Terra Nova

The Program

Terra Nova is a project-based simulation where participants are divided into distinct functional teams with aggressive targets. Acting as citizens of the community of Terra Nova, each of the teams works towards the common goal of “making Terra Nova as prosperous as possible.” Yet, despite this purpose there is a high probability of friction between teams as they each labor on their own portion of the project. As a consequence, quality suffers, conflicts surface and bottlenecks form around production, cash flow, communication, trust, and collaboration.

Terra Nova mirrors the real world environment with clearly identified common goals, milestones to be achieved, penalties for poor performance, multiple roles and functions among stakeholders, opportunities for collaboration and synergy and for miscommunication

and friction. Throughout the program, there is a clear connection to the outcomes – the construction of a city whose size and prosperity will be directly impacted by each group’s ability to step out of their frame of reference and into their partners.

As the simulation unfolds participants will learn to work more effectively together, to communicate with ease and to create alignment between the objectives and the activities of each of the different teams.

The Key Learnings Owning and communicating vision Communicating the objectives must become a habit The clarity of the vision has big impact on results The tie between communication clarity and results Aligning activities to fulfill organizational goals Are we doing what it takes to get the results we want? Providing the resources necessary to get the job done Creating and maintaining a solution-focused attitude Looking for both technical and process innovations The value in “stopping the clock” and stepping back to look at process

Practical Information The ideal audience: First-line leaders up through senior-level management Timeframe: 4 hours For group sizes that range from 20 to 200 or more participants