in this issue
	Icebreaker: Creativity Exercise: Team Decision Making Team Charter Development Training Design: Alternative Development Strategies

Icebreaker: Creativity

This is a good exercise to begin a session on creativity. Divide the group into pairs and instruct participants to interview their partners about their creativity. Have them find at least three ways that their partner is creative. You may need to prompt them about different ways people can be creative, such as creating a recipe, writing a song, inventing a story, making a creative presentation, decorating your home, making jewelry, putting together an outfit to wear, etc. Have them write down the three ways they are creative on a card. Next instruct partners to discuss how they got creative in those areas. I wasn't born able to invent a story, but my young son likes to hear a story before he goes to sleep. And he likes the main character to be himself. So each night he hears a story that we create as we go. How do I do it? First, I know what he likes in a story, so I bring in those elements. I also know that he thinks any story with his name in it is a good one, so there is little risk of failure. And I've read hundreds of children's stories and learned some of the basics about how to develop a plot. Ask pairs to share how they developed their creativity and post responses on a flip chart. It's a good starting point for them to learn how they can be more creative in the areas they want to explore as part of this training. I like this activity because it makes the point that we are all creative in some way. Sometimes people who think they are not creative just don't see the creativity in the things that come easily to them. The exercise also gets the group to analyze how their creativity developed so that they can see the possibilities of becoming even more creative during the training and on the job.

Exercise: Team Decision Making

This is a quick exercise (15 minutes) that helps teams experience group decision making using different decision-making tools. Divide the group into teams of 5- 6 people (it works best with at least 5 per team). Tell the teams that they are going on vacation together and must agree on what vehicle they will rent during their vacation. They will need some information about the vacation, so tell them that they will be traveling to a seaside area in the summertime. The number of people on vacation is the number on their team, and they will be paying for the vehicle from their own pockets, dividing the cost equally among all team members. The vehicle(s) must get them from the airport to their lodging and back to the airport. Explain that there are many different ways to approach team decisions. They can vote, analyze the options in a decision matrix, use an idea advocate to promote each feasible option, etc. Use the decision tools you are teaching as examples here. Assign each team one decision tool to use to make their decision. Provide them with instructions for using the tool, and give them 15 minutes to make a decision. After 15 minutes, ask each individual to write down a number representing their satisfaction with the team's decision (1-10, with 10 high). Then have teams share their decision, describe the decision tool they used, and explain what they liked or didn't like about that tool. Finally, have the team members share their satisfaction ratings for the decision. Discuss which tools resulted in the "best" decisions and why. As an alternative, you can assign motives for each team member by giving them cards with statements such as: You are concerned about cost and can't afford over $20 per day; You want something really fun; You want something luxurious - only the best; You don't want to take sides, so go along with whatever everyone else seems to want. These motives will make their discussions more interesting and the decisions a little more difficult. This is a fun activity and can touch on lots of learning points about decision making.

Team Charter Development

I recently worked with a non-profit organization to train the leadership team to help others in the organization create team charters. This group was moving to cross-functional teams and they needed to provide each of the project teams with a Team Charter that would guide their work and help them succeed in that work. I had three hours to prepare the leadership team to facilitate the process with others. Here's how I did it. First, before the training session, I developed a template for a team charter. I have a generic template, and tailored that to the organization by changing some language and adding a few elements. Then I met with the project sponsors to review the template. We made additional changes and I provided them with an electronic copy of the template to post on their intranet. I began the session by explaining the reason for a Team Charter and the elements that should be included. We talked about their role as project sponsors in developing the charter. What parts of the template should they define, what parts would be defined by the Charter Team (the group developing the actual charter) and what parts would the Project Team be empowered to define. (The Project Team was the one who would implement the charter.) They shared some examples of teams that overstepped their boundaries, which helped illustrate the importance of a charter. We also talked about some of the myths about empowered teams. We spent the rest of the time framing the initial part of the charter: the team purpose and key result areas for the team. We identified the categories of goals and expected the charter team to define the measures for success in each category. They discussed the team purposes as a group so that all agreed before taking the purpose to the charter team. At their request I agreed to review and comment on the completed charters after they met with the charter teams. The process worked well, especially given the time constraints. You can get a copy of our generic Team Charter Template and Guidelines for completing the template at our web site under Free Resources. »

Training Design: Alternative Development Strategies

As we near the end of the year, we begin to consider strategies for developing people next year. Will we do more or less classroom training, e-learning, or a combination (blended learning)? Why not go beyond those options and expand the strategies you use to develop new skills and knowledge. People are always asking for shorter training classes. Some people don't respond well to e-learning. Many don't apply what they learn in training on the job. People are working in distant locations or from a home office and travel costs can be considerable. All of these challenges should be considered as you develop your 2006 development strategies. What's the answer?, you ask. Alternative development strategies. Instead of designing a single workshop, design a development path in a given competency. Create a path that takes several weeks or months to complete and includes a wide variety of activities and assignments. Include classroom training or online meetings, e-learning, book readings, work reviews, mentoring or coaching, job aids, project work, a "buddy" system, an internal listserv, or Q&A page for answering their questions. Define all the ways you can support development, and build a system that uses those different strategies. Some elements might be required for all, while other elements could be "electives." In the movie, Field of Dreams, one of the key lines is, "If you build it, they will come." That may not be true when it comes to training. You will have to promote this new approach to development, because people are used to simply attending a workshop. The problem is that they are rarely expected to actually apply what they learned on the job. Often times, the goal is just to attend the training. With a development path, you are expecting people to actually make a commitment to professional growth. And that takes time and effort. You may want to begin with a small group of people who are serious about their development in a common area (delegation, project management, presentations, etc.) and use them as a pilot. Have each person identify measurable outcomes for development and track against those outcomes. Then publish your results and expand the paths for other competencies. I encourage you to find ways to continually add value to the training and development you create. Expand the ways you help people grow, and your personal value to the organization will rise. Watch for more on alternative development strategies as we at Results Through Training expand our approach in 2006.