|
|
|
| ||
|
|
Design for Debriefing the Outdoor Challenge Course(Used with the Prichard Committee, April, 1999)Agenda AgendaMorning 1. View videotape during breakfast. 2. Begin to reflect on experiences from the previous day, using a specific question design framework. 3. Conduct one or more Human Spectrums – the Sitting Version. 4. Debrief each spectrum. Lunch 5. Post spectrum results Afternoon 6. (For groups that have been divided into smaller workgroups) Prepare a presentation about what happened yesterday. 7. Debrief the wall experience. 8. Conduct a modified round robin on: "What did you learn yesterday that might apply to your whole group?" 9. Focus on communication, working relationships, and problem solving. 10. Do a round robin to close. 11. (Optional) Close with a "Rainstorm". BackgroundRKI partner Steve Kay is trained as a facilitator for Outdoor and Indoor Team Challenge Workshops. RKI often uses the excellent Outdoor Challenge Course at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. We prefer to work with intact work groups, but have also led groups consisting of members from many different workplaces through the Challenge Course with good results. Steve says, "The Outdoor Challenge Course simply provides groups with a fun way to look at their own work together. Patterns of leadership, communication, and problem-solving manifest easily as people work their way through the engaging, intense outdoor initiatives." Steve and RKI partner Rona Roberts arrange for informal videotaping of about two hours total footage during the outdoor experience. Second Day IndoorsAfter a full and exhausting day on the Outdoor Challenge Course, RKI likes to work with the team or work group indoors for a full day, getting the good out of the rich experiences from the outdoors. The purpose of the day of follow-up work is to help groups "know what they know," and then make the links between their new knowledge and practical application in their everyday work life. The exquisite restored Shaker Village at Burgin, Kentucky is a perfect place for groups to spend the night and then work the next day, in tranquil beauty, processing and getting the benefits from the stimulating outdoor team experience. After dinner on the day a group has finished the Challenge Course, RKI partners screen through the videotape, and mark sections that will help with the work the next day. These evening screening sessions offer great opportunities for reliving and enjoying the many hilarious moments on the course, and are open to any Outdoor Challenge group participants who are interested – or still energetic enough to stay awake after a day of physical exertion. On the morning after the outdoor experience, RKI partners set up the videotape to run on its own during the buffet breakfast. Those group members who have not seen any of the footage begin to locate themselves and their colleagues in some of the significant moments from the day before. Questions that Promote Reflective LearningAfter breakfast, RKI partners ask a series of questions that invite group members to begin describing, interpreting, reflecting on, and applying their new knowledge. When appropriate, the RKI partner now serving as the process facilitator may show small segments of video footage to help the group remember some of its experiences or become more aware of some of the interaction to which people may have been oblivious while it was unfolding. Here are some of the questions:
Good Question FrameworksAppreciative Inquiry Sometimes we work out of a specific question design framework, such as Appreciative Inquiry, or the O-R-I-D question structure developed by the Institute for Cultural Affairs (ICA) and known as the Technology of Participation™. Appreciative Inquiry, for which David Cooperider is the main theorist and advocate, suggests developing questions for debriefing an Outdoor Challenge Course experience that sound like this:
See The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry by Sue Annis Hammond and Lessons from the Field: Applying Appreciative Inquiry edited by Sue Annis Hammond and Cathy Royal. Technology of Participation ICA's ToP™ methods suggest that excellent learning comes from putting good questions in appropriate order. This is the order that seems to work best: Objective, Reflective, Interpretive, and Decisional. We have designed Outdoor Challenge Course debriefing questions using the O-R-I-D framework. Here are examples:
Human Spectrums – The Sitting VersionAbout mid-morning on the indoor debriefing day, or when the group's energy for whole group conversation seems about to wane, we introduce a set of human spectrums that begin to move workgroups from a focus on their experience of the previous day toward application of their new knowledge to their everyday workplace. We conduct the spectrums by having people stand and place themselves on a line according to the "ends" shown below. (For more information on constructing spectrums, see the Fall, 1998 issue of Best Practices, the RKI newsletter.) Working with one spectrum at a time, we ask people to stand and find their positions, we ask them to mark their relative spectrum positions graphically on a flip chart, and then we ask them to sit for a series of questions about their placement on that spectrum. We then repeat with another spectrum. Here are some spectrums that work particularly well in debriefing the Outdoor Challenge Course:
We sometimes begin debriefing each spectrum by asking the typical spectrum questions, which are designed to engage people in describing their preferences and experiences to each other. (See "Putting Spectrums to Work" in the the Fall, 1998 issue of Best Practices or the section of the same name in an article on human spectrums that Steve wrote.) We then ask an additional spectrum question: How did you see this play out yesterday? Here also, the videotape sometimes comes in handy for helping a group get a deeper understanding of its own actions and interactions. After LunchIf a workgroup has been divided into smaller workgroups of eight to 12 people to complete the Challenge Course, we will work with the individual groups separately in the morning, and then bring all the groups together in the afternoon to begin the reweaving process. After a good lunch, we focus more intensively on communication, working relationships, and problem solving. We typically begin after lunch by asking each of the small groups to spend no more than ten minutes preparing a lively presentation, no more than five minutes long, for their colleagues. The focus of the presentation is "What happened yesterday?" This is one of the most effective after-lunch activities imaginable. It gets people moving, laughing, and learning from and with each other. The WallIf we have not already done so, we next debrief the experience of the wall, which is typically the final initiative groups complete. We usually have good video footage, and use it to support a conversation on the nature of the wall experience. Open Round RobinNext, we typically do a modified round robin around the central question: "What did you learn yesterday that might apply to your whole group?" We offer each person a chance to speak in turn, and continue going around the room until each person has spoken as much or as little as s/he wishes. RKI facilitation practice is to invite participation in these round robins, but to make it clear that it is invitational and people may pass if they wish. Communication, Working Relationships, Problem Solving – the Major TakeawaysThe heart of the afternoon work is a focus on communication, working relationships, and problem solving, each in turn. If we have worked only with one small group, the afternoon can be spent more intensively working on each of these three topics. For each topic, we ask the whole group to build a shared picture that answers the following three questions: 1. What did you see to be true yesterday re: communication? Working relationships? Problem solving? 2. What could be true (based on the course)? 3. What would it take to get there? ClosingWe typically use a simple closing. We ask each person to say anything s/he wants to say about the two days of work together. This may be done by going around the room in order from some specific starting point, or it may be more free form, provided the group listens to each person who speaks without responding, and each person eventually gets to take a turn if s/he wishes. On occasion, an additional closing process seems appropriate. If a group has had a particularly rough time with rainy weather, and if the moment seems right, Steve may close with a process done in a circle that is called "Rainstorm." This is a non touchy-feely, highly evocative and simple closing which takes less than five minutes. Because the Rainstorm is much easier to talk about and experience than to describe in writing, if you want to know how to facilitate it, it will be easiest if you call Steve at 859-231-8308 and let him describe it over the phone. |
|
|
 |
|
|
