InterActive Teams Program Overview
Seeds You Sow
The InterActive Teams program involves participants in a series of fun and engaging problem solving activities that promote team skills and mind sets for working collaboratively across boundaries and locations in an organization.
Participants interact in a team with up to twelve people, which is paired with another team, which then set out to conquer a challenge for which they share the same goal. (See the Activities Descriptions page for descriptions of several of the activities that can be included in the InterActive Team schedule.)
A 4 hour schedule, for example, allows time for three main challenge activities, and an action planning session at the end to identify shared strategies for working together in the future. The program can be conducted indoors or outside. The activities are adapted from ground level activities found on a Ropes Challenge Course, redesigned to challenge two teams working together.
Maze
InterActive Teams gets everyone involved in activities that require teams collaborate effectively with other teams to be successful. Participants gain insight from the experience, share perspectives within their team, and then, together, with other groups at the program, identify actions that can be initiated at work.
InterActive Teams can occur among top management areas, among cross-functional work groups, with product development or sales teams, across production process teams . . . drawing together people - with related roles but different perspectives -around a common need.
InterActive Teams programs combine clear concepts with fun skill practice that's directly transferable to work situations.
Popular program topics include:
- Identifying & Acting on Shared Values
- Team and cross-team Problem Solving
- Leadership and Followership for Teams
- Valuing People Differences
- Effective Communication Skills
- Creativity and Innovation
Examples of Themes in past groups:
- Relationship and trust building among the managers and team leaders of a newly merged company.
- Building a common orientation among teams on a national sales force to improve communication and problem solving, and better support personal initiative and risk taking.
- Improving communication and problem solving between the engineers and production staff in a manufacturing plant.
- Improving the "Total Quality" hand-off among hospital work groups across works shifts or departments.
Skill Training
We can target real issues that are difficult to communicate and yet require everyone's involvement to get results. For example, how do we think about and act together on our shared values? What is it that we need to do together (a shared process or approach) that's critical to our success?
InterActive Teams Program Outline
A Framework for Learning:
Longer programs allow a greater opportunity to identify - and prepare to act on - what is learned from this experience. Time at the start and end of the program is scheduled to talk through the team improvement needs and follow-up actions.
Debrief Session
Possibly program frames:
- Introduction to the Action Learning Principles and how to act on them during the activity;
- Useful information about successful teams
- Pre-assessment feedback (if one was conducted prior to the program)
- Identify team and individual questions to explore in the activities
The Main Event: Activity Modules and Discussions
We have dozens of activities to select from, and new ones are always in development. Choose one for each hour of the program. Typically, each activity requires a ten minute set-up, 35 minutes for the problem solving portion, 10 to 15 minutes for discussion of "what-happened, so-what, and now-what". (click here to view activity descriptions)
Action-Planning
At the End: Action Planning on How to Apply New Insight at Work gathered from participants
- Each Person identifies their own key learnings
- Small discussion groups identify applications to work
- New Team Norms can be proposed
- Needed skills can be identified
- Personal and Team commitments can be stated
InterActive Teams Program Specifications & Logistics
Length: 2 to 6 hours
Location: large indoor meeting area or flat outdoor area. This is a very mobile program format that can be conducted anywhere in the world you want us to go.
Group Size: total participants can be in the 100's, operating in smaller activity teams.
Budgeting: A typical InterActive Teams program costs between twelve and thirty-five dollars per person per program hour. Prices vary with the number of participants, staffing required, customization needed, program length, and location. A typical program involves two or three activity groupings and lasts 4 hours.
The Team Craft professional staff has extensive background in experiential training and group process. We can also train your people to do a modified program for your participants.
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