Most instructors purchase Project Risk to help teach risk management strategies, project management fundamentals, and earned value status reporting. However the game is also a great way to capture team members working patterns as they apply to these topics:

• Decision making
• Risk Psychology: Understanding Risk Personality Types and their implications for project decisions
• Reserve analysis and usage
• Leadership
• Strategy
• Willingness to work productively with competitors
• Dealing with stress
• Rescuing troubled projects
• Communication
• Stakeholder management

• Gearing your college course around the Project Risk game and the companion project management workbook
• Schedule a Project Risk competition with another project management class.
• Game play as a group assignment
• One-on-one approach (Instructor working with Learner)
• One-on-one competitive approach (competitive teams playing against each other)
• 90-minute group session with a trainer facilitating
• 2-hour session with a trainer facilitating
• 4-hour session with a trainer facilitating
• 8-hour workshop with a trainer facilitating
• 16-hour workshop with a trainer facilitating
• 4-day workshop with a trainer facilitating
• Special "PMO Edition" Rules

An optional Earned Value exercise comes in each Project Risk box.

In addition to using the Project Risk game to teach good project management practices and risk management, it also can be used to teach earned value. Click here to download a spreadsheet and chart of the project planned value so that learners can track their actual cost and earned value based on their game performance. Only one sheet is needed per team.

Here are a few tips when teaching earned value in conjunction with the Project Risk game:

1. When calculating the actual cost, remember that although the value of most of the steps is 1 chip, the value of the executing steps is 5 chips each.
2. When calculating the actual cost, DO NOT factor in the project funding - which consists of the 50 chips to start at Initiation, and then the additional funding of 10 chips upon passing each additional process group.
3. When calculating the actual cost, DO factor in the cost of implementing your risk strategies.

• Stack the chips in piles of 10. This makes counting faster.
• If you are using the Earned Value sheet (optional) lay a red and a black pen on top of the sheet so they don't have to search for them later.
• Open the workbook cover up next to the gameboard so that it is displaying the roadmap graphic. That indicates that learners are supposed to use it as opposed to holding the workbook for later.
• Lay the instruction sheet right on top of the game board and encourage early arrivers to read the instructions.
• If you have teams competing against each other, consider using a flip chart to track the period progression of the teams.

One flexible method for the instructor to reinforce learning and to help dispurse funds to struggling teams is to offer chips (usually in quantities of 2-5) for teams who volunteer first to take a test. Then when the first team volunteers you tell them they must look at you during the Q&A, and not at the game board.

Ask the team to do one of the following:

1. State the 5 process groups in order
2. State the 4 negative and 4 positive risk strategies
3. Look at Risk Card X and give a real-life trigger example

The Project Risk Game has been successfully played with groups sizes up to about 45 with one instructor. However it can get to be challenging to field all of the questions and to control the game play. Here are a few tips to consider when your group size exceeds 4 game boards:

1. Instead of having each team roll their own dice, you can have one announcer (possibly you/the facilitator) roll both dice. This helps ensure that the teams will follow your pace, it helps you direct them with each "period" saying "Have your project manager pawn move forward 4 spaces and pay the bank now." Then roll the black dice, and together read what the risk card rolled says.
2. Consider having a co-facilitator help you by walking around and assisting all of the players. You can train your own co-facilitator, feel free to contact us. We love to come out to assist with Project Risk play.
3. If you don't have a co-facilitator, request that the questions get asked publically instead of individually so that you don't spend time answering the same questions over to each team.
4. Consider skipping the optional Earned Value part of the game to help simplify the process. 

If the game is being played to help reinforce the workbook and terminology THEY HAVE ALREADY LEARNED, consider playing with this additional twist.

For each "period" the pawn lands on a step. A player on the team must define what that step is. Rotate the assignment to state the definition between players. Instruct teams to select who will be the first definer before they begin.

Briefly (and in your own words) define the step. If player can define it without resources, there is no penalty. If they have to look it up in the glossary, they should look it up – read it and as a penalty, take one team member pawn off the game board.