Last week we did a team building that involved Legos. Basically your team would be split into two (business vs engineering) and each team would receive an image they had to describe in words with no images. The initial challenge was that your bag of lego pieces probably didn't include all (if any) of the pieces you needed. The idea here was that you work with what you got.
I immediately asked the instructor if we could exchange bags, but the answer was a clear no. One thing we could have done but didn't was exchange pieces with other teams in order to help each other. I guess even in real life business this is a hard task to do because many people are scared of sharing resources with their competitors, especially when it means the competitor could potentially win with your help.
The game was fun, and I believe that the main lessons learned were:
- Share resources/knowledge with others;
- Ask more questions;
- Don't assume anything;
- If you don't have enough resources discuss with your team what is the best way to proceed (should you follow instructions or build it your own way with what you got);
- Make sure to describe what has to be built and what is expected in the first step.
Then the teams would exchange the descriptions, get a set of random lego pieces, and start following instructions to build what was described.
Here are some images of our products:
Stephanie,
ResponderExcluirGreat way to lay out all of the learning outcomes that you got! I would add one more to the list and it would be "All creative ideas are welcomed". By that I mean that during the game we were able to let everyone's imagination run free and be resourceful with what we have, it was great to see that something that was not even in the shape of a wheel could be turn into one.
I think it's funny when you think that a single piece of LEGO really is just a tiny, useless brick. Start putting them together, however, and it’s a different story. Anything is possible with LEGO. You don’t ‘use’ a LEGO brick, you build, create or play with it. It demands interactivity. LEGO’s are endlessly remix-able, immersive and definitively open ended. Building a LEGO object can be competitive (is your LEGO car cooler than mine?) or collaborative (I wouldn’t have thought to build this car without my team).
Both your legos came out great!! I like how you laid out what you could have done better and what the goals/lessons were - especially "ask more questions." I didn't even think of how important that would be in this situation (and most others).
ResponderExcluirHey Stephanie, great blog! I thought we did a good job of overcoming our limitations in the lego game, and I know that we're gonna be a great team, once we get in contact with these seemingly unreachable professors :)
ResponderExcluir