Participative Simulation (Partisim): A Facilitated Simulation Approach for Stakeholder Engagement

Facilitated discrete event simulation offers an alternative mode of engagement with stakeholders (clients) in simulation projects. It is particularly beneficial when modeling systems with complex behavior, involving many stakeholders with plurality of opinions and objectives. PartiSim - short for Participative Simulation - is a facilitated modeling approach developed to support simulation projects through a framework, stakeholder-oriented tools, and manuals in facilitated workshops. This tutorial describes the PartiSim approach, available for analysts and simulation modelers to use. A PartiSim study includes six stages, four of which involve facilitated workshops. PartiSim has been developed and tested through working with health care organizations. It can, however, be applied to analyze operational problems in any other context within the services and manufacturing domains. This tutorial introduces PartiSim by describing the PartiSim framework and tools, some applications and example tools, a roadmap to adopting it and concludes with some tips for potential users.