Flying rockets with Air Traffic Control The Netherlands

Last week we ran an Apollo 13 business simulation combined with a design workshop for Air Traffic Control in The Netherlands. One of the biggest reasons was to focus on their IT Change management process.

Of course the Apollo Game focuses on more than only this specific process. But it was a good exercise to see what it really takes to design a process and to make it work in practice.
In four rounds Air Traffic Control design, implemented and improved the main processes in order to support the crew of the Apollo 13 mission.
The key lessons were:
– Do not overcomplicate processes. It will make them slow and difficult to follow
– Keep thinking logical. A process is not written in stone. Sometimes the customer is better served if the process is NOT followed.
– A key factor is to keep the customer informed about what is happening. In order to achieve this we need clear goals set and a common view on being successfull.
Next day we helped Air Traffic Control to review their change management process and implemented the takeaways from the simulation.
We achieved to reduce the steps needed in their process dramatically.
This week we will be running a second day of design workshop to further improve their process, and review the improved process.
We will keep you posted.