Team Process Day

What could be more fun than a mandatory outdoor play day? Nothing!

I've mentioned before that we spend significant time in teams. We also spend a lot of time understanding team dynamics and individual styles.

So Friday was our time to bring all of this home. We started out with what I hate most: role playing. Basically, we had to pretend that we had a team member who dominates all conversations which was causing the rest of the team to distance themselves. It was our job to talk to the overbearing team member and get him to change. So, we practiced a few times one-on-one then Tian (the girl I had partnered with) and I were picked first to role play in front of the group. Blah, blah, blah, we finished that and moved outside.

The next activity was to get as many people as we could (the directions actually read "as many people as you want" and we chose everyone) onto a small wood box. Afterwards, we sat around and discussed the approach for a bit.

Next was an activity where one of the consultants (actually a 2nd year grad student) picked a facilitator. The activity was slight chaos and we almost completed the puzzle within the time allotted. Of course, we sat and discussed the activity afterwards then went to lunch.

After lunch we had our 3rd activity which was one where our team selected a facilitator and they picked me (aw shucks). We were blindfolded this time and wound up implementing all that we had learned through the morning: we clearly stated the objective and rules of the activity so everyone was on the same page, we determined a game plan before moving, we broke into 3 groups, and we had occasional status checks. And...we finished the task right on time! Everyone was pretty complimentary of my facilitation, so I asked for critiques. Got a couple small comments, but nothing significant. I think everyone was just pumped that we finished the task within the time allotted.

Anyway, our final task included 4 volunteer facilitators. We moved through this task relatively efficiently but found that we didn't need all the facilitators (too many bosses?).

Overall, it was a busy day and a great way to end a week.