The
Marshmallow Challenge is a fun and instructive design exercise that encourages
teams to experience simple and profound lessons in collaboration, innovation
and creativity. The task is simple and
takes only eighteen minutes. Teams must build the tallest freestanding
structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string,
and one marshmallow. The marshmallow need to be on top.
Do
you agree with Tom Wujec's analysis of why kindergarteners perform better on
the Spaghetti Challenge than MBA students? Can you think of any other reasons
why kids might perform better?
Yes,
I agree with Tom's analysis on kindergartners versus MBA students. Why? Business
students talk about it, they figure out what it's going to look like, they
jockey for power and position. They spend time planning, organizing and
controlling as they sketch out the spaghetti ideas. They spend the majority of
their time assembling the sticks into ever-growing structures. And then, just
as they are running out of time, someone takes the marshmallow and puts in on
top. They stand back and say "wow" and they admire their work. Then
the weight of the marshmallow causes the structure to buckle and collapse. Business
students are usually trained in their graduate curriculum to develop and
implement the single right plan. Then the execution and implementation stage
begins. So sometimes MBA students get distracted and "bogged down in the
details" such as "paralysis by analysis" which is time consuming
and not usually value added. This is what happens, they run out of time after putting
the marshmallow on the top and the crisis starts. Sound familiar in business?
What
kindergartners do differently is that they start with the marshmallow and they
build successive prototypes always keeping the marshmallow on top so they will
have multiple opportunities to fix when they build prototypes along the way.
Designers recognize this type of collaboration as the foundation of the iterative
process. And with each prototype version, kids get instant feedback input about
what works and what doesn't work. Kids are usually more creative and innovative
as far as ideas and implementation along with experimenting and freewheeling.
Failure is not on their mind or in their plan. They want to have fun and
succeed. Children are artists.
In
your view, why do CEOs with an executive assistant perform better than a group
of CEOs alone?
Executive
assistants usually have good organizational skills along with being creative, innovative
with new ideas and approaches. They coach and communicate with CEOs on these
along with providing closed-loop communication. They get the players involved
and engaged in the process. They are the go to person to get things done.
If
you were asked to facilitate a process intervention workshop, how could you
relate the video to process intervention skills?
The
Marshmallow is a great opportunity as a icebreaker activity, get a team into a
creative frame of mind, and encourage your organization to think about what it
takes to improve creativity, innovation and problem-solving. In addition, it is
a powerful technique to improve a team's capacity to generate new ideas, build
rapport and incorporate prototyping - all of which are at the heart of creative
innovation.
Lessons
emerge when comparing teams' performance. Who tends to do the worst? Why? Who
tends to do the best? Why? What improves performance? What destroys it?
What
can you take away from this exercise to immediately use in your career?
First
is the importance of icebreaker activities as learning exercises. Second is the
importance of creativity, innovation and problem-solving for new ideas and
approaches. I have had the opportunity to work for several aerospace companies
that are big on this along with "experimenting." Lockheed Martin has
the "Skunk Works" and Boeing has the "Phantom Works" for creative
collaboration in advanced research development and applications for aerospace.
Lockheed developed the SR-71 Blackbird, U-2 Dragon Lady and F-117 Nighthawk. In
addition, lean manufacturing and the Toyota Production System (TPS) promote "moonshining"
and "trystorming" to experiment with new ideas prior to
implementation. These are usually included in continuous improvement
activities, e.g., kaizen, value stream mapping (VSM) etc. It all starts with an
idea, sketch, build a prototype mock-up, try it out and see if it works, change
modify it, try it out again. Then proceed with full design and implementation.
Another great example is the "Post It Note" that was developed by
experimenting at 3M.
References
Tom Wujec: Build a tower, build a team (TED Talks) (2010). Retrieved from
http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower
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