Simulation project quality and validation profiling

This article presents a methodological and “reflective practice” perspective on the elements of successful projects. Confidence in the trustworthiness and assurance of models will always be essential, with validation usually interpreted as concerning issues of accuracy and consistency with data. However, prior modelling research, corroborated in separate literature, indicated that a broader view of model validation is needed than focusing solely on the technical accuracy of the core model itself. This entailed adding client interaction processes, project impacts and considering how appropriate the model is for the way it is used, pointing to an overall project quality assessment. Therefore, this article adapts a content-quality-outcome quality triad that synthesises these perspectives, leading to potential scorecard and quality profiling visualisations. Even without these explicit artefacts, profiling can be done semi-qualitatively to stimulate thinking and for project review. This can aid clarity about simulation model types and project purposes by pre-specifying tests and their categories. Additionally, apart from ex-post evaluation, quality profiling could be useful ex-ante to aid planning and design of a simulation project at the proposal stage—particularly for conceptual or qualitative models used for exploratory or Proof Of Concept tasks. This therefore encourages design thinking about the interactive and communication aspects of simulation projects. The implication is that if more attention is directed towards identifying the germane process and outcome factors, as well as typical validation concerns, then project communication and management could become more effective. Some simulation project case studies are given to illustrate how quality profiling augmented model reviews.