LEAN Exercises
The Marshmallow Challenge and the PDCA cycle
The Marshmallow Challenge is an interesting team building game. Not only does this silly game teach how to collaborate as a team, but, more importantly, teams that perform well, use an iterative method. In lean, small kaizens can lead the way to big changes. PDCA is an iterative process. In software development, releasing successive iterations of products are now the norm.
Materials: one marshmallow, spaghetti, tape and rope.
Offer the same amount of materials to each group. For instance, offer one marshmallow, 12 spaghetti sticks, roll or tape and one piece of rope to each group.
Game Plan: Each team builds a free standing tower out of uncooked spaghetti sticks that will support …show more content…
Prototyping matters - People that think hard about a single plan tend to fill the time working on that single plan. They typically fail as their marshmallow gets popped on top at the end and their structure collapses. Recent business school graduates fall into this category. People that work with the marshmallow from the beginning and build up gradually, adding pieces and raising their marshmallow gradually end up succeeding most often. Recent kindergarten graduates fall into this category.
2. Diverse skills matter - Predictably, engineers and architects tend to perform well and lawyers and MBA's tend to perform less well. But a good facilitator will bring any team together. Teams that include an executive assistant almost always perform the best! A skilled facilitator will bring out everyone's ideas, track the timing and improve overall communication.
3. Incentives magnify outcomes - Do incentives motivate teams? You betcha! But not always the right way. Unskilled teams will be motivated to perform, but will consistently perform worse! While skilled teams will perform even better with a little motivation. Motivation will highlight the teams skills or lack thereof as they strive for …show more content…
• Start the game and time how fast each team can find the shapes
• Compare times and generate some discussion.
Round 2:
• Allow each team to organize their pile of shapes in advance.
• Hand out a new list of mixed shapes.
• Start the game and restart the timer. Each team finds the shapes from the list.
• Compare the teams and try to understand the benefits of organizing. As well, identify if any teams did things differently and what the effect was.
Round 3:
• Take the items from the second list and organize them clearly and logically on the table.
• Now get all teams to leave the room, close their eyes, or turn around
• Jumble up the items on each work station, take a few away and add a few new items.
• Call the teams back in and ask them to re-organize their stuff.
• Ask them: Is anything missing in their pile? How do you know?
Purpose of this game: 5S is not just about finding items, producing items, and cleaning up. Each team has just set up all their stuff in a logical fashion, then you go and mess it all up! It’s important to create an organized and efficient system so that you can identify and solve problems in the
The Marshmallow Challenge and the PDCA cycle
The Marshmallow Challenge is an interesting team building game. Not only does this silly game teach how to collaborate as a team, but, more importantly, teams that perform well, use an iterative method. In lean, small kaizens can lead the way to big changes. PDCA is an iterative process. In software development, releasing successive iterations of products are now the norm.
Materials: one marshmallow, spaghetti, tape and rope.
Offer the same amount of materials to each group. For instance, offer one marshmallow, 12 spaghetti sticks, roll or tape and one piece of rope to each group.
Game Plan: Each team builds a free standing tower out of uncooked spaghetti sticks that will support …show more content…
Prototyping matters - People that think hard about a single plan tend to fill the time working on that single plan. They typically fail as their marshmallow gets popped on top at the end and their structure collapses. Recent business school graduates fall into this category. People that work with the marshmallow from the beginning and build up gradually, adding pieces and raising their marshmallow gradually end up succeeding most often. Recent kindergarten graduates fall into this category.
2. Diverse skills matter - Predictably, engineers and architects tend to perform well and lawyers and MBA's tend to perform less well. But a good facilitator will bring any team together. Teams that include an executive assistant almost always perform the best! A skilled facilitator will bring out everyone's ideas, track the timing and improve overall communication.
3. Incentives magnify outcomes - Do incentives motivate teams? You betcha! But not always the right way. Unskilled teams will be motivated to perform, but will consistently perform worse! While skilled teams will perform even better with a little motivation. Motivation will highlight the teams skills or lack thereof as they strive for …show more content…
• Start the game and time how fast each team can find the shapes
• Compare times and generate some discussion.
Round 2:
• Allow each team to organize their pile of shapes in advance.
• Hand out a new list of mixed shapes.
• Start the game and restart the timer. Each team finds the shapes from the list.
• Compare the teams and try to understand the benefits of organizing. As well, identify if any teams did things differently and what the effect was.
Round 3:
• Take the items from the second list and organize them clearly and logically on the table.
• Now get all teams to leave the room, close their eyes, or turn around
• Jumble up the items on each work station, take a few away and add a few new items.
• Call the teams back in and ask them to re-organize their stuff.
• Ask them: Is anything missing in their pile? How do you know?
Purpose of this game: 5S is not just about finding items, producing items, and cleaning up. Each team has just set up all their stuff in a logical fashion, then you go and mess it all up! It’s important to create an organized and efficient system so that you can identify and solve problems in the