Making Management Simulations Useful

Simulation is a powerful but too little used tool for man agement decision-making. Management will make greater use of it if managers or their surrogates participate in the development of the simulation model from the beginning and state as clearly as possible how they would use the model and what questions they want it to help answer. Dur ing the development of the model, managers should receive progress reports and guide the development, answering questions on how policymaking and supervisory decisions are made and providing other inputs to the simulation team as appropriate. All communication with management must be in a language natural to managers and should occur at times convenient to management. When the model has been developed, managers must find it easily accessible and must receive credible "answers" from simulations in forms that they can understand and use. If managers or their surro gates have participated in all major decisions during devel opment of the model, simulation results are likely to be credible and to be used in management decision-making.