Thiagi GameLetter TGL January 2009 january2009 SERIOUSLY FUN ACTIVITIES FOR TRAINERS, FACILITATORS, PERFORMANCE CONSULTANTS, AND MANAGERS. Our mission statement, copyright notice, and cast of characters. To increase and improve the use of interactive, experiential strategies to improve human performance in an effective, efficient, and enjoyable way. Editor Sivasailam (Thiagi) Thiagarajan Assistant Editor Raja Thiagarajan Associate Editors Tracy Tagliati Contributing Editors Brian Remer Les Lauber Editorial Advisory Board Bill Wake Matthew Richter Samuel van den Bergh <type your name here>

The materials in this newsletter are copyright 2008 by The Thiagi Group. However, they may be freely reproduced for educational/training activities. There is no need to obtain special permission for such use as long as you do not reproduce more than 100 copies per year. Please include the following statement on all reproductions:

Reprinted from THIAGI GAMELETTER. Copyright © 2008 by The Thiagi Group, Inc.

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Exploring <GAME-CITE>Sudden Survey</GAME-CITE> Same frame, different applications.

A framegame is an activity that is designed to permit easy removal of its current content and incorporation of new content. Framegames enable us to instantly create training activities by keeping the process and replacing the content.

This issue of TGL contains four articles dealing with a framegame called Sudden Survey. Basically, this framegame involves teams of participants interviewing each other and collecting responses to questions that are related to the training activity and content.

Here are brief descriptions of the following four articles:

Hello describes an opener that is based on Sudden Survey. This opener enables you to identify participants' expectations, current levels of expertise, and application plans. Good-Bye describes a closer that also uses Sudden Survey as its base. This closer enables you to collect useful evaluation information from participants as you conclude the training session. Performance Management Survey describes a structured sharing activity based on Sudden Survey. This activity enables you to collect baseline information on participants' knowledge and opinions about performance management. You can then proceed to provide additional training content and activities related to the topic. Sudden Survey as a framegame explores the structure of this framegame and provides guidelines for designing and modifying a game that suits your training objectives, resources, and constraints. This article invites you to create your own adaptation of Sudden Survey and share it with our readers.

Enjoying exploring and exploiting this flexible framegame.

<GAME-CITE>Hello</GAME-CITE> Say Hello to participants.

Hello is an opener that uses the Sudden Survey framegame as the base. This version of Hello is used as an opener for a workshop on transition to supervision. In contrast to the typical icebreakers and openers, Hello is directly related to the workshop process and content.

Purpose

To establish expectations, baseline of experiences, application areas, and alternative opinions related to the workshop topic of transition to supervision.

 Participants

Minimum: 8
Maximum: 52
Best: 12 to 32

(Participants are divided into 4 teams.)

 Time Requirement

30 to 50 minutes

 Supplies A deck of playing cards Sheets of flip chart paper Felt-tipped markers Timer Whistle Preparation

Prepare four questions. Come up with four questions related to your training workshop. Make sure that these questions are relevant to the format of the workshop and refer to participants' preferences, expectations, and background knowledge. You may begin with the suggested questions listed at the end of this article.

Assemble a packet of playing cards. Estimate the number of participants. Divide this number by four, rounding up the answer if necessary. From a deck of cards, set aside this many cards from each suit to form a packet. Shuffle the packet of cards and use them for randomly allocating participants to the four different teams.

Example: You have 29 participants. Dividing this by four, you get 7.25. You round this up to 8. From the deck of cards, you set aside Ace, 2, 3, 8 from each of the four suits. You shuffle this packet. Flow

Brief the participants. Explain that you are going to conduct an activity called Hello. This activity involves all participants collecting and sharing useful information about themselves.

Introduce the four questions. Explain that you are interested in getting responses to the four questions that you prepared earlier.

Here are the four questions that we used in our workshop for employees who are transitioning to become supervisors:

Expectations. What are you looking forward to in this training session?

Experience. How much and what type of supervisory experience do you have?

Questions. What questions about supervision would you like to explore in this training session?

Changes. What changed when you became a supervisor?

