So, as you know, we spearheaded a 4 hour workshop that was dedicated to discovery. One of the main agendas were to identify and report participant observations, traits and behaviours, hear say, performance, challenges, pain areas, and more.
Herein, participants were subjected to various facilitation processes and simulations, in teams.
One day prior, as I was privy to their team huddle; one of the pain areas cited was, there was problem in prioritisation of projects, and some chockablock situations that arise at work.
Taking cue from that, I dumped the existing session design; and reworked the activities, the layout, and flow. Here’s how we went about this:
For the “honey drop” process, I laid down two tracks for Teams Blue and Purple respectively. And a section of the tracks was intertwined as they overlapped, creating a bottle neck situation.
Tweaked the rules a bit, added a few new ones like:
Only one marble on track at a time before you hit the goal; so on and so forth. And of course, the “jolts” were in the silent zones that were a surprise for the team; and, resources getting extinguished mid-way, as they are pressured to deliver (complete the cycle) on time.
All in all, the base layout of Honey Drop was dressed up with several layers and complexity, pertinent to the pain areas and challenges of the team.
This was then instrumental in drawing parallels between on-floor (regular work days) and on-field (workshop play-time) situations.
Right after this, I hit the nail on the head with a spin on “Executive Marbles” (yet another facilitation process) which I’ll tell you all about in my next post.
Not only did this yield some terrific insights, but also proved as a turning point for the team.
—————————————————————
You see? Facilitation / FaciliTraining goes way beyond a battery of “games and activities”. Every program that involves kinaesthetic and cognitive energies can be termed an experiential learning program; but every experiential learning program is not facilitation.
Even the processes and activities, they aren’t “cookie cutter moulds”. They are, infact like cookie dough. Customisable and malleable. Dress it up or down with relavant and relatable ‘toppings’, to produce the ‘perfectly baked cookie’ that’s quintessential for the client/ sponsor.
Happy “Baking”!
In frame- the intertwined honey-drop tracks that created a bottleneck.
