Am training 3 people on customer care and I want to include a section on problem solving.
I have seen the Zin Obelisk and I have the 'Farmer's Game' but these will take too long for three people.
Therefore, need a problem that a team of 3 can solve in about 30 mins.
Can anyone help?
Lisa Birch
4 Responses
What time is it…
Hi Lisa,
I’ve got an exercise called ‘What time is it in Amberville?’ that might fit the bill.
I can’t remember where it came from, but I’ll happily email it to you if you’re interested.
Kind regards,
Colin Hamilton
email: [email protected]
web: http://www.bis-improve.co.uk
more info please
Sorry to be boring, but problem solving has many aspects to it and you are presumably looking to illustrate or highlight some specific problem-solving ideas like: asking good questions, getting all the facts, remaining objective etc.
Therefore you need to be clear about exactly what points you want to be making at the end of this section and then work backwards until you reach a logical activity to start the session with. Very often I’ve found that a topic-related activity (in this case about customer care)can be easily designed and used to great effect. Contact me if you want some more guidance.
Its easy to get bogged-down with unrelated exercises that are more about intellectual ability/knowledge/luck etc.
Rick
What about Einsteins Puzzle?
I have successfully used Einstein’s Puzzle to promote team working and efective problem solving. It can be solved by a group of 3 in around 20-30 minutes and works well if each team member is given only a selection of the “clues” thus ensuring that they must share information in order to solve the problem. If you are not familiar with this puzzle, have a look at this link:
http://rakkav.tripod.com/homeworlds/brainstem/pages/einstein.htm The solution is there as well!
New address for rakkav
The last helpful person is now at http://www.rakkav.com/homeworlds/brainstem/pages/einstein.htm
What a good puzzle to use and get a group thinking. The Belbin box of training games (can’t think what it’s called now) has a similar, although inferior, puzzle.