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How to truly learn from your mistakes

Failure is an undeniably painful thing, but it’s often described as the driving force behind success. Thomas Edison famously wrote: ‘I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work,’ proposing that innovation is forged in the fires of numerous mistakes.

For datacenter managers, mistakes can be particularly costly. With high-ticket hardware and expensive service contracts, you must walk a fine line between finding the optimum mix to satisfy your customers and maintaining safety, security and zero downtime. That’s where the science behind simulations could come in, helping you to try out new components and model your decisions before making the plunge in reality. Let's uncover how it all works.

Let dissatisfaction drive you

Numerous research studies into the value of experiential learning methods – including simulations – suggest that mistakes are a crucial part of the learning process. Professional development (learning for work) can be experienced in a few different ways. Traditionally, education is delivered through seminars, training workshops, books or articles. Then there’s the hands-on learning. Gaining feedback from applying your ideas in practice arguably has the bigger impact. It can come from everyday work, or from simulations – effectively experimenting with ‘prototypes’ – which, according to a recent study, can accelerate learning.

The research by Saenz and Cano at the University of Zaragoza, proposes that simulated learning has three facets: learning from content (new ideas and concepts), learning from experience (putting those ideas to the test), and learning from feedback (evaluating the results of those tests). The source of learning in simulation is not what a trainer or teacher tells you, but rather what you do yourself. By using the same mechanics as computer gaming, users are motivated to take part, seeing the performance of their decisions played out. When your performance is below aspiration (you didn’t achieve what you wanted to) you’re more motivated to find new ways of performing, learning as you go.

In the study, participants using a project management simulation learnt more when their performance was worse, leading the researchers to conclude that mistakes are vital to learning. This is one of the greatest strengths of simulations: you can interact with the impact of your decisions (good or bad) without paying the costs.

The best way to learn is to experience

To meet the growing demand for highly knowledgeable, decisive datacenter managers, a way of experimenting with the various variables is needed, to act out reality without the true risks of failure. Simulations allow us to deal with virtual versions of real life situations, which in turn enable us to simulate the processes of learning and innovation through practice.

Simulcation Datacenter is a new incarnation of this technology, aimed at helping IT professionals to navigate the challenges of their role in a fun, engaging environment, while accurately simulating critical decisions. Datacenter managers must constantly adapt their knowledge to emerging technology, making the right choices for their organization when it comes to choosing support partners and hardware. As a datacenter manager we showed Simulcation to commented: ‘if I’d have had an app like this, I could have learned what I learned in years in just a few weeks’.

In Simulcation Datacenter you can effectively test-drive a wide range of real-world components. Developed in collaboration with IBM, the impact of your decisions is measured as true to life as possible, so you can be confident in translating your simulated decisions to the real world.





About Simulcation

We believe learning shouldn’t be laborious. Simulcation Datacenter is an engaging, competitive environment that simulates the complex challenges faced on a daily basis by IT infrastructure professionals. Preregister now to be one of the first to experience it – or contact us to find out more.

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