n a reflective teamwork activity (RTA), the process and the content merge with each other. Participants work through an activity and use the outcomes to evaluate the process they used. Here's an RTA that explores challenges associated with losing and gaining team members in the midst of a project.
In a brain-pick activity, participants interview people who share a common experience or background. (These people are called informants.) Participants interact with these informants—and with each other—to collect and organize useful information.
This activity uses people who have undergone major organizational changes. Participants interview them to come up with a list of guidelines for coping with change.
One, Two, And More is a flexible structured sharing activity for exploring different topics using different sets of questions. A unique feature of this activity is answering each question in three different modes: individual, pairs, and in teams.
The key to such procedures as need analysis, market research, and evaluation is the ability to find patterns in available information, collect additional information, and come to logical conclusions. We devised a game with a pocket calculator to teach this type of logical thinking.
Textra Games combine the effective organization of well-written documents with the motivational impact of training games. Participants read a handout, booklet, reprint, or a chapter in a book and play a game that uses peer pressure and peer support to encourage the recall and transfer of what they read.
Here is a fast-paced textra game for reviewing training content from product-knowledge booklets or technical reference manuals.
Here's an experiential introduction to this activity:
What is your preferred technique for learning something new?
Write your answer on a piece of paper. If you don't have a piece of paper, just say your answer out aloud.
I am now going to ask you a different question. Once again, write down your answer (or say it out aloud).
What method do you usually use to train other people?
Compare your answers to the two questions. Are they consistent with each other? If not, why is there a discrepancy between the way you like to learn and the way you train others? Should you not help others learn the same way you like to learn?
Does this inconsistency exist because you believe that training is different from learning? Don't you believe that training has to result in learning?
Does this inconsistency exist because you believe that your learning preference is unique only to you? Don't you think that other people may have unique learning preferences? How does your training accommodate these individual differences?
A great get-to-know activity that dives a bit deeper than regular name repeating games.