New manager simulation: your first 90 days with an inherited team
Six people, a demanding boss, a service level 10 points short of target and 30 spare hours a fortnight. Spend your first fortnight where it counts, then live with the results.
- Six fortnights, 30 discretionary hours each, five places to spend them
- Three hard calls: a KPI deck, a resignation threat, a client escalation
- Trust, process health and goodwill stay hidden until the debrief
- Scored out of 100 on four Competency Spine skills; credential at 80+
Not sure yet? Try the free 3-round Price War first: no sign-up, about five minutes.
Is there a short simulation that lets a new manager practise the first 90 days with a team?
Yes. First 90 Days, a Bodhih Arena micro-simulation, gives you an inherited six-person team, 30 spare hours each fortnight and a 90-day target. Over six fortnights you split your time, handle a boss request, a resignation threat and an escalation, then see the trust, process health and goodwill you built.
What is First 90 Days?
First 90 Days is a single-player online simulation in which you lead a customer operations team you have just inherited. Across six fortnights you divide 30 discretionary hours between 1:1s, quick wins, your boss and peer teams, process fixes and doing the work yourself, and you make three hard calls. You see only the service level, a pulse survey and what people say; the debrief then reveals the team trust and goodwill your choices created.
First 90 Days at a glance
| Format | Micro-sim, single player |
|---|---|
| Length | About 18 minutes per play |
| Players | One person; every play is a new seeded scenario |
| Devices | Any modern browser on a laptop, tablet or phone |
| Scoring | Scored on the server out of 100, with sub-scores and a debrief |
| Credential | Open Badges 3.0 micro-sim credential at a score of 80 or more, with a public verification page |
| Competencies | Motivating and Engaging (SPN.3.4), Planning and Prioritisation (SPN.5.1), Stakeholder Management (SPN.2.2), Difficult Conversations (SPN.1.5) |
| LMS | LTI 1.3 launch from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or D2L, with grade passback; usable as a Bodhih pathway stage |
| Price for one person | $12 |
| Price per seat | $12 per seat, volume pricing by seat count |
The first months as a manager decide more than they seem to
Everyone wants your time, and none of it looks optional
Your boss wants numbers, your team wants to be heard, peer teams want someone to blame, and the inbox wants you to just fix things. Every hour you give one of them is an hour you cannot give the others, and nobody hands you the trade-off in writing.
Doing the work yourself feels like the safest move
You were promoted because you were good at the job. Clearing tickets yourself lifts this week's figures and quiets the anxiety. It also teaches the team nothing, drains your evenings and leaves you as the bottleneck when the hard moments arrive.
Training tells you to build trust but never shows the cost of skipping it
Slides about listening tours and quick wins are easy to agree with. What new managers rarely get is a safe place to see what happens to service, retention and their boss's confidence when they under-invest in people for six straight fortnights.
Here is the situation you walk into
You have just been promoted to lead Customer Operations at Quillon Logistics: six people who handle delivery claims for business customers. Amara is fast and quietly frustrated. Dita has watched four managers come and go. Chen joined last month. Farah carries the hardest claims and looks tired. Your predecessor left suddenly, and nobody is quite sure why.
Your boss, Helena, wants the 48-hour service level up from 82% to 92% by your 90-day review. Sales and the warehouse blame your team for most of what goes wrong. You have 30 hours a fortnight beyond the meetings you cannot move, and you must use all of them.
In fortnight two Helena asks for a 20-slide KPI deck every Monday. In fortnight three Amara asks for "a private word": a competitor has made her an offer. Later a top client complains that your team lost three claims, and Sales escalates. Somewhere in between, a carrier's tracking system goes down for three days. You decide how to respond each time, with only the clues a real manager would have.
7 decisions, one debrief
- STEP 1
Read the brief and meet the team
Six named people with one-line notes, a boss with a target, and a starting service level of 82% against 92%. Nothing tells you who is about to leave or what is broken.
- STEP 2
Fortnight 1: split your 30 hours
Allocate in two-hour blocks across 1:1s and coaching, quick wins, your boss and peer teams, fixing the process, and doing the work yourself. Each area has a short note on what it tends to do.
- STEP 3
Fortnight 2: the KPI deck
Helena wants a weekly 20-slide deck. Say yes (about four hours a fortnight from then on), offer a one-page dashboard instead (about two hours, and it lands better if the numbers are moving), or say you cannot fit it in.
- STEP 4
Fortnight 3: Amara's offer
Match the salary, offer her the lead on the claims redesign with a development plan, hold a stay conversation first, or wish her well and plan the handover. How much you invested in 1:1s so far changes how each option lands.
