TECHNIQUES

The notebook production game

By simulating a notebook production company, this team-building game helps groups of co-researchers become aware of their team’s dynamics. This is a great exercise to reflect on the challenges of working together under time pressure.

Written by

Kirsten Williams and Gioel Gioacchino

Edited by

Denisse Albornoz

Developed by

Stages:Community Building* Data Collection

We first played this game in Berlin, during a workshop with the Art of Living Foundation. The instruction was: ‘produce a tennis ball’. To do so we each had to touch a tennis ball but in order of every other person (i.e skipping the person next to you) until everyone had touched the ball. When we had all touched it, we had to deliver it to our ‘client’, played by one of the facilitators. We played this game with the launch group of Recrear and found ourselves having a profound reflection on the roles each of us played in the group. Since then we’ve adapted the technique to observe teamwork in action and to draw awareness around what each individual brings to the process. We’ve played with this technique in the Dominican Republic, Canada, Cuba and Colombia.

Participants can experience what it means to manage time, expectations, and other people in the team. Beyond the team building, this exercise helps participants reflect on and identify the individual role they play in a group. Ultimately they also understand how these dynamics are mirrored in a research project involving other people.

As the ‘pressure’ increases, people’s conflict reactions surface as some people take leadership while others pull away. It means there are different levels of participation and these are fundamental observations to discuss during the debrief!

If you want to do this exercise quicker, you can use an object that people just need to pass around, instead of a notebook.

This exercise might take a lot of time if players are very detailed oriented. As a facilitator, resist the urge to stop or hurry the process. Instead, use the experience as a reflection tool. Share your emotions during the game. Share what you observed in their change of behaviours during the 3 rounds.