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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Around the World

The management game “Around the World” is a beautiful group game. Therefore it is highly participative. It can be played in-door as well as out-door. It is best suited as icebreaker, energizer and quite apt for sessions on intra-group communication, consensus building, decision making, strategizing, team work and team building.

You being the program or workshop facilitator or leader are the designer and administrative chief of conducting and supervising the game. You can take help of one or two of your associates. The outdoor area or the in-door seminar hall that you select to administer this game is treated as “airport” for the purpose of the game. Fix up six to eight spots in the airport (the out-door areas or in-door hall) as the “gates” of the airport from where the flights take off. These selected gates (spots) should be quite distant from each other.

On each gate display a chart that gives all the flight sectors that are serviced from that particular gate. Flight sectors will be like: New York-Dubai, Mumbai-Singapore, Vancouver-Amsterdam, Tokyo-Los Angeles etc. Cover all the important cities of all the continents of the world so that you have plenty of sectors to be displayed on the chart at each gate and each gate does not fall short of the sectors. On each gate, you can display around 12 to 15 flight sectors. So if you choose to have 6 gates, you can have a maximum of say 90 such flight sectors in all. Each display chart in front of the gate will have unique flight sectors and will not be repeated on the display chart of that gate or the display charts of other gates. Make sure that the font and its boldness used to write the names of flight sectors on the display charts are such that they can be read from a distance of maximum of two feet and not more.

Now depending upon how many teams are going to play this game at one time, you will need to prepare for each of those many teams the itinerary of their travel around the world. Write down this itinerary on a cue card. Give each team around 12 to 15 flight sectors to travel to cover the entire world. For example the cue card can specify for one team the flight sectors as Seattle-Vancouver, Vancouver-Amsterdam, Amsterdam-Mumbai, Mumbai-Singapore etc. Number of such cue cards specifying the flight sectors will be equal to the number of teams playing the game. Select the flight sectors for each itinerary such that those flight sectors on one itinerary are scattered all over the six to eight gates and not concentrated in just about one or two gates.

Divide the entire participants in teams consisting of randomly selected 4 to 5 persons. For random selection follow the method given in the management game titled “Pass the Messagehttp://management-games-icebreakers.blogspot.com/2010/08/pass-message.html- refer it. Ask each to team to select their team coordinator by way of internal discussions within each team. Give one cue card giving the itinerary of the travel around the world to the coordinator of each team.

Now each team will have to locate the gate number for each flight sector prescribed for it and write down that gate number on the cue card in front of that particular sector. Each team will start from the very first flight sector on the cue card and then sequentially go on locating the gate numbers of rest of the flight sectors given in the cue card- strictly sequentially i.e. only after the team locates the gate for the first flight sector, it can start locating the gate for the second flight sector.

Before starting the actual game, give each team around 5 minutes to discuss among the team members the strategies they would like to decide and follow. Copying the display charts at the gates by the team members is not allowed. However, they can remember what is displayed on the charts and keep in their minds and share with each other.

The teams will cover all the flight sectors on their itinerary by locating the gate numbers and noting them down against the flight sectors on their cue cards. After they have covered all the flight sectors and located all the gates for their tour around the world, they will report to you or to one of your associate(s) supervising the game. The time of reporting of completing of the game by each team will be noted down by you or your associate(s).

You or your associate(s) will check the correctness of the gate numbers as reported for each flight sector for all the teams. The team that has all the correct gate numbers on its cue card and has taken the minimum time to complete the game will be declared as the winner. You can also declare the runner-ups.

Take the feedback from the participants team by team as to what strategies they followed, was it effective, how was the level of communication, decision making, consensus building, team spirit and team work. How will they like to play the same game next time?

Round up the management game by sharing your observations, critique, analysis and learning points. Top it up with necessary inputs.

Get Hold of the Related Books
You can order the following books on "management games and icebreakers" as printed books and eBooks from Amazon online:
  1. Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers
  2. Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers (Volume 2)
  3. Classic Team Building Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers
  4. 101 Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers
Related Reading: (Repository of a large number of articles in management and leadership): http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com and http://management-universe.blogspot.com

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