Explain the activity. Tell participants that you are going to organize them into four teams. Each team will be assigned one of the four questions. Instruct the teams to collect responses from all participantsincluding members of their own teamrelated to the question assigned to them.

Set the agenda. Describe the following schedule:

2 minutes for planning how to collect the responses from everyone. 3 minutes for collecting responses from everyone in the room. 3 minutes for analyzing all the responses that your team collected. 1 minute (for each team) to make a summary presentation of the responses.

Make team allocations. Shuffle the packet of playing cards and ask each participant to take a card. Ask participants to find other members of their team (who have a card of the same suit). Invite each team to gather around in a convenient location. Assign the questions to the teams in this order:

Clubs: Expectations Hearts: Experience Spades: Questions Diamonds: Changes

Coordinate the planning activity. Ask each team to begin planning how to collect responses from everyone in the room (including members of their own team). Announce a 2-minute time limit and start the timer.

After 1 minute, announce a 1-minute warning. After 2 minutes, announce the end of the planning period.

Coordinate the information-collection activity. Announce that each team now has 3 minutes to collect responses on the topic assigned to it. Get out of the way as everyone tries to talk to as many other participants as possible. Announce a 3-minute time limit and start the timer.

After 2 minutes, announce a 1-minute warning. After 3 minutes, announce the end of the information-collecting period.

Coordinate the analysis activity. Ask members of each team to return to their team. Invite team members to share and tabulate all the responses they collected. Distribute a sheet of flip chart paper to each team and ask teams to summarize their results on this sheet. Announce a 3-minute time limit and start the timer.

After 2 minutes, announce a 1-minute warning. After 3 minutes, announce the end of the analysis period.

Coordinate the reporting activity. Randomly select a team and ask it to display its flip chart poster. Ask a representative from this team to present its results and conclusions. Start the timer and announce the end of the reporting period at the end of 1 minute.

Repeat the procedure until all teams have given their reports.

Debrief. Discuss the findings with participants. Present your training objectives and an outline of the workshop format. Relate these items to participants' expectations, experience, questions, and changes.

 Suggested Questions How can you maximize the benefits of attending this workshop? How do you plan to use the skills and knowledge from this workshop? How many breaks should we take and how long should they last? What are the key items in your job specification? What are your expectations for this workshop? What business results do you plan to achieve as a result of participating in this workshop? What current project are you working on? What education and experience do you have that are related to the workshop objectives and topics? What ground rules would you like to suggest to your fellow participants? What is the distribution of different genders, age levels, cultures, and ethnicities in this group? What is your job title? What items would you like to add to your wish list for this workshop? What line of business are you in? What obstacles do you anticipate in applying the skills and concepts from this workshop to your workplace? What pressing questions do you have about this workshop topic? What skill sets do you currently have that are related to the workshop objectives and topics? What suggestions do you have for the facilitator? What topics do you want to be covered in this workshop? What worries and anxieties do you have about this workshop? Why did you enroll in this workshop?
<GAME-CITE>Good-Bye</GAME-CITE> The other side of Hello.

Good-Bye is a closer that uses the Sudden Survey framegame as the base. The flow of this game is very similar to that of Hello because both games utilize the same frame. The following version of Good-Bye is used as a closer for a workshop on job objectives.

Purpose

To collect useful evaluative information about the workshop on job objectives while bringing it to a close.

 Participants

Minimum: 8
Maximum: 52
Best: 12 to 32
(Participants are divided into 4 teams.)

 Time Requirement

30 to 50 minutes

 Supplies A deck of playing cards Sheets of flip chart paper Felt-tipped markers Timer Whistle Preparation

Prepare four questions. Come up with four questions related to your training workshop. Make sure that the responses to these questions will provide useful information about what the participants learned, how they plan to apply it, and how the workshop can be improved. You may use the suggested questions listed at the end of this article as a starting point.

Assemble a packet of playing cards. Estimate the number of participants. Divide this number by four, rounding up the answer if necessary. From a deck of cards, take these many cards of each suit to form a packet. Shuffle this packet of cards and use them for randomly allocating participants to the four different teams.

