Author: Jia-Ying Guan, PMP
IPMD 2025: Switzerland’s Project Managers Unite in SimulTrain® Showdowns Across Four Cities
On October 29, 2025, International Project Management Day came alive across Switzerland with a burst of energy, collaboration, and friendly competition. For the second consecutive year together with STS, the PMI Switzerland Chapter delivered simultaneous SimulTrain® Ultimate PM Challenges in Basel, Geneva, Lausanne, and Zurich, hosted respectively by Roche, skyguide, STS, and SIX.
More than 75 project professionals, from seasoned PMPs to emerging talents, stepped into an immersive SimulTrain® simulation that compressed months of project decision-making into just two hours. All teams across Switzerland worked through the same scenario, facing identical challenges: a flawed starting plan, shifting priorities, resource constraints, morale fluctuations, and cascading stakeholder demands.
What began as four parallel challenges became a national celebration of project leadership, proving once again that Switzerland’s PM community thrives when diverse regions connect, collaborate, and learn together.
Inside the Simulation: When Chaos Becomes Clarity
Across all four locations, the atmosphere was electric:
• spirited debate over coffee,
• cheers as KPIs climbed,
• newly formed teams bonding under pressure,
• and apéros filled with shared insights and laughter.
SimulTrain® pushed every team through the same intense project journey: from reworking the flawed baseline plan to managing execution, mitigating risks, adapting to surprises, and stabilizing performance under pressure. With decisions instantly impacting KPIs, motivation, and stakeholder satisfaction, one insight became universal:
Project management is ultimately about people: alignment, communication, and decisiveness under pressure.
Key Insights From the Frontlines
Teams across Switzerland highlighted recurring lessons:
- Fix the flawed plan early—stabilize before optimizing.
- Delegate wisely—don’t overload your strongest contributors.
- Motivation drives performance—engaged teams outperform stressed ones.
- Silence is also a decision—rarely the right one.
- Stakeholder clarity outranks firefighting.
- Adaptive leadership emerges under stress.
These shared takeaways demonstrate the significant impact of a single, unified simulation experience.
Celebrating the Champions
After an intensive competition, Basel’s team claimed Swiss-wide victory, demonstrating strong strategic thinking, stakeholder alignment, and teamwork.
National Champions
Basel: Gabriele Schindl, Aljoscha Börsch, and Lamia Chikhaoui
Regional Winners
Geneva: Radu Costache, Sadya Salami Omyale, and Sébastien Garel
Lausanne: Zareen Cheema and Andrea Zimara
Zurich: Anna Chleboun and Claire Thu
These achievements reflect the strength and diversity of PM talent across Switzerland.
Stories from the Four Venues
Lausanne: Leadership, Learning, and Community
The Lausanne event brought together a highly engaged group of participants who embraced the shared SimulTrain® scenario with energy and curiosity. The session combined focused gameplay, insightful discussions, and strong teamwork.
Member of the Lausanne organizing team, Bianca Alves, reflected on how the simulation highlighted teamwork, communication, and adaptability under pressure.
Regional winners Zareen Cheema and Andrea Zimara shared that staying calm, aligning early, and making deliberate decisions helped them navigate the scenario successfully.
Zurich: High Energy at SIX ConventionPoint
Reflections from Ethel Mendocilla Sato, Mafalda Amaro, Wolfgang Steindl, and others showcased Zurich’s dynamic spirit.
The Zurich champions, Team Turtles, formed by Anna Chleboun and Claire Thu, emphasized the importance of perseverance even when their project initially lagged behind schedule in the shared scenario.
Geneva: Multicultural Collaboration at Skyguide
In Geneva, participants dove into the same national scenario: stabilizing an off-track baseline, addressing resource conflicts, restoring team motivation, and calming stakeholders.
Regional winners Radu Costache, Sadya Salami Omyale and Sébastien Garel noted that their focus on early plan correction was key.
As an organizer and participant myself, the simulation felt strikingly real. It showed how essential delegation, team empowerment, and decisive communication are in project work.
Basel: Intensity and Insight at Roche
Basel participants, including Shahidah Foster and Gabriele Schindl, described the challenge as “intense and incredibly real,” especially with the shared scenario’s rapid-fire messages and competing demands.
The Basel team’s alignment and adaptability ultimately carried them to first place nationally.
Looking Ahead: Switzerland’s PM Community Moves Toward Biel
As the excitement of IPMD 2025 settles, PMI Switzerland is already looking ahead to its 25th Anniversary Event on March 6, 2026, in Biel.
This milestone will bring the community together once more. We will be elebrating progress, strengthening networks, and reflecting on the journey that has shaped PMI Switzerland into what it is today.
Continue the Journey
Explore more perspectives and impressions from:
Curious about the simulation behind it all? Visit SimulTrain.swiss.
Questions? Reach out to PMI Switzerland anytime.
