The Collaboration Journey I - Simple Version

Tables of 3 to 6 players plan and execute a journey forward, making a series of collaborative decisions that influence each other's results as well as overall outcomes. It's fun, fast and engaging and ties to teams working together.

The Collaboration Journey games evolved from our series of Square Wheels® illustrations that depict how individuals really work together to impact productivity and performance. The exercise begins with a brief overview using our main illustration to set the stage for continuous improvement on the collaborative journey forward. Often, competition and a lack of planning and communications will sub-optimize the results measurably. This journey takes about 60-90 minutes to introduce, play and debrief.

The game has been designed so that, if desired, it can be integrated with a Square Wheels presentation or workshop to kick off or end a half-day or longer session. Materials include a full debriefing package of slides and ideas. The Simple Collaboration Journey works nicely to focus on issues surrounding team performance, collaboration and planning. Each tabletop plays independently yet results from many tabletops can be easily compared. There is no upper limit as to the number of tables playing simultaneously.

• Shared goals
• Communications
• Planning
• Teamwork
• Collaboration
• Competition

The goal is simple: Move your Wagons along the game board to the Customer as quickly as possible. Each round, players look toward reaching the end through their joint efforts. As they roll dice, players improve the wagons with new Round Wheels.

Points are obtained by reaching the top of the board and completing the journey in a speedy manner. Speed comes from having a solid strategic plan for collaborating and moving the wagons through the constraints. The structure of the game allows collaboration and planning to optimize results.

A degree of motivational competition between players can also be beneficial. Since the first team to arrive gets more points than the other teams and because the route is more difficult towards the end (allowing only 2 teams to pass through the constraints), some "my wagon first" behavior may also occur, which tends to suboptimize results.

The "accidental adversaries archetype" suggests that, at the first occurrence of competitiveness, reciprocity from the other players will often occur and the group will become more competitive as the game goes forward. As a result, the best of positive collaborative intentions can be influenced by individual desires and competition to get the best score. Competing will suboptimize results.

Your debriefing can focus on interpersonal interactions and communications, thinking styles, themes of collaboration and shared goals, tendencies to compete and succeed and a variety of other themes. You may interrupt play to intercede in the competition and coach the players, which can generate reflection and improved results.

Play produces a discussion of choice and choices for performance improvement, planning and teamwork. This is a powerful, interactive, 60-90 minute structured team building simulation with a very flexible debriefing framework that can be linked to a variety of learning issues.

This exercise is a one-time cost of USD $149, complete with PowerPoint Square Wheels® cartoons for introduction and debriefing. It contains a flexibly packaged debriefing including worksheets / handouts and includes all the program materials that can be printed from pdf files. (Kinko's quoted us $10 per sq. ft. for printing game boards, plus costs for lamination, which would make the game board alone $40.)

Note that we offer optional pre-printed Collaboration Journey Tabletop Sets at $30 per set that contain all the materials needed for 3 to 6 people per table. Included are: instructions, game pieces and a game board (17"x30"). All materials are laminated and reusable. This saves you money as well as time.

You can play this exercise with any number of tables simultaneously; there is no upper limit to the number of players and you can choose to use groups of 3 to 6 people playing on each game board. Facilitation is easy and play is fun and challenging.

If you like Square Wheels, you will love how well this works. If you've never used these cartoons, you'll wonder what took you so long! It will take about 30-40 minutes for the Introduction and play of the game. A replay takes about 10 minutes. Debriefing can go on forever!