Example: You have 17 participants. Dividing this by four, you get 4.25. You round this up to 5. From the deck of cards, you remove Ace, 2, 3, 4 and 5 from each of the four suits. You shuffle this packet. Flow

Brief the participants. Explain that you are going to conduct an activity called Good-Bye. This activity involves all participants collecting and sharing useful information about what they have learned, how they planned to apply it, and how the workshop can be improved.

Introduce the four questions. Explain that you are interested in getting responses to the four questions that you prepared earlier.

Here are the four questions that we used in our workshop on job objectives:

Summary. If you were to summarize the main point of the workshop in a single sentence, what would it be?

Obstacles. What obstacles do you anticipate in implementing the procedures that you learned in this workshop?

Support. What support do you need to effectively apply your new skills?

Follow-Up. What types of follow-up activities should we conduct?

Explain the activity. Tell participants that you are going to organize them into four teams. Each team will be assigned one of the four questions. Instruct the teams to collect information from all participantsincluding members of their own teamrelated to the question assigned to them.

Set the agenda. Present the following schedule:

2 minutes for planning how to collect the responses from everyone. 3 minutes for collecting responses from everyone in the room. 3 minutes for analyzing all the responses that your team collected. 1 minute (for each team) to make a summary presentation of the responses.

Make team allocations. Shuffle the packet of playing cards and ask each participant to take a card. Ask participants to find other members of their team (who have a card of the same suit). Invite each team to gather around in a convenient location. Assign the questions to the teams in this order:

Clubs: Summary Hearts: Obstacles Spades: Support Diamonds: Follow-Up

Coordinate the planning activity. Ask each team to begin planning how to collect responses from everyone in the room (including members of their own team). Announce a 2-minute time limit and start the timer.

After 1 minute, announce a 1-minute warning. After 2 minutes, announce the end of the planning period.

Coordinate the information-collection activity. Announce that each team now has 3 minutes to collect responses to the question assigned to it. Get out of the way as everyone tries to talk to as many others as possible. Announce a 3-minute time limit and start the timer.

After 2 minutes, announce a 1-minute warning. After 3 minutes, announce the end of the response-collecting period.

Coordinate the analysis activity. Ask members of each team to return to their team. Invite team members to share and tabulate all the responses they collected. Distribute a sheet of flip chart paper and ask team to summarize the information on this sheet. Announce a 3-minute time limit and start the timer.

After 2 minutes, announce a 1-minute warning. After 3 minutes, announce the end of the analysis period.

Coordinate the reporting activity. Randomly select a team and ask it to display the flip chart poster. Ask a representative from this team to present its results and conclusions. Start the timer and announce the end of the reporting period at the end of 1 minute.

Repeat the procedure until all teams have given its report.

Debrief. Discuss the findings with participants. Share you plans for follow-up activities. Thank the participants for their ideas.

 Sample Questions How do you think your employees would react when you begin writing their job objectives using this new approach? How should we revise the workshop to make it more effective? How was the pace of the workshop? What changes do you suggest to improve the pacing? If you were coaching a colleague on how to write job objectives, what would be the most important piece of advice you would give her? If you were to summarize the main point of the workshop in a single sentence, what would it be? What additional information do you need in order do an effective job of writing objectives? What advice would you give to the next group of workshop participants to maximize their learning? What do you anticipate to be the most difficult thing in specifying job objectives? What obstacles do you anticipate in implementing the procedures that you learned in this workshop? What pressing questions do you have that are still unanswered? What outcomes do you want to produce as a result of participating in this workshop? What suggestions do you have for the facilitator? What support do you need to effectively apply your new skills? What types of follow-up activities should we conduct? What types of standards do you think would be the most frequently used ones with your employees? What was the most boring activity during the workshop? What made it boring? What was the most interesting activity during the workshop? What made it interesting? What was the most important thing that you learned about job objectives? What was the most interesting thing that you learned about job objectives? What was the most surprising thing that you learned about job objectives?
<GAME-CITE>Performance Management Survey</GAME-CITE> Build upon participants' responses.

