Our custom products and services include simulations, learning programs and consulting services.

Simulations

We develop simulation tools to portray your organization's particular challenge for either decision support or organization learning. Our development process involves a client team and typically goes through five stages:

Examples of client engagement for simulations include:

• An interactive computer simulation to assess alternatives for meeting access, quality and financial goals in a service organization. We developed a model of a mental health clinic's system of care delivery to enable managers and therapists to experiment with different policies for patient care management and learn their effects on stated goals. Staff involved in using the tool were given the opportunity to discover which policies were likely to produce desired results—engaging them in a hands-on planning process that fostered open dialogue and collaborative decision making.
   
• An experiential activity for training staff in an integrated Quality Improvement – Systems Thinking method. We constructed an activity for teams using ping pong balls to represent customers arriving for service and receiving service—an exercise designed to illustrate feedback effects on performance and to teach key principles of capacity management. The tool became part of the basic QI curriculum for managers and employees within this organization, a respected quality leader within the healthcare industry.

Learning Programs

We design learning programs and training curricula that are distinctively engaging and effective because they feature hands-on practice and a guided, self-discovery process.

Examples of client engagement for learning programs include:

• Training for corporate compliance in a statewide, multi-site service organization. We designed the curricula for manager training and employee training to both inform staff about the facts of corporate compliance and to help them understand the implications of compliance in their routine work. Breaking the mold of this organization's didactic approach to training, our program featured the use of mini case studies and realistic what-if scenarios to engage participants in a stimulating experience with personal impact to aid their retention of key points and ability to apply them on the job. Breakthrough Learning developed both the program and a packaged facilitators' manual to enable internal managers to train their employees.
   
• A Learning Lab for organizational learning about business imperatives. A large, integrated, healthcare delivery system had been successful for years, but financial performance was on a downward slide. Its large size and dominant market position tended to insulate clinical and administrative staff at multiple local service sites, leading to slow reaction times at a time when the pace of change in the marketplace was accelerating. We created a simulation model in Learning Lab format—a tool that was game-like for easy user interaction and a curriculum for its use that would engage leaders and staff throughout the organization. Offering staff the hands-on experience of managing their organization in a changing marketplace, the Learning Lab has been used by hundreds of staff in mixed groups, stimulating dialogue and thoughtful policy change in workshops that participants consistently rate as exceptional.

Consulting Services

Our consulting services support these functions:

• Strategic planning
• Business development
• Redesign
• Quality improvement / process improvement

Features of our approach:

1. Emphasis on team learning so that clients gain insight as well as answers to immediate problems.
2. Commitment to a sound analytic method based on measurable performance requirements and alternative strategies to meet them.
3. Use of a Systems Thinking approach that considers local and organizational goals, the structure and interrelated elements of the organization and change over time.
4. For complex challenges, use of computer-based simulation tools for modeling and testing ideas.