Course Description
MarsLander® Simulation
MarsLander® is designed for organisations looking to evolve their IT Service Management capabilities through Agile and Lean thinking. Focusing on service delivery rather than software development, the simulation demonstrates how IT operations, development teams and business stakeholders can work together to create faster, more customer-focused services. Participants experience how Agile Service Management, DevOps principles and continuous improvement help build flexible, high-performing service organisations capable of responding to constant change.
MarsLander® Simulation
Launch Your Teams into the Future of Agile Service Management
The MarsLander® simulation is an immersive, one-day business workshop that helps teams experience what it takes to build Agile, Lean, customer-focused service organisations. Through a realistic space mission scenario, participants learn how to improve collaboration, increase service quality, respond rapidly to change, and continuously improve the way they work.
Rather than teaching theory alone, MarsLander allows participants to experience the challenges of modern service delivery firsthand, making it easier to understand how Agile Service Management, DevOps principles, and ITIL practices work together in today's fast-changing technology environments.
Developed by GamingWorks, the creators of the internationally recognised Apollo 13 and The Phoenix Project simulations, MarsLander provides an engaging, practical learning experience that drives lasting behavioural change.
Course Objectives
By the end of this simulation, delegates will be able to:
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Understand the difference between traditional IT Service Management and Agile Service Management
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Experience the impact of collaboration, flow, and cross-functional teamwork on service delivery
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Identify bottlenecks, hand-offs, and inefficiencies in service delivery processes
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Apply Lean and Agile thinking to improve responsiveness and service performance
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Understand how DevOps principles and ITIL guiding principles complement Agile service models
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Explore how to integrate vendors and external partners into end-to-end service delivery
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Learn how continuous improvement can be applied incrementally within IT organisations
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Develop awareness of customer-centric thinking in operational decision-making
MarsLander® Simulation
Course Content:
Your team has one mission:
Successfully launch a spacecraft to Mars, support its journey, collect valuable scientific data, and achieve every mission objective.
Throughout the workshop, participants take on different organisational roles, working together to manage services, resolve incidents, respond to customer requests and continuously improve performance.
As the mission becomes more complex, new customer demands, unexpected issues and changing priorities force teams to rethink how they work.
Success depends on collaboration, communication and adaptability- not individual performance.
What You'll Experience
The simulation is delivered in 4 structured rounds, each representing a stage of mission delivery and organisational maturity:
Round 1 – Prepare the Mission
Teams operate in a traditional IT service structure. Focus is on understanding requirements, managing a backlog of issues, and defining initial services and KPIs.
Round 2 – Launch & Hardy IV Encounter
The mission launches and immediately faces real-world complexity: changing demands, incidents, and operational pressure. Teams begin to explore improvement opportunities.
Round 3 – Heading to Mars
Teams evolve into service-based structures. Focus shifts to flow, collaboration, reducing rework, integrating vendors, and improving responsiveness to change.
Round 4 – Mars Exploration & Mission Completion
Teams operate at peak performance, applying Agile and Lean principles to successfully deliver mission outcomes while managing changing customer expectations and constraints.
Throughout the simulation, participants experience real-time challenges including incident management, change requests, prioritisation, vendor coordination, and service improvement under pressure.
Who Should Attend?
This course is ideal for:
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IT Operations teams looking to improve service delivery and adopt Agile ways of working
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IT managers and team leaders who want to build and coach high-performing teams
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Development and engineering teams working closely with operations or service teams
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Business stakeholders involved in digital transformation or IT service delivery decisions
Because the simulation focuses on behaviours and ways of working, no specialist technical knowledge is required.
Key Challenges the Simulation Addresses
Many organisations are asking:
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How do we deliver faster without sacrificing quality?
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How can we create truly Agile service teams?
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How do we become more customer-focused?
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How can we continuously improve instead of relying on large transformation projects?
MarsLander provides a safe environment to explore these challenges, test new approaches and discover practical improvements that participants can
take back to their own organisations.
Why Choose Simulation-Based Learning?
People learn best by doing.
Rather than sitting through presentations, participants make decisions, solve problems, collaborate under pressure and immediately experience the impact of their choices.
This hands-on approach creates stronger engagement, deeper understanding and learning that is far more likely to transfer into the workplace.