A structured sharing activity involves mutual learning and teaching. Typical activities of this type create a context for a learning dialogue among participants based on their experiences, knowledge, and opinions.

If you are familiar with Sudden Survey, you will recognize how this framegame has been adapted to provide the following performance management game.

Purpose To collect baseline information on participants' current knowledge and opinions on different topics related to performance management. To build upon this base and explore additional concepts, ideas, and issues related to the topic. Participants

Minimum: 18
Maximum: Any number
Best: 24 to 36

(Participants are divided into 6 teams.)

 Time Requirement

45 to 60 minutes

 Supplies Question cards Sheets of flip chart paper Felt-tipped markers Timer Whistle Preparation

Prepare question cards. Come up with a list of questions related to performance management. You may want to use our list at the end of this article as a starting point. Depending on the time you have and number of teams that you want to create, figure out the number of questions you need. Let's assume that you have 24 participants and you want to organize them into six teams. Select six questions and create different question cards. Make sure that these questions do not duplicate each other and cover a range of related topics. Here's a sample question card:

You are a member of Team 1

Your Task

Collect participants' responses to the following question and summarize the responses:

What are the responsibilities of an employee to ensure effective performance management?

Schedule

Planning. 2 minutes to plan how to collect responses from other participants. Data Collection. 3 minutes to collect responses from other participants. Analysis. 3 minutes to analyze and summarize the responses. Report. 1 minute to present your summary report. Discussion. 3 minutes to participate in a discussion of the question and responses.

Since you have four members in each of your six teams, you will need four copies of each question card.

 Flow

Brief the participants. Explain that you are going to conduct an activity called Performance Management Survey. This activity will involve all participants collecting and sharing useful information about performance management.

Explain the activity. Tell participants that you are going to organize them into six teams. Each team will be assigned a different question related to performance management. Instruct the teams to collect information from all participantsincluding members of their own teamrelated to the question assigned to them.

Set the agenda. Present the following schedule:

2 minutes to plan how to collect responses from other participants. 3 minutes to collect responses from other participants. 3 minutes to analyze and summarize the responses. 1 minute to present your summary report. 3 minutes to participate in a discussion of the question and responses.

Make team allocations. Shuffle the packet of question cards and ask each participant to take a card. Ask participants to find other members of their team who have a card with the same question. Invite each team to gather around in a convenient corner.

Coordinate the planning activity. Ask each team to begin planning how to collect responses from everyone in the room (including members of their own team). Announce a 2-minute time limit and start the timer.

After 1 minute, announce a 1-minute warning. After 2 minutes, announce the end of the planning period.

Coordinate the information-collection activity. Announce that each team now has 3 minutes to collect responses on the question assigned to it. Get out of the way as everyone tries to talk to as many other participants as possible. Announce a 3 minute time limit and start the timer.

After 2 minutes, announce a 1-minute warning. After 3 minutes, announce the end of the survey period.

Coordinate the analysis activity. Ask members of each team to return to their team. Invite team members to share and organize all the responses they collected. Distribute a sheet of flip chart paper and ask teams to summarize the information on this sheet. Announce a 3 minute time limit and start the timer.

After 2 minutes, announce a 1-minute warning. After 3 minutes, announce the end of the analysis period.

Coordinate the reporting activity. Randomly select a team and ask it to display the flip chart poster. Ask a representative from this team to present its results and conclusions. Start the timer and announce the end of the reporting period at the end of 1 minute.

Discuss the topic. Comment on the information summarized by the team. Correct any major errors or misconception. Provide additional information that is relevant to the question. Invite participants to discuss the question, responses, and your comments.

Repeat this procedure with each team's report.

