Richard Branson’s Galactic project and the emerging Commercial Space sector provides the context for the Simulation. The Simulation challenge is that teams of 4/5 participants compete to win a tender to partner “Ricardo Bransoni Enterprises” (RBE) alias Richard Branson and the Virgin Group, to become the world’s first, private, commercial, space tourism operator.

Actual footage of Richard Branson and stakeholders involved in the project is provided and interaction with the “Ricardo Bransoni” representative for the tender (the facilitator) as teams compete to understand both the strategy and changing situational context for the Galactic project. The teams’ objective is to ultimately present a winning sales pitch as to how they propose to partner with RBE to assist them with their first to market strategy. Teams are also encouraged to source other relevant information via the Virgin Group’s website, Richard Branson’s blogs and other sources of their choice.

The Simulation is highly competitive, fun, fast paced and full of disruptive surprises. The Simulation is designed to create ambiguity, complexity and turbulence in the competing teams. Personal and team reflection activities provide participants with the opportunity to transfer relevant learning in real time to themselves as individuals as they reflect and receive feedback from their team members on their levels of contribution to the team. Transfer of learning is immediate in the team as team members reflect on the quality of their thinking and performance through each of the four stages of the Simulation.

Team members action what they will Accelerate, Start and Stop doing to become a High-Performance Team in their world of work. These actions will be implemented after the Simulation.

Relevant integration points will be made with the client brief, during the reflections, to ensure that these specific performance enhancement requirements are addressed.