Duration: 30 – 45 minutes
Group Size: Section Level
Resources: Masking tape & stop-watch
Purpose: To solve a problem as a team, with an emphasis on communication & quality thinking.
Overview: To collectively move 7 persons across a 7-metre divide with only 5 body parts in contact with the floor.
Conduct:
- Mark out clearly the start and finish points, 7 metres apart. Choose a suitable open space, indoors or outdoors
- Give instructions to the group:
- You are tasked to travel across this 7-metre minefield.
- The entire group has to cross the minefield together. Everyone has to be in constant contact with one another at all times.
- Because this is a minefield, you are only allowed to have 5 body parts in contact with the floor, collectively as a group.
- Be as creative as possible but remember to be safe as well. (Note: facilitator to ensure safety of the participants; do NOT allow groups to build an unstable or unsafe movable pyramid / structure).
- During execution, if more than the specified contact points touch the floor, the entire team returns to the start point.
- The group that finishes the task the quickest is the winner. Give the group 10 minutes to complete the task.
- The recommended group size for this activity is 7. Larger groups may be split. If there are a different number of participants, please refer to the table below for the corresponding number of contact points:
| No of participants | No of Body Parts |
| 6 | 5 |
| 7 | 5 |
| 8 | 6 |
| 9 | 7 |
| 10 | 8 |
| 11 | 8 |
5. People who have played this game before can participate as the experience is different each time.
Debrief Questions:
- Did the members believe they could achieve the objective or did they feel it was an impossible task?
- Did members complement each other’s roles? For example, were they too many leaders or too many followers?
- Did the team work out several rules to guide team functioning? Did anyone violate the rules? How did others feel when the team rules were violated?
- What was the team like in terms of open communication (i.e. sharing of ideas), morale (i.e. positive encouragement or negativity) and support (i.e. willingness to support group decisions)?
Notes:
In a large group, team dynamics are more complicated. For example, members of larger groups tend to communicate less and it is difficult to keep track of what one another are doing, etc. Hence, it is important that as a team we need to gather regularly to clarify and establish what we want to achieve as a team, our work processes and our working relationships – i.e. V + 3Rs.