You do not need to surrender a week of teaching to run a useful business simulation in class. In one meeting, students can predict, decide, see the result, and explain what changed, provided access is ready before class and the debrief is protected.
The agenda below targets a 75-minute university class. Compress it to 50 minutes with fewer Rounds, or extend it to 90 minutes with a second decision cycle and written reflection. The constraint is not how fast students can click. It is how much time they need to think.
Define one lesson before you define the game
Write a single answerable question at the top of your plan. An example would be "How does a price change affect demand, contribution, and inventory when competitors can respond?" That question is narrow enough to guide the briefing and broad enough to support multiple strategies.
Do not attempt to teach elasticity, segmentation, finance, supply chains, market structure, and teamwork in the same 75 minutes. Secondary concepts will appear, but they do not all need equal treatment. A one-session exercise becomes more rigorous when students know which relationship they are expected to investigate.
Choose two or three output measures before class. Price, units sold, profit, and ending inventory might support the question above. Keeping the evidence set small makes the final comparison legible on a projector and reduces the temptation to narrate every metric.
Complete the access work before class
Create the simulation, Team Companies, and student assignments before the meeting. Send private access instructions through the supported course channel and set a clear deadline for reporting access problems. Avoid distributing one public credential that students can forward or mistype.
Rehearse with student and instructor views. Confirm that you can identify unassigned companies, control a Round, see submissions, and reach the debrief. Prepare a static decision table if the campus network fails.
Project only classroom information. Keep private notes, student emails, and access links off screen. With a teaching assistant, assign access support and facilitation roles in advance.
A practical 75-minute simulation agenda
Scroll sideways inside the table to see all the data. You can also focus it and use the left and right arrow keys.
Keep this timing table beside the instructor view during the 75-minute lesson described below. It uses the same two decision cycles and reserves the final 18 minutes for the debrief and individual response. Treat the times as a teaching plan rather than a promise about processing speed.
| Minute range | Minutes | Activity | Evidence to leave with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-8 | 8 | Frame the market | Learning question and prediction |
| 8-20 | 12 | First decision | Submitted choice and rationale |
| 20-28 | 8 | First results | Prediction compared with outcome |
| 28-42 | 14 | Second decision | One revision and its reason |
| 42-57 | 15 | Compare Rounds | Two measures and a limitation |
| 57-70 | 13 | Debrief | Evidence, mechanism, and transfer |
| 70-75 | 5 | Individual response | Next decision with evidence |
| Total | 75 |
If access or discussion takes longer, reduce the number of decisions while protecting reflection time. Have the prediction sheets ready as a fallback when the network is unavailable.
Minutes 0-8: Frame the market and the objective
State the learning question, define the Team Company role, and explain what one Round represents. Introduce only the decisions available in the first Round. Name the constraints that matter, such as inventory availability, a price floor, or a spending limit.
Ask each team to record a prediction before entering a decision. For instance, "If we set this price and production level, what do we expect to happen to units sold, inventory, and profit?" A prediction makes the later debrief analytical. Without it, students can reinterpret any result as what they intended.
Avoid teaching a winning strategy. Explain the mechanism and measures, then let teams choose. Say explicitly that the leaderboard will not determine the grade.
Minutes 8-20: Make and submit the first decision
Give teams roles for market information, the proposal, assumption-checking, and the rationale. The recorder should capture the key input, predicted outcome, and reason.
Circulate with process questions rather than recommendations.
- Which output are you trying to improve?
- What constraint could stop your plan?
- What would make this decision look wrong after the Round?
Announce a warning, confirm submission status, and close consistently. Follow the documented rule for missing decisions.
Minutes 20-28: Process, publish, and observe
Publish the results and give teams two quiet minutes to inspect them before opening discussion. Ask them to compare actual outcomes with their written prediction. They should identify one result they expected and one they did not.
