The Christmas Party - a team-skills exercise
Featured in the The Team Leader's Development Manual training manual
By Mike Fenwick
Category: People Management and Motivation
Credit price: 4 download credits (Single user)
Teams are groups of people who all hold different ideas, different thoughts, and different knowledge. It is easy to forget this, and that anyone in the team may be holding a fact or idea – vital to the success of the team – that, for any one of a number of reasons, they are keeping to themselves. The role of the team leader is to get all this information out so that the team as a whole can use it. The team leader does not have to know all of the answers, just where to find them. This training activity replicates this situation, forcing team members to share information, held only by them, in order for the team to succeed.
You begin this training activity by dividing the participants into groups of five or more. You then give them the task of selecting, from a list of six hotels, the hotel that they think is most suitable for their company’s Christmas party. Each participant has a list of the six hotels and information about each one. Everyone also has a ‘briefing note’ which gives them information about the party. What participants don’t know is that there are five different briefing notes, each one containing unique information which is vital to the decision. The briefing notes look identical, but the penultimate paragraph is different. In addition, most of the information is insignificant on its own and only becomes meaningful when linked with information from other briefing notes. The groups first have to work out that they have different information, and then share that information to find the solution. They then need to make sure everyone in the group understands the solution. Finally, the groups discuss the relevance of this training activity to their role as team leaders.
Who is it for: This training resource is intended for use by trainers to clearly demonstrate to participants how information needs to be shared within a team and how difficult this can be.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 4 |
| Max Group Size: | 20 |
| Typical Duration: | 01:25:00 |
| No of Pages: | 21 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training resource is intended for use by trainers as part of a management development or communication skills programme, or a team-building exercise for teams who have not worked together before. It can also be use in programmes on considering colleagues, creative thinking, decision making, problem solving, teamwork, and time management.
Download the training activity, The Christmas Party - a team-skills exercise as featured in the Fenman training manual; The Team Leader's Development Manual