 Sample Questions Related to Performance Management What are different steps in the performance management cycle? What activities should a manager undertake in planning for performance management? What activities should an employee undertake in planning for performance management? What are the characteristics of an effective performance objective? How should a manager handle employee inputs during the goal-setting process? How should a manager communicate a performance goal or objective to an employee? What elements should the manager and the employee agree upon during the planning stage in performance management? How frequently should a manager monitor an employee's performance? How frequently should a manager give feedback on an employee's performance? What are the characteristics of effective feedback? How should an employee respond to performance feedback from the manager? What is the best way to conduct a performance review of an employee's progress? How should a manager handle poor performance of an employee? How should a manager handle good performance of an employee? How can a manager encourage an employee to become accountable for his or her performance? How should a manager rate an employee's performance? What is the difference between a reward and recognition? What types of rewards and recognition should be given to an employee with exemplary performance? How can a manager help an employee develop his or her performance competencies? What are some typical standards for an employee's performance?
<GAME-CITE>Sudden Survey</GAME-CITE> as a Framegame How to use a versatile framegame.

The previous three games in this issue of TGL (Hello, Good-Bye, and Performance Management Survey) are all designed by using a versatile framegame called Sudden Survey. Most participants in my workshops have experienced Sudden Survey in the form of the Hello opener.

Let's examine the structure of Sudden Survey and use it to rapidly create other training games that incorporate your own content.

Generic Game Plan

This game plan shows the generic structure of the Sudden Survey game. It identifies the steps in the flow of the game and briefly describes what the facilitator and the participants do during each step.

Step Facilitator Participants
1. Prepare questions. Come up with an appropriate number of questions related to training format and topics. Make sure that the questions suit your purpose: whether you want to use the activity as an opener, a training tool, or a closer. 2. Assemble cards. Assemble equal numbers of playing cards (or question cards) to create random teams. 3. Brief the participants. Explain the format of the activity, the questions you are going to use, and the schedule. Listen to the explanation and ask questions. 4. Form teams. Randomly distribute the playing cards or the question cards to assign participants to different teams. Join your team and introduce yourself to the other team members. Review the question assigned to your team. 5. Conduct the planning activity. Give instructions and keep time. Come up with a plan for collecting responses to your question from all participants. 6. Conduct the response-collecting activity. Give instructions and keep time. Implement your plan for collecting responses. Interview other participants. 7. Conduct the analysis activity. Give instructions and keep time. Go back to your team and share the responses you collected. Jointly analyze the information and prepare a summary. 8. Conduct the reporting activity. Ask each team to present its summary report. Keep time. Participate in your team's presentation. Listen to the presentations by other teams. 9. Debrief and discuss. Invite all participants to discuss the information presented by the team. Add your corrections and comments. Participate in the discussion.
Variations and Adjustments

Sudden Survey is an extremely flexible activity. Here are some guidelines for modifying it to suit your needs and constraints:

Too few questions. Let's assume that you have only two or three important questions and have a lot of participants. Distribute the same question to more than one team. During the final part of the activity, discuss the similarities and differences among the reports from different teams that had the same question.

Let's assume that you have only one burning question. Assign this question to different teams and have them use the standard procedure. During the last activity, ask one team to give its summary report and ask the other teams to present differing conclusions that they came up with.

Too many questions. Let's assume that you have a dozen different questions. Use question cards to create several different teams. You may even have teams with just two members. Alternatively, form the usual number of teams, but give each team more than one question. In this situation, give more time during the response-collecting phase.

Too little time? Remove the planning activity. Prepare questions that require short answers (Example: What one word pops into your mind when you think of customer service?). Ask teams to summarize their final report in just a couple of sentences.

Too many participants? Let's assume that you have 50 participants. Use the standard approach with four questions and playing cards. We have successfully used the game with as many as 20 participants in each team.

Let's assume that you have 120 participants. Use as many questions as you can think of and prepare question cards so that each question is given to 5 to 15 participants. Conduct the activity as usual. Be sure to set aside more time for several 1-minute presentations from a large number of teams.

Let's assume that you have more than a thousand participants. Distribute four to 15 different question cards. Ask participants to find at least five others and not more than 10 others with the same question card to form teams. In this arrangement, more than one team will be working on the same question. During the reporting time, select one team for each question to make the summary presentation. Alternatively, distribute different question cards to individual participants as they enter the room. Instead of asking participants to form teams, ask them to work individually and collect the responses from as many others as possible. After a suitable time, invite volunteers to come to the front stage and present their major findings.

