La Letra Pequeña

A 90-minute, 4-round Express simulation in the learner's own chair as an operations director with a vendor's statement of work (SOW) on the desk and a discount that expires on Friday: reading every clause for what it costs if the project goes wrong and finding the three that carry the money (acceptance, change requests, the way out) rather than checking only the price and the dates, marking up all thirty-eight things or comparing with last year's contract; a short call with the company lawyer and the controller rather than doing it alone, the legal queue or asking the vendor to split the quote; three redlines with the alternative wording and a give rather than accepting the vendor's standard, asking for everything or trading the clauses for a bigger discount; the full three-year amount taken to the investment committee rather than signing on Friday as it stands, against a "flexibility" email or as two orders under the threshold; acceptance against the written criteria, with a written rejection and a partial go-live, rather than letting the time to object run out or signing a certificate for tests that failed; a change request checked against the SOW and its annex; and a closing review, then a one-page checklist for the next SOW.

Andres Albelda Sojuela (fictional) is the operations director of Logistica Cidacos, a fictional cold-chain logistics company in Calahorra (La Rioja); the fictional vendor Nubalia Sistemas implements its warehouse management system for 148,000 euros plus 36,000 euros a year for three years, with go-live five weeks before the summer campaign.

You decide how you read the SOW and who you bring in, what you push back on and how the order gets signed, what you do with the acceptance certificate and the first change request, and how you close the project and what you do from there.

Scored on how well you know what you are signing, the chance that the campaign starts with the system working, the project budget kept, your time and energy, your relationship with the vendor and your credibility in the company, and open risk; three shortcuts (splitting the order under the approval threshold, signing an acceptance certificate for tests that failed, charging the overrun to another budget line) come back and cap the score.

Spanish primary, English included.

An intermediate simulation for participants who already know the core concepts of the subject, designed for master's and MBA programmes.