What is EagleRacing?

EagleRacing is a video-based collaborative decision-making simulation.

What is the scenario?

Imagine that you are part of a team of high-level decision-makers at a racing car company, faced with the dilemma of making a number of decisions affecting your company’s financial future.  You are confronted with different options, types of information, and an array of conflicting opinions, all of which you have to quickly analyze and manage properly in order to make the best decision.

What management challenges does EagleRacing set out to address?

• Management decision-making 

• Cross-sector collaboration

• Ethical, culture-specific and value-related factors in collaboration contexts

• Collaboration traps and barriers

• The opportunities and limitations of collaboration technologies

Who is EagleRacing for?

Companies that aim at making their people/managers collaborate better and more efficiently will find this an excellent opportunity to address this issue in a playful, but very effective way.

How is it played?

EagleRacing can be played on-site during a workshop or on-line over 4-8 weeks in one of 3 possible formats (“Beyond the classroom”):

• Engage participants actively before the workshop starts on campus - helping them to get to know each other better through a collaboration experience which is then debriefed at the beginning of the program (BEFORE)

• Engage participants actively during a module break (DURING)

• Engage participants actively after the end of a workshop – giving them a context (and “pretext”) to remain in touch afterwards, extending their management learning experience as well as their networking and collaboration patterns (AFTER)

How is it taught? 

It's an on-line teaching process: 

• All teaching material (videos, additional data) available on the web

• Weekly (or bi-weekly) episodes develop over time as a function of previous decisions

• Teams must reach agreement via email exchanges (recorded)

• Face-to-face debriefing/reflection session after the game (½ day)

• INSEAD participants' Validation of EagleRacing:

“It was indeed very nice to keep in touch with each other during the 4 week break from INSEAD, working together on this project, over 3 continents and 11 hours time difference.”

“As a new participant who did not participate in IEP Module 1, this was an excellent way to be integrated to the participant group. Perhaps this type of forum could be used as a way of bringing in new people in a collaborative manner.”

“It was an interesting experience and the manner in which the simulation was facilitated served to keep all team members very engaged in the process (i.e., multi-media, weekly decisions, global interaction amongst team members).”

“This is indeed an emerging area of research and the exercise confirmed complications in dealing across countries, time zones, attitudes through new forms of communication. The technique you used during the 4 weeks and your close involvement in the process was very well received.”

What are people saying about EagleRacing outside of INSEAD?

• EagleRacing and Organizational Culture at the National Defense University, NDU  (The Information Resources Management College of the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. currently offers an Organizational Culture course in which EagleRacing is a core component.  Students are career government and Department of Defense executives preparing for positions of strategic leadership).

Course director, LTC Nate Allen, PhD provides the following insights: 

”EagleRacing is an essential learning activity for our students in which they have the opportunity to experiment with, and test, course concepts in a safe and collaborative environment. In this experience significant learnings are garnered from the simulation itself as well as the team process and dialogue that is fosters. Upon completion of the simulation, students express a strong desire to go back and test out what might have happened had they made different decisions—a testament to the level of engagement engendered by the experience!”