Too few participants? Let's assume that you have only one participant. (Call yourself an executive coach and charge more.) Ask the four questions (or however many questions) and instruct the participant to write the answer to each question on a separate card of a different color. Without reading the answer, place each card in the middle of a packet of cards of the same color that contains answers from other participants who went through the activity at an earlier time. Shuffle each packet of cards and review the different answers with the participant. Ask the participant to summarize these answers and relate them to her answer. Repeat the process with each packet of cards.

Let's assume that you have just two participants. Give each of them a different question and ask them to interview the other and summarize the response. If you want to, you may give each participant more than one question. Alternatively, you may give the same set of questions to both participants and have them discuss their responses.

 How To Design Your Own <GAME-CITE>Sudden Survey</GAME-CITE> Games

Specify the timing and purpose. Decide whether you want to use the activity as an opener, a closer, or somewhere in the middle of your training session.

Prepare suitable questions. Use the examples at the end of each of the three previous discussions of Hello, Good-Bye, and Performance Management Survey. Prepare your list of questions with these important factors in mind:

The questions must be open ended to permit a wide variety of acceptable responses rather than a single correct response. They should cover important aspects of the training format and the training topic. The questions must be relevant to the training topic. (Avoid cute questions such as What's your Zodiac sign?unless your session is on avoiding critical thinking.) The number of questions should be suited to the number of teams.

Select appropriate game flow. Review the flow of the previous games and the adjustments and variations listed above. Select and modify appropriate steps for the flow of activity. Prepare facilitation instructions by using the earlier game descriptions as a model.

Prepare the prototype game. Prepare the final version of the questions. Assemble playing cards or question cards.

Play-test and revise the game. Try out the prototype version of your game on representative participants. Observe their reactions, responses, and remarks. Revise the flow of the activity during and after the game.

 Your Turn Now

Review the how-to-design suggestions listed above. Select a topic and try your hand at designing your own version of Sudden Survey. Most of the game instructions can be created by doing a simple search-and-replace activity with your word processor. The major element that you have to create from scratch is a list of questions that are related to your topic and your context.

Send you game to me ( thiagi@thiagi.com ). I'd like to publish it in a future issue of the newsletter and share it with your fellow readers.
An Interview with Christine Martell She makes visuals speak.

Christine Martell is the principal of VisualsSpeak (http://visualsspeak.com), a company that creates visual tools, provides training on how to use them, and facilitates strategic visual interventions. Her tools and processes are used by a wide range of consultants, trainers, facilitators and counselors in corporate, government, non-profit, and educational settings. Christine has been using creative methods for over 25 years and using her facilitation skills to support her life as an artist.

 Christine, what is your specialty area? My passion is for using visuals to spark learning and communication. This approach can involve using photographs, drawings, mind maps, and other visual organizing tools. I have developed a visual facilitation system that uses photographs. How did you decide to use photos? I was an artist who became a facilitator because I wasn't afraid of talking in public and I wanted to eat. I've used creative methods for many years. I noticed that the first half of any session was spent helping people get over their creative anxiety before we could even begin to focus on what the session was about.

I went back to graduate school after doing creative training and facilitation for more than 15 years. One of the first things I was told was the only valid output was writing linear papers because that was all the professor knew how to assess. It was a moment of seething anger that quickly turned into a determination to create an alternative tool that would access the power I knew existed in other ways of being. I spent several years testing how people from around the world interacted with photos before working with a team to create the photographs for the VisualsSpeak ImageSet.

Where do you use your visual tools? The VisualsSpeak tools are used in multiple ways. Many people use them for icebreakers and team building. With training on visual language, another level of information can be accessed for strategic visioning, market insight, and organizational development. We also use them to build inclusive environments, intercultural communication, and bridging language differences. How do participants respond to your visual tools? People really enjoy playing with images. Even more important, they get insights into themselves, other participants, and their challenges much more quickly and easily than they can with words alone. What advice do you have to newcomers about interactive training? Almost everyone wants to learn in ways that are effective. Focus on the outcome, not the method. I work with all sorts of types of people in many settings. There is a lot of fear about a particular type of person being resistant, but I don't find it to be true.

