Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers: Landing on Moon

 Books authored by Shyam Bhatawdekar: 1. Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management case Studies) 2. Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers and 3. Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories.

For owning copy/copies of these books (in printed format), write to: prodcons@prodcons.com

Alternately, you can get the first book (in printed format) directly on the Internet through (amazon.com): http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-Studies/dp/1456585150/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298627848&sr=1-1

Their eBooks are available respectively at: http://www.amazon.com/Sensitive-Stories-Corporate-Management-ebook/dp/B004KABBMM , http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004OEKF0I and http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004MDLTPQ

(You can see on one single page all of management games and icebreakers authored by me and continually updated on the site if you refer: http://management-games-icebreakers.blogspot.com/)

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia “Management Universe” at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

“Landing on Moon” is a highly loaded management exercise. It is a combination of individual and group exercise. It invokes lots of participation from all those who are involved in carrying out the exercise. You as a workshop facilitator or program leader can use this group exercise best for sessions on intra-group communication, information sharing, perceptions and paradigms, group process, group think or group norm, conflict management, change process, flexibility, team work, team building, synergy from team work etc.

Divide the entire participants in groups of 6 to 7 participants in each group. Follow the random group formation method described in the previous management exercises. You may refer the exercise titled “Pass the Message” for this purpose.

Instruct each group to appoint a group facilitator or group coordinator if they think it is necessary.

Give to each participant the printed exercise brief that carries the instructions on how to tackle the exercise. The exercise brief is given below.

Exercise brief starts here:

Instructions: You are a space crew originally scheduled to rendezvous with a mother ship Moon-beam on the lighted surface of the moon. Due to mechanical difficulties, however, your ship was forced to land at a spot some 200 miles from the rendezvous point. During re-entry and landing, much of the equipment aboard was damaged and since survival depends on reaching the mother ship, the most critical items available must be chosen for the 200 miles trip. Below are listed the 15 items left intact and undamaged after landing. Your task is to rank order them in terms of their importance in allowing your crew to reach the rendezvous point. Place the number 1 by the most important item, the number 2 by the second most important and so on through number 15, the least important.

First do this exercise of prioritization of items individually. You will not discuss with any one of your fellow group members or any other participant of the program.

As a second step, now get into an internal discussion among all of your group members in your own group and re-decide on the rank-ordering of the 15 given items. Arrive at a consensus and only then decide the ranking of the items. If there is conflict among the group members, resolve that conflict before arriving at the group decision on the ranking of each item.

Name of the salvaged 15 items are given below:

- Box of matches
- Food concentrate
- 50 feet of nylon rope
- Parachute silk
- Portable heating unit
- Two .45 caliber pistols
- One case dehydrated pet milk
- Two 100 lb tanks of oxygen
- Stellar map (of the moon’s constellation)
- Life raft
- Magnetic compass
- 5 gallons of water
- Signal flares
- First aid kit containing injection needles
- Solar powered FM receiver transmitter

Exercise brief ends here.

After above-mentioned 15 items have been ranked in order of their priorities in each group individually by each participant and also as a group, give each group the correct ranking of these items as per the official solution of this exercise. You can send an email to prodcons@prodcons.com and request for the official solution.

Instruct each participant of the program to work out as to how many cumulative points the participant is away from the official solution. Now also instruct them to work out in each group as to how many cumulative points each group (as a group) is away from the official solution.

Now let each individual work out as to by how many cumulative points he improved when he agreed with the group solution. It is found invariably that if the group process is carried out effectively, every member of that group will have improved his performance by working as a group or team.

Display the improvements (in terms of cumulative points as well as in terms of percentage improvement) achieved by each participant after working as a part of the group or the team.

Now, draw the participants into a discussion on what experiential learning they had in tackling the exercise. Let them reflect on quality of communication, group process, consensus building process, group think, conflict resolution process, flexibility or rigidity shown by fellow participants, team building process, connection between the quantum of synergy achieved and the quality of team process etc.

Wrap up the discussions with you observations, analysis and inputs.

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You may like to enjoy reading all the “Management Anecdotes” authored by Shyam Bhatawdekar at: http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/ or http://corporate-case-studies.blogspot.com/

And don’t miss to read his “Do This Today” http://do-this-today.blogspot.com/

For Musings of Shyam Bhatawdekar on various topics refer http://shyam-bhatawdekar-musings.blogspot.com/

For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/

Read other blogs and knols of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com/