Alphabet Soup

What happens

Programming a computer has a whole new twist. In this activity the team has to get the best time in sequencing a series of numbered tags. Full team participation is necessary along with plenty of communication. This activity really supports how effective trial & learn can be for an outcome.

Many teams will try to 'think' their way to the solution of this, but the key is the key to most business solutions -- do it faster, better and get the results. This exercise will help them experience the need make a decision given the information at hand and make it work.

Due to the high activity necessary -- short amounts of running may be necessary -- this is a GREAT activity to energize participants when you see them starting to fade (such as after lunch or after a long speaking session).

With the variations, this exercise can be run by the same group several times.

What to watch for

• Level of commitment to one idea and whether they are closed to all other ideas after that?.
• How well the group understands the plan and if they are committed to it as a group.
• How different was your first attempt and last attempt?
• What was the quality of communication and did it improve over time?

Variations

• Allow the group five attempts to do it as fast as they can.
• See if they change their tactics or simply try to accomplish it the same way only faster.
• Take one or two of the letters out.
• This presents a huge obstacle since everyone knows the ABC's or how to spell common words and expects the letters to be there.
• This creates a great processing point for later in the debriefing.
• No two letters can be touched with the same body part.