Harvard Business Impact Simulations: practise real business decisions without real-world risk
Move leadership development beyond theory.
Harvard Business Impact Simulation Experiences place participants inside realistic business situations where they make decisions, work through trade-offs and experience the consequences of their choices in a safe learning environment.
Available to South African organisations through GBS, business simulations can be incorporated into leadership development, management training, strategy programmes, team development and executive learning.
What are Harvard Business Impact Simulations?
Harvard Business Impact Simulations are experiential business learning activities designed around realistic organisational and leadership challenges.
Instead of simply discussing how they would respond to a situation, participants have to make decisions.
They work with constraints.
They evaluate competing priorities.
They see consequences unfold.
They compare different approaches.
They discuss what happened and why.
Experiential leadership development
Traditional leadership training often focuses on understanding concepts. Simulations add another layer: application.
Participants are required to use what they know while responding to an unfolding situation.
This can expose the difference between what someone says they would do and how they actually behave when confronted with competing information, uncertainty or pressure. Simulations are positioned around practice rather than discussion and the ability to surface behaviour rather than stated intent.
How a Harvard Business Impact simulation works
A simulation learning journey can include four broad stages:
Enter a realistic business scenario
Participants are placed into a scenario built around a business, leadership or organisational challenge.
Make decisions
Learners choose how to respond based on the information available, often individually or as part of a team.
Experience the consequences
The simulation responds to participant decisions, helping learners see how trade-offs and choices affect outcomes.
Debrief and apply the learning
A facilitated debrief gives participants an opportunity to analyse decisions, compare approaches and connect what happened during the simulation with their own workplace.
Business simulation topics
Harvard Business Impact (HBI) currently offers simulation experiences across a range of business and leadership areas, including:
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leadership and personal leadership
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strategy and strategy execution
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finance and commercial acumen
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innovation and growth
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organisational change and transformation
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team performance
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data-driven decision-making
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risk and uncertainty
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execution and delivery
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crisis and disruption
HBI Simulation portfolio currently contains more than 19 simulations across these areas.
This allows organisations to select an experience connected to a specific development priority rather than treating simulation training as a generic team exercise.
Why use business simulations for leadership training?
Business simulations allow leaders and managers to practise decision-making without creating real operational consequences.
They can be particularly useful where the learning objective involves:
decision-making under pressure,
collaboration,
communication,
strategy,
change leadership,
commercial thinking,
risk management,
innovation,
team leadership, or
working through uncertainty.
The learning does not end when the simulation finishes. The discussion afterwards can connect decisions made during the exercise to actual behaviour, organisational priorities and workplace situations.
Simulations within a broader leadership programme
Harvard Business Impact Simulations can be used as individual learning experiences or incorporated into longer management and leadership development journeys.
The simulations can be described as experiential anchors that can support multi-module journeys, complement lectures and cases, or operate as a standalone session.
For example, an organisation could combine:
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Harvard ManageMentor digital courses,
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live GBS facilitation,
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HBR Spark continuous learning, and
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a Harvard Business Impact Simulation.
That gives learners opportunities to learn concepts, access ongoing resources and then practise decisions in an applied environment.
Harvard Business Impact Simulations in South Africa
GBS can work with organisations to identify simulation experiences appropriate to the development objective, participant group and wider leadership programme.
Simulation experiences can support:
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management development programmes,
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leadership academies,
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executive development,
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high-potential programmes,
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team development,
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strategy programmes,
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change programmes, and
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corporate learning initiatives.
Frequently asked questions about Harvard Business Impact Simulations
What are Harvard Business Impact Simulations?
Harvard Business Impact Simulations are experiential learning experiences that allow participants to apply concepts to realistic business challenges through an interactive environment that can include elements of gameplay and competition. They are designed as practice environments where participants make leadership decisions while working with realistic constraints and consequences.
How do Harvard Business Impact Simulations work?