- STEP 5
Fortnight 4: keep your balance
A new service reading, messages from Helena and the team, and a warning that Sales wants a meeting about "service failures". Process work you started earlier may now begin to show.
- STEP 6
Fortnight 5: the Sales escalation
Own it and call the client with your team lead (about six hours of the next fortnight), push back because Sales promised a turnaround your team never heard about, or hand it to Helena.
- STEP 7
Fortnight 6 and the 90-day review
Your last allocation, then the score, the four sub-scores and a debrief that shows where your hours went and what was happening underneath.
Who First 90 Days is for
- New and soon-to-be managers. You are about to take over a team, or did so recently. This lets you rehearse the trade-offs before you make them with real people, and it costs less than one bad month.
- L&D and HR teams running new-manager programmes. You need something that shows, not tells, why early 1:1s and process fixes matter. Every participant plays a fresh scenario and gets scored evidence you can discuss in a cohort.
- Experienced managers stepping into a new team. A new team, a new boss or a turnaround brief resets the clock. The simulation is a quick way to check whether old habits, such as firefighting, are creeping back.
- MBA and management students. Most coursework treats the first months in a role as a reading list. Here you make the calls, see the consequences and compare your allocation with a classmate's.
Who should skip it
It is not a full leadership course: it is one focused, 18-minute practice round, best paired with a programme, a coach or the First 90 Days as a Manager kit.
What you will be able to do after your 90-day review
The score matters less than the pattern it exposes. Players usually discover, in numbers, the habit they would have repeated with a real team.
Plan your first month around people, not tickets
You will walk into your next new team knowing why listening is the work in the first fortnights, and how many hours that actually takes.
Pick quick wins that buy time, then invest past them
You will see quick wins lift your boss's confidence and fade within a month, and you will know to pair them with steady root-cause work.
Shape a boss's request instead of only accepting or refusing it
Next time a senior person asks for something costly, you will reach for the third option: a smaller version that meets the need behind the request.
Handle a resignation threat with more than money
You will know why a stay conversation and a reason to grow often keep a strong person better than a counter-offer, and why it works only if trust is already there.
Prioritise under uncertainty
With hidden trust, noisy pulse readings and a random outage, you practise deciding on partial evidence and adjusting each fortnight, which is the real skill of the first 90 days.
Learning goals
- Balance trust-building, quick wins, stakeholders and root-cause fixes
- See why doing the work yourself feels productive and starves the team
- Handle a resignation threat, a boss request and an escalation well
Skills practised: Prioritisation of scarce management time, Decision making under uncertainty, Strategic thinking about short-term results versus long-term capability, Managing up and across, Retention conversations.
Competencies scored
Sub-scores map to the open Bodhih Competency Spine, so results sit beside your other learning records.
What the debrief shows
- Your score out of 100 and four sub-scores: team trust, delivery, boss and peers, and the hard moments, each mapped to a Competency Spine skill.
- What happened: the service level you reached, the share of your hours in each area, and how your three hard calls played out.
- Behind the curtain: your team's real trust, process health, Helena's confidence, peer goodwill and how likely Amara was to leave.
- What strong players do, and the key concept, stocks and flows of trust.
Stocks and flows of trust
Trust is a stock: it builds slowly through many small actions (flows in) and drains through neglect or broken promises (flows out). You cannot buy it quickly when a crisis arrives, so you build it before you need it.
Use First 90 Days with a team
Seats are $12 each. Buy up to 25 seats online and assign them from your company admin; above that, or for a facilitated programme or an institution licence, request a quote and we activate your seats after payment.
Pre-work for a new-manager programme
Assign it before day one of a cohort. Participants arrive with a score, an hours split and a story about Amara, which gives the facilitator real material instead of hypotheticals.
A pathway stage after a module on 1:1s
Add it as a stage in a Bodhih learning pathway so people apply the module straight away, and use the sub-scores to see who needs coaching on stakeholders or hard conversations.
An assessment centre exercise for promotion candidates
Every run is a newly seeded scenario, so candidates cannot share answers. The debrief gives assessors a structured basis for a follow-up conversation about how each person chose.
Launch from your own LMS
Run it from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or D2L through LTI 1.3, with the score passed back to your gradebook, or use company leaderboards in Arena points to make a cohort challenge of it.
