Purchase the E-Book: How to Lead Awesome Team-Building Programs
Did you ever wonder “How does one lead AWESOME team-building programs? Programs that ensure that content and learning take place. A teambuilding program that is fun, and teams leave better than when they arrived?” Now you can find out; In this 55 page E-book you will find applicable strategies, team-building activities, facilitation, de-briefing, and processing activities + theory that you can use immediately.
Pipeline
Type: Problem Solving – Transport
Group Size: 5-30
Time: 45 – 90 minutes, depending on the group size and variation used
Goals: Explore relationship to customer expectations
Practice Problem Solving skills
Practice Goal Setting Attainment
Materials: PVC Pipe cut in half or some other pipe sections; at a length of ~ 1.5 – 2.5 feet (at least one pipe section per participant)
A variety of rollable objects that might include golf balls, small and large marbles, rubber and real eggs, bocce balls, basketballs etc..
Two Buckets (one to hold the roll able objects, and one for the end goal)
Border marker (rope, a tape marker, or sidewalk chalk works well)
Briefing
“These balls, marbles, eggs, etc. represent products that you need to deliver to the customer. You have two primary tasks in this activity: 1) to set a realistic goal (a promise) that you can attain for the customer during the time allotted and 2) to deliver on that promise with 100% quality. There are constraints as to how you handle the product during delivery …..”
Rules / Set up 
1) Set out props so that the distance from the boundary marker (the start) to the container (the goal) is 3-5 paces more than the number of participants (i.e., 12 people = 15 – 17 paces) Adding a “dogleg” (the path to the container bends around and obstacle) adds more challenge.
2) Place the pipe sections and balls in the start area and assemble the group within this designated “work area.”
3) Instruct the team that the balls, eggs, marbles etc. represent products needing delivery to customers.(for other ideas see variations below)
4) Any object dropped safely into the container represents a successful delivery.
5) The only tools available to the team are the Pipe Sections. NO other props may be used for the delivery purposes.
6) For the first delivery, all members of the team must start behind the boundary marker until the object has been dropped into the first pipe section. Once the object is in the pipe, people are free to move anywhere.
7) State that quality is extremely important to the customer; hence, there are strict controls for transporting the products to ensure a quality delivery. These rules are:
- Objects may never stop – objects may never roll backwards
- Objects may not be dropped onto the ground
- Objects may not be touched by any person after the first person drops it into a pipe section
- Pipe sections may not touch each other
- When a person has an object in her pipe, she may not move her feet (she may move her arms and hands freely, and once the object has left the pipe she is free to move anywhere)
8. If any of these guidelines is broken, objects in the pipeline must be returned to the start area and transported again. Also, all members of the team assemble behind the line to start the next delivery.
9) An object delivered safely into the container never has to be redelivered, even if a rule is broken afterwards
10) If appropriate, ask the team to set a goal prior to making its first delivery. This goal represents the number of products the team feels it can successfully deliver in the time frame of the activity.
11) If asked, allow the group to practice moving objects to the container without monitoring infractions. However, any objects delivered must be returned to the start before they attempt to reach their goal.
- I will often times write the guidelines on flip chart paper to ensure that they are well understood. I phrase it as “These are the requirements of doing business with my customer, if you wish to keep our business each of these guidelines must be adhered to.”
Processing
The goal of processing is to evaluate how the team organized itself to achieve optimal performance.
- Did the team create a workable plane? How did this happen? Was time spent planning adequate?
- Did you set a clear goal? Was it realistic? Did the group agree on it? Did you reach it? Why or why not?
- What factors contributed to the team’s success? What factors made the task difficult?
- What about this activity is similar to or different from serving customers at work?
- On a scale of 1-10, 10 being high, how satisfied are you with your results? With your team process?
- What would you do differently next time to improve your effectiveness and performance?
Instructor Notes
Quality issues can be very challenging for some groups. If their efforts do not produce success, overlooking infractions becomes easier. Be clear in your mind about how you want to manage infractions during the activity-either by pointing them out and enforcing the rules or keeping track of when and how the infractions occurred for review as part of the processing.
Golf balls tend to be the easiest objects to control in the pipes. Providing the group with an assortment of objects makes the task more challenging. It illuminates the need for flexible planning and practice to adjust to changing dynamics when implementing a solution.
Variations
- The activity can be made easier by modifying or eliminating some of the rules. Allowing the objects to go backwards but never stop make the challenge significantly easier.
- A variation for additional complexity is to break the area between the start and the container into sections with 2-3 people stationed in each designated area. People may not cross the boundaries into another area. This dynamic tends to foster dialog about handling off work and cross functional communication and productivity.
- Instead of telling the team what the objects and goal bucket represent “deliveries to customer”, and “successful deliveries” have the group choose what the pipes, different objects, and goal bucket represent. For example with a student group the pipes – classes they must complete, the objects – each object is a student, and goal bucket – graduation. By doing this the group needs to think and reflect deeper in the activity leading to a more powerful processing session.
Thematic Connections
This activity provides an excellent opportunity for examining customer satisfaction issues, and even internal satisfaction issues. If the instructor assumes the role of customer and states the rules as delivery specifications, the activity can highlight how a group can work to develop a satisfying customer relationship.
This problem has also been used to illuminate the concept of the customer-supplier chain, where people come to understand how the work they do impacts others in the organization. For people who have little or no contact with external customers, this process can help them understand how what they do in fact does serve the end user or customer. For people who work with each other, the activity can illustrate how breakdowns in hand-offs between people can interrupt or stop delivery of a project, product or service anywhere in an organization’s structure.
References:
Smolowe, Ann., Butler, Steve., Murray Mark. Expanded Activity Guide For Adventure in Business. Project Adventure, Inc.: 1999
michael cardus is create-learning
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