Well I ran my first Dutchman today! YEEEHAHHH!!! I had 12 people whom we split into 3 teams of 4. Let me compliment you on a great game! The timings were perfect, the debrief was awesome, and everyone was happy! They may even ask me back to run it for their Senior Managers they were so impressed!

YEEEHAHHH!!! Thanks again - I'm fired up!

It's rare to find a simulation that works well with small groups (ex. 8 participants) as well as with groups of over 100 participants. Dutchman is an excellent simulation for stressing the importance of planning, collaboration, and communication. It's a great team-building exercise and easy to learn and facilitate.

We've used Dutchman 9 or 10 times over the past 24 months, with groups of various sizes (8 to 130) and have not really found any downsides to the simulation.

"I wanted to let you know that the feedback received from our team of global managers about the Lost Dutchman team building session was excellent. We couldn't have found a better way to kick off our collaboration and process improvement effort than this.

The exercise was a great way to generate that initial push toward working across normal boundaries like operations and research and marketing to make the real work of planning and implementing more effective. There are few things like Dutchman that can work with senior managers to involve and engage them in organizational improvement efforts. Not to mention, it was tremendous fun too!

"I thoroughly enjoyed the Dutchman game and was elated by all the positive feedback I got. Even some skeptics piped in and said they found the experience valuable!

Here are some of the learning and feedback from the group:
-Having a role for everyone really made a difference
-Provided shared experiences for future reference
-Valuable learning experience
-Dutchman was more strategic than most exercises
-Provided useful bonding experiences
-Lessons learned were lessons we know going in but it reinforced teamwork
-It's important to work with people who we don't often work with on a daily basis

Thanks for building a great game.

If you ever need a fun loving, raving fan who's not afraid to make it up as you go to run a game for you...let me know.

I wanted to let you know that the feedback received from our team of global managers about the Lost Dutchman team building session was excellent. We couldn't have found a better tool to kick off our collaboration and process improvement efforts than this.

The exercise was a great way to generate that initial push toward working across normal boundaries like operations and research and marketing to make the real work of planning and implementing more effective.

There are few things like Dutchman that can work with senior managers to involve and engage them in organizational improvement efforts. Not to mention, it was tremendous fun too!

Thanks for your collaboration and openness during the planning of the event!

No phone calls from me should serve as a good indication that your Dutchman materials were clear, well structured, and complete. I had no problem creating the game from the files you sent via email (thanks again) and the result was a professional set of material to run the simulation.

Everyone had fun and there were lots of comments as to the high value of the exercise. So thanks!

I led The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine for our senior leadership team as part of the strategic planning initiative, since so many of the key learning points about Dutchman relate to the issues involved in creating and sharing a vision and getting people to act in alignment. It is far easier to talk about working together and collaborating for shared goals and outcomes than it is to actually do that, and Dutchman demonstrates that really well.

The beauty of the Dutchman game is not so much in the play but within the actualy debrief and what "nuggets of gold" can actually be mined within the discussion and its application to your organization. Senior Leaders are not always the most open to training simulations, but since we have done the activity, we are still talking about "aha's" that we have uncovered and plan to apply in our strategy for the upcoming year. I can recommend this game to anyone dealing with senior managers or large groups of people. It is fun, but it is also very effective.

We use this exercise as both a customized course for specific departments and for open enrollment classes. Classes rank this as being one of the best hands on tools allowing participants to experience topics prior to debrief and driving home an idea or concept. It's very flexible and can help with multiple topic areas. GREAT ITEM and well worth your investment.

I have been running The Dutchman game for 19 years now and it has never failed to impact leaders and demonstrate many key learning points. If you are looking for a business simulation that will engage your learders and allow them to understand the importance of planning, executing and collaborating, then The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine is one of the very best. It works amazingly well across different cultures.

As a 12-year user of Dutchman in a technology multinational, I have run over 300 sessions with multiple conglomerates using the exercise to break down inter-departmental barriers and increase motivation, innovation, and engagement. Dutchman really builds collaboration. It works with very senior executives as well as front-line employees. Now, with a much larger multinational, it was one of the first tools I acquired to impact my new organization's people and performance. Lost Dutchman will be an integral part of our organizational development activities focused on performance improvement and team building.

I know of nothing in the marketplace that offers the kinds of impacts and learning points about people and performance and that can align people to missions and strategies.