Volume pricing
| Seats | Per seat | How to buy |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $12 | Online |
| 2 to 10 | $10.80 | Online |
| 11 to 50 | $9.60 | Online up to 25, then quote |
| 51+ | $8.40 | Quote |
First 90 Days compared with a case study or slide-based course
| Compared on | A case study or slide-based course | First 90 Days |
|---|---|---|
| What you do | Read about a new manager and discuss what they should have done. | You are the new manager: you allocate every hour and make each call yourself. |
| Consequences | Described by the author, the same for every reader. | Calculated from your choices: service level, pulse and messages change each fortnight. |
| Hidden information | Usually laid out in the text or the slides. | Trust, process health and Amara's flight risk stay hidden until the debrief, as in real life. |
| Feedback | A discussion, or a quiz on the content. | A score out of 100, four competency sub-scores and a debrief built from your own run. |
| Practice | One reading; the second time you already know the ending. | Replay as often as you like; each play is a newly seeded scenario. |
| Where it is stronger | Better for rich context, history and open-ended discussion. | Better for feeling trade-offs and testing your own habits in 18 minutes. |
What to pair with First 90 Days
First 90 Days as a Manager (Pro Kit)
The simulation shows you the trade-offs; this kit gives you the 90-day calendar, scripts and command-centre workbook to run them with your real team.
See the kit →Pro KitThe One-to-One and Feedback System (Pro Kit)
If the debrief shows trust was your weakest sub-score, these 150 questions and feedback scripts make your first 1:1s count.
See the kit →Online courseAI for Managers course
A 16-hour certification for first-time managers on planning, delegation, 1:1s and feedback with an AI assistant, while every decision about a person stays yours.
See the course →AssessAll assessmentFirst-Time Manager Readiness Assessment (AssessAll)
Pair your simulation score with a readiness verdict on delegation, feedback and upward influence, plus a 90-day development plan.
Take the assessment →Bodhih TrainingCorporate training by Bodhih Training
For a cohort, run the simulation as pre-work and debrief it in an instructor-led workshop, in person or live online.
Talk to Bodhih Training →Related simulations
How much does First 90 Days cost for one person?
One person can buy First 90 Days online for $12. That covers your own access to this simulation, including replays, the debrief and the credential if you score 80 or more. Each simulation is sold on its own.
What does it cost for a team or a company?
Companies and colleges buy seats at $12 per seat, with volume tiers as the seat count rises. You can buy up to 25 seats online. For larger groups, facilitated sessions or an institution licence, request a quote and we will set up the seats for you.
How long does it take?
About 18 minutes for six fortnights and the debrief. If you stop part-way, your run is saved and resumes where you left off.
What exactly do I get?
The simulation itself, a score out of 100 with four sub-scores mapped to the Bodhih Competency Spine, a full debrief (what happened, why, what strong players do, the key concept and the hidden numbers), a place on your company leaderboard if you play through a company account, and a credential at 80 or more.
Can I play it again?
Yes. Every play is a newly seeded scenario: Amara's real flight risk, the timing of the carrier outage and the noise in each reading change, so a replay is a fresh test rather than a memory exercise.
Is there a certificate or credential?
Score 80 or more and you earn a First 90 Days micro-sim credential issued as an Open Badges 3.0 badge, with a public verification page and an Add to LinkedIn button.
What devices does it run on?
It runs in a web browser on a laptop, tablet or phone, with nothing to install. The charts and the hours allocation are easiest to use on a laptop or tablet.
Can we launch it from our LMS?
Yes. It launches from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, D2L and other LMSs that support LTI 1.3, and the score passes back to your gradebook. It can also be a stage in a Bodhih learning pathway.
Who is it for?
New and soon-to-be managers, experienced managers taking on a new team, L&D teams running new-manager programmes, and management students. No finance or HR background is needed.
How is it different from a management case study?
A case study asks what someone else should have done. Here you make every decision, the outcome is calculated from your choices, and the debrief shows what was hidden while you decided. It is shorter and narrower than a good case, and more personal.
What happens to my data?
We store your decisions and scores to run the simulation and show your debrief. The team and the company are invented, so you never enter real employee information. Results stay within your organisation's account. Full details are at bodhih.org/privacy.
What if it is not right for me?
Try the free three-round Price War at /taste-arena first to see how Arena simulations feel. Refund terms for purchases are set out at bodhih.org/refunds.
Practise the first 90 days before a real team pays for your mistakes
In 18 minutes you will know whether you invest in trust early, shape your boss's requests and handle a resignation threat well, or whether you reach for the keyboard when things get tense. Play First 90 Days before your first 1:1s, and replay it when you take on your next team.
Want a feel for Arena first? Play the free 3-round Price War.
- Play it as often as you like for 12 months: every play is a new scenario
- A debrief after each play: what happened, why, and what strong players do
- A verifiable credential when you score 80 or more
- Scored on the server, mapped to the Bodhih Competency Spine
Not sure yet? Try the free 3-round Price War first, no sign-up.
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