One of the most valuable outcomes from a simulation is soft skills practice. 

Ask any employer what new graduates are missing, and you’ll hear the same answer again and again: soft skills. They’ve got the technical know-how, the Excel formulas, the data analysis, the theory, but many stumble when it comes to communicating clearly, collaborating on a team, or adapting when things don’t go according to plan. 

Business simulations don’t teach soft skills in a step-by-step way. But they require them! And when students engage deeply with a simulation, they get a controlled, challenging environment to practice the very skills they’ll carry into their careers. 

Soft skills are personal attributes and interpersonal abilities (often called “people skills”) that shape how well someone works with others and performs on the job. Unlike hard skills, which are technical and job-specific, soft skills transfer across industries and roles. Whether you’re running a startup, managing a project, or climbing the corporate ladder, these skills are the foundation for success. 

1. Communication: Teammates have to make their case to each other and to their instructor as they justify their decisions. Explaining why your team adjusted its pricing strategy or expanded into a new market builds clarity and confidence. It might seem obvious but most businesses struggle with communication. Our simulations provide students a regular, periodic opportunity to practice communicating their thoughts and ideas.   

2. Teamwork: If students learn nothing else, they will learn what it takes to function as a team (both positively and negatively). Simulations make that unavoidable. The workload is often too much for one person, so dividing responsibilities and trusting your teammates becomes essential. Collaboration often means better outcomes. 

3. Adaptability: Students face uncertainty in our simulations. Market share drops. Competitors launch new products. Customer preferences shift overnight. These force students to pivot quickly and adjust their strategies. Adaptability is the difference between surviving and winning. 

4. Problem-Solving: Every decision round presents a new challenge. Should you increase marketing spend or hold steady? Adjust your price? Invest in new technology or double down on operations? Students sharpen their ability to analyze information, weigh trade-offs, and take action.

5. Leadership: Ever been on a team where no one wants to make the call? Simulations surface leadership moments fast! Each team has a leader responsible for finalizing decisions, but true leadership isn’t about titles. It’s about guiding discussions, building consensus, and standing by the plan when the pressure rises.

6. Work Ethic: Winning teams aren’t just lucky (most of the time!), they need to put in the hours. Students quickly discover that success requires digging into the materials, running the numbers, and showing up for their team. And just as important, they learn what happens when someone doesn’t pull their weight.

7. Time Management: Simulations are fun. Sometimes too fun. Students can easily spend hours analyzing every line of data. Time management becomes critical, balancing the need for deep analysis with the reality of other classes, projects, and life commitments. 

While simulations create the environment for soft skills to grow, instructors can amplify the experience by: 

Want to make soft skills even more visible? Try these classroom ideas: 

Business simulations aren’t just about numbers and strategy. They’re about people and how they work, lead, and adapt together. By engaging in simulations, students don’t just understand business concepts better; they get to practice the skills that will make them more effective in the workplace, long after the simulation ends. 

Author: Tim Sams
Director of Marketing for Interpretive Simulations.

Business simulations are often associated with live classrooms involving group decisions, instructor guidance, and real-time discussions. But what happens when they are used in asynchronous online courses, where students don’t meet live and instructors aren’t walking through the results with them in real time?

At the University of the Cumberlands, Professors Maeghen  Kuhn and Stephanie Thacker are proving it can work, and work well.

Kuhn and Thacker teach fully asynchronous business courses, meaning students work through materials independently, on their own schedule, without live sessions. In that environment, simulations like BizCafe, HRManagement, and CountryManager offer a hands-on learning opportunity where students make decisions, see the outcomes, and reflect on what happened. And all of this happens without real-time instructor input or group work.

“We run on eight-week terms, totally asynchronous, all folders open,” Kuhn explains. It’s backed by a thoughtful approach to course design.

“You have to evaluate all the content in the course,” Kuhn says. “To decide where you want [the simulation], when you want it, and how much. It’s all different puzzle pieces… what assignment do I prepare this with? Do I want them doing a reflection? A huge project at the end? Weekly quizzes?”

The point, she says, is not to just add more content but to integrate the simulation meaningfully.

In a synchronous classroom, students might rely on live feedback or peer discussion to gauge how they’re doing. In an asynchronous simulation-based course, instructors need to build in other ways to help students process what’s happening and why.

That’s where feedback and reflection come in.

Thacker explains: “I always tell my students, it is a learning opportunity. This is where you’re going to learn more by failing in this safe space… I go in and give detailed feedback, these are some things that you need to be looking at for the next rounds.”

The instructors aren’t grading students on how well they “performed” in the simulation, but on what they learn from it.

“We assess on what they learn in the simulation,” says Kuhn, “not how they did in the simulation. We grade based on completion of the simulation and then reflecting upon what they do.”

Reflection is key and it’s one of the most important ways to keep students engaged in an asynchronous course.

As Thacker puts it: “Completion does not mean I sat down for 20 minutes and clicked through and made decisions and that was it… You have to actually put in the work, put in the effort.”

For Kuhn and Thacker, the value of simulations in asynchronous learning is about career preparation. It goes beyond engagement.

“We try to make sure students don’t just have that background knowledge that we can look up on Google or now with AI,” says Thacker. “We want them to have that ability to apply that knowledge… because we know that’s the best way to prepare them.”

That’s especially important in asynchronous settings, where students need to take initiative and think critically without the structure of a live classroom.

Kuhn sums it up: “We do not believe in failing students because they failed the simulation, because that’s the whole point… Most likely, if you’re failing in the simulation and you try again, there’s potential that you will learn more than those that were successful each round every time.”

If you’re an instructor or course designer considering simulations for asynchronous courses, Kuhn and Thacker offer this advice: don’t treat it like a plug-and-play add-on. Simulations work best when treated as a meaningful part of the course. Designing the experience intentionally, framing it as a real-world challenge, and building in time for reflection helps students get the most out of it.

“Don’t just throw it into an already existing course,” says Kuhn. “You’re going to overwork your students, you’re going to overwork yourself, and students just aren’t going to be interested in anything.”

Thacker adds: “Try it before you buy it… You don’t get feedback until students are completing it, and then you’re trying to go through it as they’re going through, and it just doesn’t work.”

Their final word of wisdom?

“You have to be strategic about it,” says Thacker.