Simply Superb! We use Lost Dutchman all over the country with our clients and it is ALWAYS rated as one of the best programs delivered. Works in all types of companies and drives organizations toward Collaboration and Teamwork! The debrief options allow you to fully customize the delivery to any audience. Well designed and easy to deliver. That, combined with all of the knowledge and support of Dr. Scott, and you have the best Team Building simulation out there...BAR NONE!

We had a Ball!!!! And learned!! Dutchman was a huge success. Thanks for all of your help

A ton of gold in value! Greatest value of the game is its flexibility and the ease in which it engages participants. Suitable for virtually any training objective since the feedback options are limitless and through the group dynamics any issue can be tackled from role conflict to leadership vacuum to poor communication patterns. Flexible also in terms of adjusting to crowd size and time constraints. All in all a great (and fun!) tool for any trainer or company!

I've received tons of positive feedback about the exercise - that it was one of the best ones that they had ever done, it was fun and they learned something, etc

While I've always had an open door policy, people are using it more now - I have heard about more issues unsolicited in the last ten days than I had in the previous five months, which of course means I can do something about them. It's been great. I think they even liked the cowboy hats!

We played the Dutchman game with our sales staff and the simulation was quite successful, which is a difficult assignment since we sell training games to clients and our staff can get picky and critical. The debriefing was an excellent surprise - the way questions are prepared, the flow and the links to desired outcomes makes it the best prepared Simulation Debrief I have ever seen or delivered.

Your Dutchman presentation at Anson High School was a real success! Your message was extremely well received and the Dutchman Game really hit home to our faculty, as they zeroed in on the importance of teamwork and the mechanics of change. And what fun they had in the process! The "game" was such a wonderful technique for developing the collegiality of our staff as well as their u nderstanding of the benefits of effective teaming. The principles of productivity which you shared were so much more effective through their application in the game.

Our staff are still talking about Dutchman and the challenge of mining for gold. We will continue to develop the real "gold" of our organization, our people and their capabilities, throughout the year; and we will continue to use the principles of productivity that you shared with us.

The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine is fast-paced, engaging, and fun.

Beyond that, however, it deliver the lessons of teamwork, collaboration, communication, & planning in a way that sticks. I have a real bias for experiential learning because there's nothing like learning by doing. Many of the so-called soft skills are still delivered in very mundane, boring, "talking head" types of delivery. You can talk until you're blue in the face about why people should do something or not.

When people experience the consequences of their actions in a fast-paced, real-world, beliavable simulatiuons like this one, that tends to stay with them for a long time. That's the power of good experiential learning. Scott Simmerman has developed one of the best experiences I've ever used. It's applicable to the real world, the debrief is right on target, and my clients love it!

When you need to discover what needs to be done for improvement, I suggest people start with The Dutchman. An outstanding exercise.

The Lost Dutchman Exercise is an essential resource for any team builder's tool kit. Experientially based, it encompasses just about every process issue a team encounters: planning, communication, risk taking, decision making, competition and collaboration just to name a few. It's one of my favorite team process tools!

We put 80 leaders through Dutchman this week. It was awesome!! Everyone loved it and said it was the most effective, thought provoking activity they have experienced in a learning environment. Thanks for your coaching and support. Cause, ya know�it's just a game, so let them play and discover!

We have just completed three groups in Chine -two in Shanghai and one in Beijing and I have begun the train-the-trainer for the program here. The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine has gone over very well. They have trouble with the confusion but that is why we are using it - to help them break through some of their old ways of doing things. This simulation serves as a great foundation for all the sessions that will follow - And we keep referring to the lessons learned in the game and how they apply to their jobs as managers and leaders.

Thought you would like to know of our success. Everybody loved it and our trainers are ecstatic - everybody likes to be successful!

LDGM is a Great Game! I had the chance to run Lost Dutchman for the first time after seeing Scott's presentation in Mumbai in December. I just delivered a brilliant program for a UK-based firm for 18 participants. It was engaging and lots of fun, went very smoothly and we got excellent feedback for the program.

It was a wonderful feeling to deliver such a power-packed program with a power-packed debrief. It clearly shows the benefits of making learning and organizational development fun by using interactive training exercises like yours.

