Pedagogix SIMS · Organization design, the future of work, and AI strategy Live

Agency

The hybrid workforce game

“Agency, and who has it.”

You are the newly elected Managing Partner of Calder & Voss LLP, a law firm of 650 lawyers. AI can now do a growing share of legal work, and your clients know it.

Taught in Business Law and Ethics, Information Systems and Digital Business, ready to teach on Pedagogix Course Designer.

Agency · Organization design, the future of work, and AI strategyLive
Watch the intro

See what Agency feels like

Transcript of the Agency intro video Captions are part of the video

You are the newly elected Managing Partner of Calder & Voss LLP, a law firm of 650 lawyers. AI can now do a growing share of legal work, and your clients know it. Over four years you decide how fast to hand work to AI agents, how to price that work, and how to keep training the lawyers who will lead the firm ten years from now.

The experience

Three pressures run through every half year. The first is pace. What AI can do keeps advancing, and how reliably it does it lags behind. A firm that falls behind loses margin and clients. A firm that runs ahead collects errors that nobody catches until later. The second is the mix of work. Matters that suit AI carry high margins. Bet-the-company matters pay 2.4 times normal rates, must be done by people, and come only to firms with a reputation for judgment. The third is the shape of the firm. Work that goes to agents is work that junior lawyers never learn from, and the class you hire this fall arrives next year.

Each period you set six firm-wide policies, accept or decline five matters from nine named clients, choose the fee and the team for each matter, and answer two escalations. A letter from opposing counsel about a citation that does not exist may also arrive. You can also talk with two of your four advisers. They are AI characters. Each knows something that the dashboard does not show, each is paid in a way that colors the advice, and each tells you more as trust grows. The partners vote on your leadership in year two.

What students learn
  • The error log shows only the errors that were caught, so it looks best at the moment the firm is most exposed.
  • Under hourly billing the savings from AI go to the client, so pricing has to change together with the work.
  • The most valuable work comes to firms that kept people able to do it, and those people need practice on real matters today.
  • Two strategies win: the efficient firm and the judgment firm. The firm that does half of each loses to both, and the firm that changes nothing fails in every market tested.
  • The adviser who understands the technology best is also the one who is paid to promote it.
Why instructors choose it
  • Students redesign the division of work between people and AI agents: which tasks to hand over, how fast, and with what checks. They see the results over four years.
  • The dashboard looks best when exposure is highest. Students therefore practice governing a risk before the evidence for it arrives, a position that many leaders who adopt AI are in today.
  • Work that goes to agents is work that junior professionals never learn from. The game makes students weigh this year's efficiency against the supply of future leaders.
  • Each adviser knows something true, and each is paid in a way that colors the advice. Students get practice in using expert counsel from people who have interests.
13x
Strategy over luck. Before students see a title, automated players run it across many markets with different strategies. In Agency, strategy moved the result 13 times as much as market luck did. Each student is compared with the best result that was possible in their own market, so you can grade the result and defend the grade.
At a glance
Company and role
Managing Partner of Calder & Voss LLP: 650 lawyers in six tiers and four practices, about $620 million in revenue, calibrated to published large-firm data. An executive committee of four peers holds private information and its own incentives
Discipline
Organization design, the future of work, and AI strategy
Also fits courses in
Professional services management, human capital strategy, pricing, operations, ethics and professional responsibility
Format
Solo. A shareable market code lets a whole class play the same market
Time
Eight half-year periods, which is four years at the firm. About 45 minutes of play, or an hour with discussion
Advisers and AI
Four AI advisers who share private knowledge as trust grows, and a committee that reacts to your results each period. Every AI line has a scripted fallback, so the game also runs without a connection. AI is the subject of the game as well: the player decides how a firm should use it
How you are scored
A score from 0 to 100 on six measures: revenue quality, profit per partner, firm reputation, bench strength, employee satisfaction, and risk. There are seven tiers, from Preeminent to Dissolution Watch. The debrief sets your firm beside three reference firms run in your market. A failing firm declines gradually, and the game never ends early
Teaching materials
In-game briefing and debrief
Audience
MBA electives and executive education
Everything you need to teach it

Agency comes ready to run in class

i.

In-game briefing

ii.

In-game debrief beside three reference firms

iii.

Four AI advisers with scripted fallbacks

iv.

Shareable market code for a whole class

v.

Executive committee that reacts each period

vi.

Instructor dashboard

vii.

Automatic scoring on six measures

viii.

Seven tiers, from Preeminent to Dissolution Watch

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