Display a market-level table or chart, then one contrasting pair of Team Companies. Do not begin with rank. Begin with the decision and outcome measures selected in your lesson plan. A company with high Market Share but weak cash or excess inventory creates a more useful question than a simple "winner."
Minutes 28-42: Revise and submit a second decision
The second cycle is where learning becomes visible. Ask teams to change one part of their strategy and state why. They may keep the same numeric decision if their rationale is evidence-based. "Revision" means updating the reasoning, not forcing movement.
If the scenario unlocks another decision, explain its timing and likely tradeoff briefly. In ClassTycoon’s Soda Market Intro, teams begin with price and production. Marketing appears later, and R&D later still. For a single class meeting, you can process enough Rounds to reach the concept you need, but do not rush through every unlock merely to finish all ten Rounds.
Use the same warning and close routine. Consistency reduces procedural anxiety and leaves attention for the market.
Minutes 42-57: Compare evidence across Rounds
After the second result, ask teams to calculate or describe the change from the first Round. Focus on differences in price, units sold, Market Share, profit, cash, or inventory. A cross-Round trend is more informative than a final position because it shows adaptation.
Select two companies with a useful contrast, not necessarily the highest and lowest ranks. One may have lowered price and gained volume while another protected margin. Ask each to explain the objective it pursued and the evidence that supports or challenges the choice.
Be careful with causal language. In a competitive market, a Team Company’s outcome reflects its own choices, rival choices, capacity, and the scenario rules. Say that two measures "moved together" unless the model and comparison isolate the mechanism well enough to say more.
Minutes 57-70: Conduct the debrief
Structure the debrief in three moves.
- Describe: What decisions and outcomes changed?
- Explain: Which mechanism could account for the pattern?
- Transfer: Where would the same reasoning matter outside this scenario?
Invite evidence before opinions. When a student says that "the cheap company won," ask which measure defines won, how much price differed, whether contribution improved, and what happened to inventory or cash. This keeps the conversation away from a single-rank narrative.
The 15 business simulation debrief questions provide prompts you can select in advance. Two or three well-sequenced questions are enough for one meeting.
Minutes 70-75: Capture individual learning
End with a short individual exit response. Ask students to name one decision they would repeat, one they would change, and one piece of Round evidence supporting each answer. An individual response prevents the team’s most vocal member from becoming the only visible learner.
Tell students what will happen to the response. You might use it as a low-stakes completion check, as evidence in a later memo, or as the opening prompt in the next class.
Adapt the plan for 50- and 90-minute meetings
For 50 minutes, use one decision cycle and provide the briefing before class. For 90 minutes, keep two cycles and add a one-slide evidence claim or short calculation. In either format, reduce Rounds before eliminating reflection.
Handle common classroom problems calmly
Use observer roles for late access and the documented rule for a missing submission. If the network fails, compare the teams’ prediction sheets and ask what evidence would distinguish the plans. If rank dominates discussion, redirect students to Market Share, profit, cash, and inventory.
Use Soda Market Intro for a focused first run
Soda Market Intro is ClassTycoon’s guided ten-Round Principles of Microeconomics scenario, with a recommended duration of 75 minutes. Teams start with price and production. Marketing unlocks in Round 3 and R&D in Round 6. You control the Round, so the lesson can stop when your objective is met rather than when every possible decision has appeared.
The first 30 students in each Soda simulation are free. Review larger-class options on Pricing, then rehearse once from both views. You should enter the room knowing exactly what students will decide, what you will display, and which question will open the debrief.
Frequently asked questions
How many Rounds fit in one class session?
Use as many as serve the objective while preserving debrief time. Two deliberate decision cycles are often more useful than a rushed complete game. Scenario timing and decision unlocks should guide the choice.
Should students receive instructions before class?
Yes. Send access steps, the purpose of the exercise, and any short preparation. Keep the actual strategic decision open so students still have meaningful work to do together.
What if a student arrives without a device?
Assign them a defined team role such as assumption challenger, recorder, or evidence analyst. The learning task is collective reasoning, not one device per person.