5. How to run the game
1 Introduction from Trainers
Preferable, the trainers sit so that they can see eachother. (And not next to eachother as is usually done by pairtrainers.)
What we say:
- Who are we
- What connection do we have with the subject
- What connection do we have with the group.
- What have we learned about leadership.
- What connection do we have with each other.
Trainer 1 starts, then trainer 2.
Till 0:05. ( .. : .. )
2 Short round table:
Trainer 2 continues here
- Who are you?
- What is important we know about you?
- What makes you different from the rest of the group?
Make sure everyone speaks. Also make sure no one talks too long. If a team lead says something like, and “everyone else is the same”, make sure to react to that and say; yes and still I think it is important to hear everyone else’s voice. When it’s a new group and you will work more with this group, make sure you repeat the persons name. You will remember their name better if you repeat their name in the first 5 minutes. Thank everyone after they introduced themselves. (Combine this with their name: “thank you Els”)* When every participant, speaks in the first 10 minutes, they’ll all engage more in the rest of the training/meeting.
3 Introduction of the Game:
Trainer 1
Today we are going to do three assignments that look similar but that are on some essential parts very different. You can see these assignments as a game, if you take this game serious, you will have lots of fun and learn a lot. We ask you to be very alert of what you feel. At the end we will ask you which of the three situations you preferred and why. It is our intent that you learn something about yourself and about leadership in general. We want to invite you to play as serious as a child would do.
You don’t have to believe in the sea to get wet, you just have to get in. Enjoy
We will need 2 volunteers to play leaders in the first part. (These days we tell them we look for people who want to experiment with directive leadership. As a facilitator, it is your choice to tell them this upfront or not.)
In later assignments we will need more leaders.
Wait till you have 2 leaders. Give them the black leader hats and trainer 2 takes them outside.
Trainer 1 continues
We also need XX observers. These observers will be flies on the wall. They see everything, but you cant interact with them.
You can find how much is XX if you look at the schedule and the number of players. If you have less then 8 players, you will also have 1 leader instead of 2. Give everyone who is not a leader the text about observing and feedback.
Ask remaining participants & observers to read through the handout on how to observe (since most people need help with this).
You can answer questions about being observers. Don’t forget to warn observers they should be a fly on the wall, so they should not react when people speak to them, and don’t speak to players of leaders. (that is why we use the visual white hat to remind people.)
You also give the observers the feedback questions, a ballpen, empty paper and a white observer hat.
Till 00:15 ( .. : .. )
4 1st session: strong directive (command and control) leadership
Briefing of the selected leaders (5 to 10 minutes)
In this session we want you to lead the group to build a village, with minimum 5 buildings. (Some people will be observers, they wear white hats.)
Examples of buildings: Cafe, small shop, bakery, municipality house, garage, farm, police station, restaurant, fire station, gas station, flat.
After this briefing you have 5 minutes to prepare for the session. You as leaders have to build your vision of the whole concept.
You have to decide what you want these people to build. You can ask questions now, during the game you have to decide on your own.
You should be command and control and very directive leaders. Even if you don’t like that, it is important for the game you do that as best as possible. Don’t try to play a nice command and control leader. Be as directive as possible. It is your project. It is important their is some correlation between the buildings of the village.
When your time is up, you go into the team room and you control the game, we trainers don’t say anything anymore. If you forget to ask a question before you have to decide yourself!
You have a meeting for 10 minutes where you explain what you want them to build. Do this meeting in the second circle. After the meeting the team has 15 minutes to build what you have decided. At the end of the 25 minutes times is up. No extra time. You know have 5 minutes to get to know each other, decide what to build, to think and ask question to us. GO
(Turn the 5 minute hourglass.)
Remarks:
What it means to be a nice command and control leader.
We added that remark because when people get the feedback they were not command and control, they use that as excuse. It is important for the leaders to realize that when that is the role, some of them can’t do that, which is a big learning experience.
As trainers you don’t say what the correlation in the village should be. It’s up to the leaders to decide. Some leaders let the team decide. That is not the purpose of the exercise, if that happens it is important to write that down and give that as feedback at the end of the game. It’s important for the experience, that all decisions should be taken by the leaders.
We let the leaders walk in and take over to help them as much as possible to have a command and control relation with the group.
The first years playing the game, we showed the leaders some picture of possible results; We stopped doing that. We noticed it blocked peoples creativity. If you want to show pictures to the players, in this part only do it to the leaders, remember, they are in control.
