BridgeTown

Building the Bridges of Process Improvement

The beautiful City of BridgeTown straddles the wild, winding BridgeTown River. Mayor Span has a significant problem. BridgeTown's rapid growth has created a need for four bridges to be built (north, south, east and west). The Mayor and City Council have awarded the contract to the BridgeTown River Construction Company (BTRC), which will be assigning bridge construction to different project teams within their company. Various community stakeholder groups have emerged with their own issues and concerns regarding this significant building project. Mayor Span is facing an upcoming election, and successful reelection may be riding on the outcome of the bridge building project. Can the bridge building teams deliver high quality results on time and on budget?

Participants in BridgeTown are assigned to key roles within their own bridge-building teams. The four project teams will each build one of the four required bridges. The bridges are evaluated according to prescribed measurements related to: Safety, Time of Completion, Financial Costs and Benefits, and Appearance. Each project team is given the opportunity to build their bridge three times. Each building project brings with it higher expectations from Mayor Span, as well as from higher industry benchmarks and competitive standards. All project teams must improve their processes in order to achieve success within the competitive BridgeTown environment. Throughout the program, team members participate in large group sessions to learn the fundamentals of process redesign. They then systematically apply these principles and tools to redesign their own bridge building process, leading to an exciting, challenging, fun and friendly competition in Mayor Span's final bridge building project.

By improving their processes, teams cut time and costs dramatically, and improve safety and quality. This culminates in a dramatic finale in which teams test the strengths of their products. It is here that participants clearly see that improving the effectiveness and efficiency of their processes makes a tremendous difference to business results.

Learning Outcomes
BridgeTown provides a riveting and relevant learning experience in which participants learn and apply the fundamentals of process improvement and teamwork. By the end of the experience, participants are able to:

• Understand the principles and tools of Continuous Process Improvement and Redesign;
• Apply these tools and methods to their own work practices back on the job;
• Lead and be effective team members of Process Improvement teams;
• Align Process Improvement to their organization's strategic direction;
• Identify and build relationships with their Process Customers and other stakeholders;
• Identify high potential opportunities for improvement within their areas; and
• Build a business case rationale for enlisting support for improvement efforts.

More Information
For more information on this simulation, click here to access our “request for information” form. Fill out the form and click submit. It’s that simple.