If businesses believe in simulations, why are they not using them?Understanding the gap between intent and action
As individuals, we know that we learn best by trying something and seeing what happens. Having said that, last week one of our MDA Training facilitators stopped their husband applying this methodology to their Ugg-style boots and a washing machine. But still, the general principal stands.
Most organisations, too, no longer need persuading that people learn better when they can really see consequences unfold. That is one reason simulations keep appearing in discussions about leadership, commercial acumen, risk, finance and cross-functional collaboration. The wider evidence base is also supportive. Research on simulation-based learning points to stronger development of complex skills when people are asked to engage actively with realistic decisions rather than absorb content passively, while broader management training research also shows positive effects on management practices, productivity, profits and survival. And yet, belief in the value of practice does not automatically produce adoption at scale. (Chernikova et al., 2024; Cespedes et al., 2022; Inter American Development Bank, n.d.)
That gap between knowledge and action is where many L&D teams find themselves today. Organisations need to grow capability in the face of limited learner time, pressure to prove return on investment, and the requirement to align learning more tightly to business goals. In other words, simulations are often not rejected on principle. They are crowded out by practical, cultural and organisational barriers. (OLxD, 2025; CIPD, 2025; Harvard Business Impact, 2025)
The issue is rarely belief
A useful starting point is this: when a business says, “we know simulations are valuable, but we have not done anything with them”, that usually signals one of two things. Either the organisation has not yet translated the potential value into a business case that feels concrete enough to fund, or it has misinterpreted what good simulation design and delivery actually require. Both issues are resolvable, but neither disappears on its own. (CIPD, 2025; Training Industry, 2019)
Barrier 1: Simulations are seen as interesting learning, not essential business infrastructure
Many organisations see simulations as team-building or fun (which of course, they can be) rather than a route to better decisions and better performance. Framing matters. If a simulation is portrayed as a “nice interactive workshop”, it competes with every other learning request. If it is framed as a way to strengthen commercial judgement, risk awareness, cross-functional decision making or leadership capability in conditions that mirror acutal work, it becomes much easier to justify. The CIPD’s guidance is clear that evaluation and design should be linked to identified performance gaps and business objectives, not to learning activity for its own sake. (CIPD, 2025)
This is one reason adoption stalls. Senior stakeholders may admire the method, but they do not always see where it fits in the operating model. They ask sensible questions. Which business problem does this solve? Which decisions will improve? What changes after the session? Until those questions are answered crisply, simulations remain conceptually attractive but operationally non-essential. (CIPD, 2025; OLxD, 2025)
Barrier 2: The value is understood, but the return is hard to prove in advance
L&D leaders have been saying for years that measurement is one of the hardest parts of the job. Training Industry magazine identified evaluating training effectiveness and demonstrating ROI as one of the most persistent deployment challenges, alongside limited time, staff and budget. More recent CIPD and OLxD material shows the concern has not gone away. (Training Industry, 2019; CIPD, 2025; OLxD, 2025)
Simulations can suffer more than other formats here because they are often held to a higher standard. A business may more readily fund slide-led training with only modest evaluation, yet ask a simulation to prove its value before it is even piloted. The method that more closely reflects actual decision making is expected to arrive with perfect certainty, while less experiential formats are allowed to proceed on good faith. This is understandable. “Chalk and talk” is how many of us learned everything: at school, through university, into professional qualifications. It’s what we’re used to. But is it the best way of doing things? (Cespedes et al., 2022; Training Industry, 2019)
Barrier 3: People feel they do not have enough time to immerse themselves in a learning experience
Time is one of the most stubborn blockers in workplace learning. Harvard Business Impact’s 2025 study found the most common challenge facing leadership development was lack of time for learners to complete training. OLxD similarly reports that limited time and inadequate resources are the foremost obstacles from employees’ perspective, while balancing workload with learning opportunities is a major challenge for L&D and HR teams. (Harvard Business Impact, 2025; OLxD, 2025)
This matters especially for simulations because they ask more from participants than content consumption. People need enough headspace to interpret information, make choices, discuss constraints, reflect and debrief. In pressured organisations, that can look demanding. Managers worry about taking teams away from live priorities. Participants worry about whether they can justify the time. So the very feature that makes simulations powerful, active practice, can also make them feel harder to schedule than simpler interventions. (Harvard Business Impact, 2025; Cespedes et al., 2022)
Barrier 4: The organisation underestimates the importance of design and facilitation
Poorly designed simulations can confirm every sceptic’s fear. If the scenario feels detached from work, if the data feel artificial, if the decisions do not resemble the constraints participants actually face, or if the debrief is weak, the experience can be dismissed as clever but not useful. The research on simulation-based learning repeatedly points to design features and facilitation as critical. The evidence on debriefing is especially important: structured debriefing and facilitator expertise are associated with stronger learning outcomes because they help participants make sense of what happened and why. (Chernikova et al., 2024; The impact of simulation debriefing process on learning outcomes, 2025)
This creates a practical barrier for many businesses. They like the idea of simulations, but they do not yet have the internal expertise to design or facilitate them well. That can lead to hesitation or to overcomplicating the project before it begins. The answer is not to abandon simulations. It is to recognise that simulation is a capability in itself, not just a learning format. (The impact of simulation debriefing process on learning outcomes, 2025; Cespedes et al., 2022)
Barrier 5: Leaders are concerned about complexity, custom build effort and cost
Budget pressure is real, and so is implementation fatigue. The 2024 Training Industry Report noted that some learning spend fell year-on-year, including spend on facilities, equipment and in house development. At the same time, wider L&D commentary continues to point to limited resources and stagnant budgets as a persistent concern. (Training magazine, 2024; Training Industry, 2019; The LPI, 2024)