The leaders can look at the building blocks if they ask.
- 10 minutes the leaders lead a meeting with a team.
- 15 minutes of building.
When you see remarkable things happening, you can tell observers. Remind them to watch for body language, level of noise etc.
Till 00:50 ( .. : .. )
5 Feedback
Hand out feedback questions and ballpens. Ask the participants to write their personal experience (based on the feedback questions they get) for 3 minutes alone. (Turn the 3 minute and 10 minute hourglass).
After that make groups of 2 players + 1 observer. You have 7 minutes to discuss about your experience.
The leaders form a group together with one observer and a trainer.
Till 01:00 ( .. : .. )
6 2nd session: without leader
Select new observers.
[Can be leaders from first session or players. To make sure we have as many observer as possible, it’s not allowed to observe twice in a row.]
In this session we let the group build a church. This time we have no leaders. The team gets again 10 minutes to meet and then 15 minutes to build. During the 10 minute meeting, the team decides how to build the church.
As trainers make sure they use the full 25 minutes. If they are finished early, let the time pass. If they as a group decide to stop, then you can stop. Usually it is a few people who think it is a good idea to stop, but no real decision is taken. When you as a facilitator don’t react, the group might start building again. (It is as if you said, please keep building.) When this happens, make sure you talk about that at the debrief.
Till 01:25 ( .. : .. )
7 Break
Till 01:40 ( .. : .. )
For conferences the break might have to be adjusted. Try to fit the sub games into the schedule of the conference. If that is not possible tell people in the beginning.
You can play with the timing of the feedback to do it before or after the break. It’s best to select already the next leaders before the break so you can inform them during the break.
Again ask for volunteers, for both leaders and observers. Leaders should just as with observer be new leaders.
8 Feedback
Hand out feedback questions part 2. Again the participants write their own experience down for 3 minutes (Use the questions as guideline).
(Turn the 3 minute and 10 minute hour glasses)
After that we make new groups of 2 players + 1 observer. And again 7 minutes to discuss in group about your experience.
Till 01:50 ( .. : .. )
9 3rd session: process leader
Again new observers.
Briefing of leaders (preferable during the break)
In this session you will have to lead the group to build monuments: five (depending on number of participants) famous world monuments. Pyramids are not allowed. You will have to be process leaders.
This means you guide the process, you make sure decisions are taken, but you don’t take decisions yourself. If you see people not doing something, tell this to the team, if you notice that a decision has not been taken, help them take a decision. You start also by leading a 10 minute meeting, where the group decides what they want to build. You have to make sure that during the the meeting it is decided who builds what monument and with what blocks the monument will be built. You make sure that someone watches the time, take care that the people who need help get help, ask regularly if people know what they will do etc… Although you don’t fix problems yourself, you make sure the groups fixes all the problems. Don’t lead the content (help each other if you start deciding on content.)
After the meeting the team building again for 15 minutes.
Till 02:30 ( .. : .. )
10 General Feedback round
Hand out feedback questions part 3. First everyone writes short their experience from the last game personally. (3 minutes)
While they are writing down their feedback, take pictures of the buildings and break it apart.
Then we come back to the first circle. (they could write their feedback in that circle already)
We start by asking the four leaders to share their experiences. You ask the leaders to first talk about the game they led. Then you ask them about differences with the other games.
After that we ask the other participants to share theirs, it’s best to follow the circle to do that, that way you are sure you don’t miss anyone, and it’s easy to figure out how you are doing concerning the time.
Depending on how you are doing on time respond to the remarks by asking opening questions (enough time) or closing topics.
When people want to discuss the setup of the game, point them to the bar. Discuss the setup of the game outside the game.
(45 minutes is already a very limited time to have a feedback round with 20 people.)
At the end don’t forget to distribute all the text. (if one of the trainers starts to distribute the text, it shows the people time is almost up.)
Don’t feel afraid to block people and say they only have limited time; It might feel disrespectful, yet it is actually more respectful to the rest of the group. People that want to talk and people that want to hear everyone. If time is limited ask people to focus on new things, or things they disagree with.
Till 03:15. ( .. : .. )
11 Theory
Till 03:30 ( .. : .. )
If there is time left, you can talk about the theory as distributed in the text. If there is not enough time, talk about the three different text to explain what they can find in the handout. Please ask them to join the Agile games mailing list, so we can keep in touch with the players.