I also recommend developing and continually honing your facilitation skills. Being able to create an effective container for an experience, having faith in the process, and developing your ability to respond in the moment are critical to success.

What resources do you recommend? VizThink (http://www.vizthink.com/) is an online community which includes many of the best visual resources, book recommendations, podcasts and webinars all related to a range of visual topics. There is also a conference; the next one is on February 22-25, 2009 in San Jose, CA, USA. You can get a $100 discount on the conference if you use the coupon code DCCM01.
Printed Jolts Read the instructions and follow them.

Jolts are interactive experiential activities that lull participants into behaving in a comfortable way and then suddenly deliver a powerful wake-up call. Jolts force participants to re-examine their assumptions and revise their habitual practices. A typical jolt lasts only a few minutes but provides enough insights for a lengthy debriefing.

Here's an example of a printed jolt. The facilitator does not have to conduct the jolt in the usual fashion. Instead, all participants follow printed instructions.

Everyone gets a one-page handout with a sudoku puzzle. In addition to the usual instructions about how to solve a sudoku puzzle, the handout includes a scoring system: If you solve the puzzle within a minute, you score 1000 points; within 2 minutes, 500 points; within 3 minutes, 200 points; and beyond 3 minutes, zero points.

The puzzle looks tough because there are only a few numbers in the grid. Most participants give up before they begin, and a few struggle valiantly.

After 3 minutes, the facilitator blows a whistle, concludes the activity, and points out that while they were all given the same difficult puzzle, each person had an extra number that is part of the solution, and different people had different extra numbers. Thus, if the participants had talked to each other, they all could have solved the puzzle within a minute.

The debriefing discussion focuses on our tendency to assume that we should not work as a team unless we are explicitly asked to do so. The main learning point of this jolt is that if we make teamwork to be our default mode, we are likely to discover hidden assets and work more productively.

All types of puzzles lend themselves to printed jolts. However, it is important to incorporate the puzzle in an activity that focuses on some interpersonal principle (usually related to teamwork, diversity, or competition and collaboration). Otherwise, it becomes just a puzzle-solving activity.

Stay Inside the Lines Brian Remer Whom should you please?

Brian Remer is Creative Learning Director at The Firefly Group ( brian@thefirefly.org ). In addition to being a master of the 99-words format, Brian invents games and interactive strategies to expand learning and deepen insights. To find out more about him, read his Guest Gamer Interview (August 2004).

 Stay Inside the Lines

I bought a box of colored pencils for my daughter. Printed on the package was this ringing endorsement: Preferred by teachers. What, I wondered, does that really mean? Why do teachers like these pencils? Do they help children color inside the lines? Have schools approved the hues? There was no explanation.

Say, who cares what teachers think? Teachers don't use colored pencils, kids do. But parents buy them and they want to please teachers!

It's easy to please the wrong person if you haven't thought about why you're trying to please in the first place.
<GAME-CITE>Hello</GAME-CITE> on YouTube Say Hello to YouTube.

Did you read about the framegame Sudden Survey and the opener Hello derived from it?

You can see Hello in action with a large group of Albany, New York ASTD Chapter members in a YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvCGa5cQxpM

If you forget the URL, just go to YouTube and search for Thiagi +Hello.

This is an edited and shortened video. So you don't have to spend too much time to get a feel for how this activity plays out.

Customer Service Survey Generate questions for a Sudden Survey.

Did you read the Performance Management Survey article? Did you read the how-to article about Sudden Survey as a framegame?

Let's pretend that you are designing a training activity on customer service. You want to use the Sudden Survey frame. You can easily rewrite the instructions for your activity by slightly modifying the instructions for Performance Management Survey. The only original thing you have to do is come up with a set of suitable questions for the activity.

Here's this issue's single item survey:

Suggest a question for a customer service activity based on the Sudden Survey frame.

Use these suggestions for generating a suitable question.

The question must be open ended to permit a wide variety of acceptable responses rather than a single correct response. It should cover an important aspect of the training topic (customer service).

To send your questions, visit this survey page (opens in a new window).

You may send more than one question.

You may include your name along with your question or keep it anonymous.

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