Participants enter a simulated business environment and are required to apply concepts, make decisions and respond to the consequences of those decisions over time. The experience is designed to incorporate emotional, social and cognitive realism so that participants can practise leadership behaviour in a safe learning environment rather than simply discussing what they would do.
The learning continues beyond the simulation itself. Reflection and debriefing are part of the broader simulation experience and can be used to connect what happened in the exercise back to participants’ real workplace situations.
Why use business simulations for leadership development?
Simulations shift the emphasis from discussing leadership concepts to actually practising them. This can reveal how participants respond when they have to make real decisions within constraints rather than simply explaining what they believe they would do.
The Harvard Business Impact material specifically identifies three benefits: practice rather than discussion, the ability to surface real behaviour rather than stated intent, and high levels of engagement and retention.
What can participants learn through a business simulation?
The simulations are designed to help participants practise leadership decision-making, apply business and leadership concepts, and work with new frameworks or ways of thinking and behaving. Because decisions have consequences within the simulation, participants can experiment, reflect and learn without exposing the organisation to the risks associated with making those decisions in a real business environment.
Are Harvard Business Impact Simulations suitable for managers and leaders?
The simulations are specifically positioned as practice environments for leadership decisions and as experiential components of leadership development programmes. They can therefore be used where the development objective involves helping participants practise how they think, decide and behave when faced with realistic organisational situations.
Can a simulation be included in a broader leadership development programme?
Yes. Harvard Business Impact Simulations do not have to be used as isolated learning activities. They can act as experiential anchors within multi-module leadership journeys, complement lectures and case-based learning, or form one component of a longer development programme.
The material also specifically notes that simulations can create a broader learning journey when paired with other leadership development experiences.
Can a Harvard Business Impact Simulation be used as a standalone session?
Yes. The simulation can be delivered as a standalone session or incorporated as one element within a longer learning session or development journey. The appropriate structure will depend on the organisation's learning objectives and the role the simulation needs to play within the programme.
What happens during the simulation debrief?
The debrief gives participants an opportunity to reflect on the decisions they made, the behaviours that emerged and the outcomes they experienced during the simulation.
Harvard Business Impact identifies the debrief as an important customisation lever. This allows the learning conversation around the simulation to be connected more closely to the leadership themes, organisational priorities or development objectives being addressed.
Can Harvard Business Impact Simulations be customised for our organisation?
The material specifically identifies the debrief as an important customisation opportunity rather than stating that the underlying simulation scenario itself can always be customised. The surrounding learning journey, leadership conversations and debrief can therefore be structured around the organisation's objectives and used to connect the simulation experience to relevant workplace challenges.
I would use this wording rather than promising that the actual Harvard simulation content can be rewritten for each client.
How long does a Harvard Business Impact Simulation take?
The material provided does not prescribe one standard duration for all simulation experiences. It describes simulations as experiences that can operate as standalone sessions or as elements within longer sessions and multi-module learning journeys. The final format therefore depends on the simulation selected and how it is incorporated into the wider programme.
What makes a learning simulation different from a case study or traditional workshop?
A learning simulation creates a practice environment in which participants have to make decisions and experience consequences over time. It introduces realistic constraints and emotional, social and cognitive elements rather than asking participants only to analyse or discuss a situation.
Harvard Business Impact positions simulations as interactive experiences that can complement lectures and cases within a wider learning solution.
What is the difference between Harvard ManageMentor, HBR Spark and Harvard Business Impact Simulations?
The three solutions play different roles in leadership development.
Harvard ManageMentor provides structured, self-paced learning around specific management and leadership capabilities.
HBR Spark provides personalised, continuous leadership learning through HBR content, curated pathways, the HBR Leadership Framework and AI-supported learning experiences.
Harvard Business Impact Simulations focus on experiential practice, giving participants an environment in which they can make leadership decisions, experience consequences and examine their behaviour. The simulations can then be incorporated into broader leadership development journeys alongside other learning experiences.