The Team Approach has used "The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine" with many clients over the years. Our clients have found the game to be engaging, fun, and valuable in stepping back and looking at their organization 'together' and then deciding 'together' what they might do about the things that they have found. WHile ther are many approaches to getting people to work more effectively together and to assess their environment and plan for change, few will have the memorable impact of the Dutchman simulation.

I have used Lost Dutchman time and time again in courses on teamwork, virtual teams, and effective collaboration. It is easy to understand, quick to set up and provides always more review material than there is time for. A great design which is complex in dynamics yet simple in the management of the activity.

Dutchman was a superb activity for the challenges of a geographically divided workforce. We used Dutchman the first time we brought all the banking office managers together. Because it was such a huge success, and one that they are still talking about, we have planned 5 more sessions to include the rest of our employees. The managers want to make sure all their people have the same opportunity to develop the collaborative teamwork needed for our company to be successful in multiple locations and markets.

We now have a Turbo Charger traveling trophy derived from the Turbo Charger used in the game. Dutchman never fails to have great impact on all participants!

We've been using The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine as part of a law enforcement leadership training program for almost two years. These sessions include law enforcement personnel from all over Texas from city, county, school district, and even state agencies. Participants regularly comment about how much fun they have and how much they learn about cooperation, collaboration, and communication. Their formal evaluations have been overwhelmingly positive. The director of the program is also very positive about the sessions and says that he has seen improved interaction between and among participants for the balance of the three week program.

Best "Learning Game" I have ever used�

We purchased this product for an offsite meeting to discuss Resource Allocation and Collaboration. The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine was a breeze to facilitate. The participants loved it and more importantly walked away with lessons that they were immediately able to apply back at the office. The slides and materials allow you to guide the group in almost any direction imaginable. I am still getting comments weeks after the session about the impact it made on the business and the improved performance. A small investment that generates huge results.

It's a great game!

We used the Lost Dutchman exercise to help our church become aligned to a shared vision. The game provided us with a fun time as well as a great shared experience to help us talk about our goals and our choicees for how we could improve our teamwork to ahe a better sense of purpose and community. The outcome far exceeded everyone's goals and this gave us a retreat that will have real benefits for the next few years.

This is a great tool for improving communications and building a plan of action to implement change.

The feedback from the participants was fabulous.

I led The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mind for our Store Manager development as part of their annual Store Managers Conference. During the game, there were a few "aha" moments but what really brought the point home was the debriefing. There was a lot of great debriefing material to use and I focused on how the game paralleled our business and how much better the results could be if we collaborated better as an organization.

Scott was extremely supportive and was always available to answer my questions or give me suggestions. I would recommend this game to anyone that wanted to build collaboration among and between teams. It is fun and effective!

After renting the game to initially test it with two large groups, we bought the Professional Edition to run this company-wide

This simulation is the most effective exercise to aid organizations, associations, and companies to maximize their competencies in the following areas: Teambuilding, Leadership, Planning, Time Management, Utilization of scarce resources and most importantly COLLABORATION

Dutchman is used in my workshops because it is a phenomenal business simulation that brings to life the tough challenge of both planning and executing in a highly interactive and engaging manner.

I use Lost Dutchman to help build successful teams. The lesson taught is one no one will ever forget. I have used this program a number of times and have always gotten great results. You will love it!

I want to express my deep appreciation for the quality team-building event you delivered for the first annual Vendor Day for Family Christian Stores and our vendor partners. The pressure was on to establish a meaningful connection and deliver substance. We wanted to ensure that our vendors had a quality experience with us and would take back solid content that could improve either their operation or our relationship with them. The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine event met the goal perfectly.

Feedback received from vendors and employees confirms that Dutchman delivered results that will shape behavior and help all of us "mine more gold" together.

For several years I have used large-scale games and found them to be high impact, motivating, and leaving a lasting impression. The latest example and one of the better ones is "The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine."
We used it for an international sales meeting to reinforce the importance of planning and strategy in successful sales activities. The game allows a serious debrief that exposes the larning points and decisions taken by the groups and why some groups outperform others.

It provides for lots of fun and interaction along the way and the instructions include guidelines on how to align the game to your organizational goals and event themes, and to align your debrief aas well. This event had the highest rating of the conference and people still refer to it 18 months later when holding meetings/coaching on sales efficiency and productivity.