First graduates of Soft skills program defended their projects before investors
On July 6, BIONIC University hosted the final game, business-simulator, during which educational results of the first intake of students for the soft skills development program were summed up. Participants had an opportunity to apply in practice skills of conducting negotiations, team work, preparation of idea, and presentation of own project.
First students of the Soft Skills program were BIONIC University graduates. Together with trainers from the Kyiv Training Institute, students passed a three-week intensive course. The course ended with an interactive game, during which participants struggled for investments for the projects created in the course of the game. The game consisted of several stages.
Firstly, participants were divided into three teams, which had to “develop a project” out of … spaghetti and marshmallows. The main point of the task was to excel through joint efforts. Everyone had to contribute to the creation of a steady pyramid out of the shapeless pack of spaghetti using any means available. The task is seems to be simple. However, already at the very first stage participants had to pull out all the stops to create an integral design under conditions of limited time and ‘building materials’ frangibility.
Teams have achieved harmony in work rather quickly. Ability to hear each other and desire to understand each other was very helpful for participants during the next stage of the game, when they had to present their projects to the investor, rather convincingly performed by Sergey Potapov, Organizational Development Director at BMS Consulting. Then the participants faced an unexpected challenge: each team had to present to the investor not its own project, but the project prepared by another team. It required being quick on the uptake, defining the project strengths and presenting them in a convincing manner. According to the investor expectations, the project had to be innovative and profitable. It is important to believe not only in the idea, but also in the team that implements it. They had five minutes to present projects and teams. Their power of conviction and felicity of phrases defined whether the idea would turn into reality.
At the final stage of the game, the investor was accompanied by partners, who introduced new conditions. The newly established holding was ready to invest in a big project, which was not only innovative, but also community-focused, environment friendly, and still profitable in the foreseeable future. Three teams of the game participants blended forces for the ultimate purpose – creation and presentation of a large-scale project for $3 billion. The task complexity maxed out: for half an hour players had to develop their project from the idea to the real breadboard model, to create a team and to assign roles within it, and finally to present the billion-investment-worth project.
After the project presentation investors left to put heads together, while the young entrepreneurs shared impressions during the break:
“It’s a very useful experience. It is a rare opportunity to try to persuade anyone to invest in your project. It is good for any career,” said one of the game participants.
“As to investors… Well, we’ll be able to sell this on to them,” added the nearby standing student.
However, players couldn’t “sell on” to investors at the first attempt, unfortunately. Investors gave a detailed explanation of the reasons of their refusal.
“We’ve decided that we are not ready to such investment, yet. Any successful project assumes presence of idea, budget, and deadlines. We as investors failed to grasp who and what will do in your team. Neither the image of your target client is clear to us – for whom this project was created,” explained Valeriya Zabolotnaya, curator of BIONIC University, to participants.
A representative of investors team – Vadim Gorenko, partner at Profiles International, supported her, “In the first place, you need to formulate the project mission – why you are doing this. Then you need to decide on the objective and assign roles within your team. Any business works this way. US investors have already understood this and assure that there are lots of ideas but they need teams capable of implementing them.”
Sergey Potapov in his turn explained to the game participants the importance of team interaction skills development, “You may think that today you are only a junior, but you work daily in a team, and sooner or later you will have to deal with more challenges and then you will need soft skills. Communication is the most important thing for successful team work: you have to know what each party wants and make sure everything was correctly understood,” he is convinced.
Participants liked this business game so much that they did not want to leave. During the question-answer session, they asked in unison, “When shall we meet again?”
The program of Soft Skills development at BIONIC University is elaborated to help young IT specialists to improve their level of key social interaction skills. The program consists of two blocks: Self-management Skills and People-management Skills – skills to improve personal efficiency and skills for purpose achievement in teams. The program launch is scheduled for autumn 2013.
View photos from the event:
Last edit: 10.07.13