team members. I suggest that you set up a Google Drive/iCloud or similar account for this simulation where you can share all information with all group members. I have given you some ideas as to what info you need to share and how you might analyze this info in the video. It is important that you set the printer to PDF. Do not choose a physical printer. By choosing PDF, you can easily share each output with team members, and each individual can print the PDF file as they deem necessary. Keep a record of these files, as they will be helpful in completing your report.
  
  In order to work as a management team, which is what you are asked to do, you will need to hold regular meetings over the weekend to discuss objectives, strategy, decision-making, and searching for more data. It is up to you to choose how you wish to communicate within your group, but WhatsApp, WeChat, Zoom, Skype, email, and phone (including FaceTime and such like) are all options.
  
  IMPORTANT, I am re-emphasizing this: Do NOT set up a printer for OUTPUT of reports and data from AROUSAL - use the spreadsheet, word, and PDF functions available and then distribute the output to all colleagues through a shared drive/cloud or email.
  
  I hope I have covered all of this in the video. Please post a message to Moodle if there is anything that you don't understand, and the class can then share the answer.
  
  Good luck and best wishes to all and stay healthy.
  
  Steve
- Objectives and Strategy statement - Masters Building Company Assignment
  
  Please submit Objectives and Strategy statement here by 13th Mar, 10pm.