A simulation gives people a shared situation in which decisions have visible consequences. Participants can try things, experience pressure, and see how their choices affect other parts of a system. The learning depends on how that experience is examined.
Begin the debrief with what happened. Invite different accounts before settling on an explanation. Ask what people could see at the time, what they assumed, and which incentives or rules made their choices seem sensible. An explanation based only on personality can miss the conditions that shaped everyone’s behaviour.
Then examine the connections. Where did a local improvement create a problem elsewhere? Which information arrived too late? What changed when participants spoke across a boundary? Distinguish the exercise’s artificial features from patterns that participants recognise in their own work.
Finish by choosing one question or experiment to take back. Name who will be involved and when its effects will be reviewed. The simulation has done useful work when it helps people notice and test something they previously took for granted.