Indoor Team Discussion Exercise -
Surviving the Desert
Imagine you are the leader of a group of scientists searching for dinosaur fossils and your team is lost in the Chihuahuan Desert, the largest desert in North America. With limited food and water supplies, with no radio communication to get help, your chances of survival is almost zero, unless you know exactly what to do in order to increase your chances of survival.
Even though not many of us have the desire to visit a desert (or to search for dinosaur eggs), this team activity has never failed to get groups engaged in healthy discussions to find out the best solution to the problem.
During this interesting team discussion exercise, teams will be briefed on the scenario, they will also be told that their objective is to prolong their survival for as long as possible until help arrives. In the mean time, the survivors are exposed to the harsh elements in the desert and will have to think of ways to survive the ordeal.
The participants are taught to take an inventory of their personal belongings (which is the first step we should take regardless of which location we are lost in) and then to rank those belongings in order of importance.
Individually, the participants will have to rank 12 items on how their usefulness in helping them survive in the desert. There will be no discussions allowed at this point.
When the participants have finished, they will then be allowed to discuss with their team mates on the same topic and come out with a group solution to the problem.
After all the teams have completed their answers, we will be able to grade the participants on the accuracy of their answers based on recommendations by desert survival experts.
The time taken for this game varies from group to group, in smaller group sizes (about 5 to 6 per team), we can usually complete this exercise in about a half hour. In group sizes of 7 to 10 per team, the time taken is usually longer as it becomes slightly more difficult to get everyone in the team to agree, time taken usually stretches to about an hour.
Learning Values:
Groups tend to perform better than individuals when dealing with new topics. We can also get participants to discuss how or whether making decisions in this manner can be applicable in their work place.
Brainstorming & Discussion techniques can also be shared during the session. One common technique is the GROUP concept where we will teach participants a practical way of getting ideas in a group setting.
The ability to influence group decision is important when we have the right answers. Knowing the right answer but not being able to get the team to adopt it is a good as not knowing the answer.
Required Logistics
LCD projector and screen for instructions.
Cluster seating for teams of up to 10 per team.
All required logistics for the exercise will be provided by Anergy team.
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