MIT Sloan Project Management Simulator

Imagine you are the lead project manager for “Project Phoenix,” a high-visibility initiative at your firm to launch a next-generation product. The executive team has committed: 48 weeks until launch, an initial scope of 24,000 design tasks and 96,000 build tasks.

• Week 1: You have a core team of experienced people. Everything looks good — schedule is tight but manageable.
• Week 6: Marketing sends in three new feature requests. You debate: should you accept scope creep or hold firm?
• Week 12: You are falling slightly behind. To catch up, you approve overtime, add more people, and allow design and build phases to overlap. At first progress jumps. But fatigue creeps in; rookie hires mean some tasks need rework; testing finds more defects than expected.
• Week 20: You get an email from QA: defect backlog is climbing. HR warns of rising attrition. Marketing pressures for more features. You must decide whether to cut scope or push harder.
• Week 30: The project is delayed. Costs are ballooning. You face the classic “90% done” trap — progress seems nearly complete, but then a wave of undiscovered defects and rework appears. You realize that your earlier decisions unleashed reinforcing feedbacks.
• Week 40: You must choose: continue pushing, accept scope reductions, or reset the schedule.
• Week 48: Launch day arrives. The market is ready — but you either deliver late, with fewer features, or with quality issues. Your decisions throughout the simulation determined the outcome: time, cost, scope, and quality.

In this simulation, you learn not just what decisions to make, but how they ripple through the system, how good-faith choices can backfire, and how systems-thinking is critical for project success.