ABSTRACT
Interpersonal role-plays have been an early, killer app of Short Sims. Used for everything from leadership and management development to sales and call centers, the role-plays are typically one-on-one conversations that use a basic, branching mechanism. A coach introduces a friend, assistant, and mentor to the role-playing genre that had almost exclusively used avatars as opponents or barriers to success. An organization with a world-wide presence in Information Technology research wanted to build a suite of complex interpersonal role-play simulations. The goal was to help senior analysts—those who had existing personal and high-trust relationships with Chief Information Officers of large corporations—sell consulting engagements to their clients without risking the privileged relationship and industry objectivity they had. The goal was to teach the client about the problem and establish IT Expert’s experience in fixing it.