For some stakeholders, simulations sound expensive before any serious conversation has started. They imagine a heavily customised intervention, complex platforms, long design cycles and large groups of people away from work. Sometimes that assumption is fair. Often it is not. The more important question is whether the organisation is matching the level of simulation to the learning objective. Not every problem needs a large-scale bespoke build. Sometimes a focused, well-facilitated commercial or leadership simulation is enough to unlock the benefits that the business wants. (Cespedes et al., 2022; CIPD, 2025)
Barrier 6: Simulations make thinking visible, and that can feel uncomfortable
There is also a cultural barrier that businesses do not always name directly. Simulations expose how people think. They reveal assumptions, priorities, blind spots and interpersonal dynamics. That is precisely why they are useful. It is also why some organisations keep them at arm’s length. In cultures where people are rewarded for certainty, speed or expertise signalling, the idea of practising openly, making imperfect decisions and discussing what happened afterwards can feel unfamiliar. Research on debriefing stresses the need for trust, inclusion and psychological safety for learning to land properly. (The impact of simulation debriefing process on learning outcomes, 2025)
This does not mean organisations are resistant to learning. It usually means they have not yet built a strong enough bridge between performance culture and practice culture. They want better judgement, but they have not fully normalised the kind of structured experimentation that helps people develop it. (Chernikova et al., 2024; CIPD, 2025)
How organisations can remove the barriers
The good news is that these barriers are removable when businesses stop asking, “should we run a simulation?” and start asking, “what business outcomes would benefit most from the opportunity to practise?”. That shift moves the conversation from format to capability. It also makes implementation more disciplined.
Start with a “business critical” decision, not a learning activity
The strongest simulation briefs begin with a live organisational challenge. It might be margin pressure, poor cross-functional coordination, weak risk judgement, inconsistent leadership decisions or low commercial confidence among non-financial teams. Starting there makes sponsorship easier because the simulation is tied to an actual capability gap rather than a generic engagement ambition. (CIPD, 2025; OLxD, 2025)
Define success in behavioural and business terms
Before design starts, agree what success should look like. Better quality forecasting. Clearer prioritisation. Stronger challenge in decision meetings. More confident use of financial information. Faster alignment across teams. If there are business metrics that can be tracked afterwards, even better. This is how the ROI conversation becomes manageable. It no longer relies on asking whether participants “liked” the session. It asks whether better decisions are becoming more visible in work. (CIPD, 2025; HBR, 2023)
Design for relevance, not spectacle
Effective simulations do not need unnecessary complexity. They need credible pressure, meaningful choices, realistic consequences and time to reflect. The evidence suggests that design features matter, and that authenticity alone is not enough if participants cannot clearly identify what matters in the scenario. Relevance beats theatricality. (Chernikova et al., 2024)
Treat debrief as part of the intervention, not the ending
It’s easy to think the simulation is a game and the debrief is the wrap-up. In practice, the debrief is where much of the learning is consolidated. That is where participants connect decisions to outcomes, examine assumptions, compare approaches and translate insight into workplace action. Research on debriefing consistently points to facilitator expertise and structured reflection as major contributors to learning quality. (The impact of simulation debriefing process on learning outcomes, 2025)
Pilot intelligently, then scale
One of the easiest ways to reduce stakeholder anxiety is to start with a pilot tied to a priority population or a clear business issue. This creates actual internal evidence. It also allows refinement before broader rollout. For some organisations, adoption does not fail because the first simulation underperforms, but because the first step feels too big. (Cespedes et al., 2022; CIPD, 2025)
Where MDA Training can make the difference
This is exactly where a specialist partner earns its place. Not by pushing simulations as a fashionable answer, but by reducing the barriers that stop good intentions becoming action.
MDA Training can help organisations in at least five practical ways.
First, we help clients identify the decision-making moments that matter most, so the simulation is anchored in business reality rather than generic capability language. That is especially valuable in commercial acumen, finance for non-finance people, leadership, risk and cross-functional collaboration, where strong judgement matters as much as technical knowledge.
Second, we translate those priorities into the right level of simulation. Some businesses need a focused intervention that sharpens a specific capability. Others need a broader experiential programme that links commercial, strategic and behavioural choices. Matching scope to need prevents unnecessary cost and complexity.
Third, we design for transfer. The point is not simply to create a room full of interested people. It is to help learners recognise patterns, challenge assumptions and leave with clearer habits for work. That means robust briefing, well-judged facilitation and debriefing that turns experience into practical insight.
Fourth, we help sponsors articulate success. When stakeholders can see the link between the simulation and business priorities, internal support grows. The conversation shifts from “is this interesting?” to “what would happen if we did not build this capability?”
Fifth, we help clients build confidence to scale. A good first simulation should not be a one-off event that people remember fondly and never revisit. It should give the organisation a repeatable way to develop judgement, alignment and decision quality over time. (CIPD, 2025; OLxD, 2025; The impact of simulation debriefing process on learning outcomes, 2025)
The commercial opportunity is not selling harder, it is removing friction
If a business already believes in simulations, the job is not to persuade it that practice matters. The job is to make adoption feel lower risk, more relevant and easier to justify. That is a much stronger commercial position. It is also a more credible one.
In other words, the gap between intent and action is rarely a knowledge gap. It is an implementation gap. Organisations know simulations can help. What they need is support in connecting that belief to a clear business problem, a manageable design, confident facilitation and evidence of impact. That is where MDA Training can add actual value.
