Use of simulation games to learn negotiations in project business

Abstract

Negotiation and negotiation skills have an important role in project business, therefore it’s essential to teach the future project management professionals in order to achieve the skills and be prepared to the actual globalizing world. The purpose of this thesis is to create a simulation game in order to be able to teach these negotiation skills in a classroom environment.

The approach of this research is use the literature review about the effectively of using games for teaching and how to design a game with educational purposes in order to create a useful and motivating game. In addition, the negotiation analysis approach and all the qualities that a negotiator need in the different phases of the project are studied. Based on the results of the literature review, a definition and implementation of a project simulation game is created.

The results of this thesis present a way to effectively teach the skills that a negotiator need through a simulation game. The game can be used in project management educators, and the process of designing the game can be repeated for other subjects besides project negotiation.