Team Building with the Square Wheels® Game:
Tables of 3 to 6 players plan and execute a journey forward, making a
series of collaborative decisions that influence each other's results
as well as overall outcomes. It's fun, fast and engaging and ties to
teams working together.
The
Collaboration Journey games evolved from our series of Square Wheels®
illustrations that depict how individuals really work together to impact
productivity and performance. The exercise begins with a brief overview
using our main illustration to set the stage for continuous improvement
on the collaborative journey forward. Often, competition and a lack of
planning and communications will sub-optimize the results measurably.
This journey takes about 60-90 minutes to introduce, play and debrief.
The game has been designed so that, if desired, it can be integrated
with a Square Wheels presentation or workshop to kick off or end a
half-day or longer session. Materials include a full debriefing package
of slides and ideas. The Simple Collaboration Journey works nicely to
focus on issues surrounding team performance, collaboration and
planning. Each tabletop plays independently yet results from many
tabletops can be easily compared. There is no upper limit as to the
number of tables playing simultaneously.
Debriefing can target themes of:
Shared goals
Communications
Planning
Teamwork
Collaboration
Competition
The goal is simple: Move your Wagons along the game
board to the Customer as quickly as possible. Each round, players look
toward reaching the end through their joint efforts. As they roll dice,
players improve the wagons with new Round Wheels.
Points are obtained by reaching the top of the board and completing
the journey in a speedy manner. Speed comes from having a solid
strategic plan for collaborating and moving the wagons through the
constraints. The structure of the game allows collaboration and planning
to optimize results.
A degree of motivational competition between players can also be
beneficial. Since the first team to arrive gets more points than the
other teams and because the route is more difficult towards the end
(allowing only 2 teams to pass through the constraints), some "my wagon
first" behavior may also occur, which tends to suboptimize results.
The
"accidental adversaries archetype" suggests that, at the first
occurrence of competitiveness, reciprocity from the other players will
often occur and the group will become more competitive as the game goes
forward. As a result, the best of positive collaborative intentions can
be influenced by individual desires and competition to get the best
score. Competing will suboptimize results.
Your debriefing can focus on interpersonal interactions and
communications, thinking styles, themes of collaboration and shared
goals, tendencies to compete and succeed and a variety of other themes.
You may interrupt play to intercede in the competition and coach the
players, which can generate reflection and improved results.
Play produces a discussion of choice and choices for performance
improvement, planning and teamwork. This is a powerful, interactive,
60-90 minute structured team building simulation with a very flexible
debriefing framework that can be linked to a variety of learning issues.
This exercise is a one-time cost of USD $149, complete with
PowerPoint Square Wheels® cartoons for introduction and debriefing. It
contains a flexibly packaged debriefing including worksheets / handouts
and includes all the program materials that can be printed from pdf
files. (Kinko's quoted us $10 per sq. ft. for printing game boards, plus
costs for lamination, which would make the game board alone $40.)
Note that we offer optional pre-printed Collaboration Journey
Tabletop Sets at $30 per set that contain all the materials needed for 3
to 6 people per table. Included are: instructions, game pieces and a
game board (17"x30"). All materials are laminated and reusable. This
saves you money as well as time.
You can play this exercise with any number of tables simultaneously;
there is no upper limit to the number of players and you can choose to
use groups of 3 to 6 people playing on each game board. Facilitation is
easy and play is fun and challenging.
If you like Square Wheels, you will love how well this works. If
you've never used these cartoons, you'll wonder what took you so long!
It will take about 30-40 minutes for the Introduction and play of the
game. A replay takes about 10 minutes. Debriefing can go on forever!
And we will guarantee your complete satisfaction or your money back.
