Team Activity

Our last IT meeting was a group activity. I made it up, based on some other exercises that I've read about.

Here's the gist:

I broke the group up into four random teams, each with a randomly assigned Project Manager. The task was to build the highest structure (from the base of the building material to the top - base material not included) using only the building material I gave them which was two decks of playing cards. The PM was to determine the structure design and assign all tasks to the team. Arizona being a Right To Work state, the PM could fire anyone for any reason.

I gave them 7 minutes which may have been too long.

One of the teams had an honest to God engineer as the PM. I'm sure that, given a week, he would have created the absolutely tallest structure possible. However, for the first four minutes or so he just contemplated various designs until his team just took over and started building.

Another team asked me if it was OK to tear the cards. I actually hadn't thought about it. In my rule run world, you don't destroy cards! However, since I didn't outlaw it I told them they could. Another team started tearing the cards on their own while the other two copied the rest.

One team found some cloths in the room and used them as a base. It really helped them to keep the cards stable.

As I counted down the final 30 seconds, it was a frantic free for all as people rushed to build. No one ran out of cards but a couple of teams came close.

The winning team did a couple of things that gave them the edge. The first thing their PM did was to survey the team to see if they had any experience in building card houses. They were also the ones who started tearing the cards (halfway through and connecting them in a criss cross pattern). That actually wasn't the most efficient way to build. Their PM changed midstream and they moved to a bending the cards strategy. They also built a sturdy base but didn't over build it. One team spent too much time on making a strong base and ran out of building for elevation.

We had a good conversation on teamwork and how it helped to have different personalities (leader, creative, worker, etc.) on each team. We also talked about how you can't think too long, sometimes you have to just act.

Interestingly, no team adopted a sabotage strategy. Everyone was building on a table and it would have been easy to knock over the other structures at the last second. No one even thought about it. One person said she wouldn't have considered it because, despite the fact that it was a competition, we all belong to the same IT team.

I liked that thought. A lot.

Popular posts from this blog

February 2020

March 2020

May 2020