Hollow Square
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silkygautamHOLLOW SQUARE_Introduction
This game can be used to help teams understand the impact of communication between those who develop plans and
those who have to implement them. It also highlights helpful and not so helpful behaviours when planning,
assigning or completing tasks. Teams that regularly work on problem solving will find the game useful for alerting
them to factors that encourage or restrict effectiveness.
It can be played at several levels of complexity.
The Game
You divide your group into a Planning Team and an Operations Team. The Planning Team have 20mins to prepare a
briefing that will enable the Operations Team to carry out a specific task – the building of a hollow square.
The Operations Team then have to carry out the task working from the briefing they have received without any
further input from Planning.
At the end of a time limit both teams review the performance against the task, quality of briefings, assignments and
instructions plus the wider implications for their work situation.
In the more complex version teams can be chosen to reflect their real work roles or their level of attention to detail!
A longer version can be played with Planning allowed to intervene halfway through the process.
Typically, the game promotes an active discussion about behaviours, assumptions made by both teams, quality of
delegation and actions to improve communication.
What you get
You get a full description of the game, handout masters for Planning and Operations together with a list of review
questions and suggestions for learning points.
You may copy these for use within your organisation as long as you retain the copyright note.
Monday Meeting – a meeting simulation game
The only time a team can really exercise its teamness is in meetings and get-togethers. Even with
a good decision¬making system, meetings can be very bloody! The Monday Meeting simulation
has been designed to give team members the opportunity to practise some vital meeting skills
such as:
Chairing
Structuring and controlling discussions
Influencing
Listening to others
Consensus-seeking and decision-making
Each participant is given an instructions card and a meeting agenda. A chairperson (the Department Head) is
appointed and receives some information cards to help him/her lead the meeting. The other participants (Section
Heads) also get information cards so they can participate in the discussion of each agenda item. The chairperson
must lead the 45 minute meeting to decide on three agenda items:
An office computer budget for the coming year
The allocation of temporary staff for the summer period
Recommendations on how to improve the company newsletter
This is not a role-play exercise. Each participant is encouraged to use the information they have to defend their
position but, at the same time, to try and ensure that the team reaches the meeting goals. The simulation allows a
team to pinpoint all the classic meeting pitfalls and to plan for their elimination.
Training Objectives:
To demonstrate the need for structuring and controlling team meetings
To allow groups to practise meeting skills such as: Chairing, Influencing, Listening, Consensus-Seeking
and Decision-Making
Prisoners' Dilemma
Introduction
This is a classic trust game for teams, designed to demonstrate the concept of "win/win".
It is based on the "Prisoners' Dilemma" in which two criminals who are arrested after a crime are
immediately separated into two police cells. The police know that they committed the crime but
have no evidence.
Each prisoner is approached individually and told that if they confess and implicate the other person, they will get a
significantly reduced sentence.
The dilemma for each prisoner is as follows: -
If I confess, I get a reduced sentence and my colleague gets a full sentence.
If I trust her/him not to confess and keep quiet, but s/he confesses, I get the full sentence.
If I trust her/him not to confess and keep quiet, and s/he does the same, we can both walk free.
Of course, if we both confess, we both get the full sentence!
Unfortunately, we cannot communicate now we are in the cells and I do not know whether he will honour
any agreement we made before we were arrested.
The rules of the game are designed to reflect this dilemma with appropriate win/win, win/lose and lose/lose scoring.
What you get
The kit includes: -
Organiser's instructions on how to play the game
Hand out template - Guidelines for participants (2 teams)
Scorecard template (2 teams)
Hand out template - Guidelines for participants (3 teams)
Scorecard template (3 teams)
Organiser's script/handout template - Key points arising from The Prisoners' Dilemma Game
Lost at Sea Team Building Exercise
A classic team building exercise is the mock "survival scenario"
Scenarios include being lost at sea (abandoning a large ship and deciding what to
take into a life raft), plane crash survival scenario, survival on the moon/in space,
desert survival, etc.
There are several commercially produced "survival scenario kits", e.g., for Lost at
Sea
There are some books describing such activities, but they aren't that readily
available
There are a couple of websites with useful information - e.g., go to Survival Scenario
Exercise