BSS013-3 Strategy and Change Management Report 01 Assessment Brief | University of Bedfordshire

Assignment Brief Discussion with Students

The assessment brief must be discussed during an in-class session with students within the first 2 weeks of the unit and be accompanied by a screen/podcast on the BREO shell explaining the assessment, the rubric and the marking criteria. 

What am I required to do in this assignment? 

In this assessment, you will be required to play a Venture game - an online simulation game. The report produced will consist of the results of an analysis of relevant strategic decisions taken whilst playing the game. You are expected to carry out research and discuss relevant strategy models when posting your diaries on BREO. You are expected to also reflect and connect your experience in the formative simulation activity to the literature on strategy. The final report should reference those findings and include a reflective account of learning from a formative in-class strategy simulation exercise.

Business Simulation evaluation and reflective report guidelines:

Step 1: You need to contact the Unit Coordinator or your tutor to help you gain access to an online venture game via your BREO shell. You will work in groups playing the game, but remember the report must be individual. The game needs to be ran for 8 quarters. 

Step 2: The report should be focused on your self-awareness and understanding of the strategic decisions you undertook on behalf of the "company" and analyse how those decisions affected the outcome of the game. You are expected to utilize theories and frameworks from the strategy and the change management body of knowledge (academic journals and books) to underpin your decisions.

Step 3: You need to also include a reflective element in your analysis where you report on your performance within the industry. You will utilise your experience in writing reflective learning and your acquired knowledge on strategy and change management theory in order to dissect the simulation experience and account for your success (or not) within the simulation exercise.

Step 4:You need to keep an ongoing log of all the actions and outcomes of the game and include those in the appendices. The word count of the logs will not be included in your word count and is only for reference. Good reports will be written clearly and concisely with good structure with links to page numbers in the appendices. The appendices will include referenced relevant theory.

Your report must be referenced and contain a Harvard reference list + appendices 
Your appendices should include

• Initial strategic plan
• Performance print out per quarter (print out from the game online platform)
• Reflective log

More specifically the report will 

• Review your initial strategy and the decisions you took to implement it. What performance criteria informed you of the success of your strategy and how successful were you. Consider proposals as to how the strategy might have been stronger in light of the retrospective analysis. Also consider the theory on change management and its relevance to the simulated experience.
• Demonstrate your knowledge of reflective learning theory and demonstrate its application by assessing and justifying your own contribution to the success or not of the team taking account of your behaviour and activity and justify your insights from the evidence. Draw conclusions about your future behaviour and practice. This should draw from your reflective learning log.
• Relate your experience to existing theory and explain how theoretical models and strategic tools could have helped your "company" do better. Then review and evaluate what you learnt from the simulated experience and how the theory has informed your practice. 

Learning Outcomes

• Establish knowledge and understanding of the main strategic approaches and change management theories and relate them to the external/internal environment that shapes a business.
• Determine skills and abilities to research and apply strategic options in a particular context and develop appropriate solutions to strategic problems in business with a consideration of the relevant critical success factors.