The marshmallow challenge, by Peter Skillman
Agile Games Series
#️⃣ The activity in 3 words: #agile #iteration #prototyping
📑 When should you use it?
To have a good time while encouraging team-building (some examples: an ice-breaker in a workshop or ideation session, during a Scrum retrospective).
To prove the importance of iteration to achieve desired results.
💡 Aha! moments:
The more you iterate by testing the stability of your tower adding the marshmallow on top, the better. This is not usually the case, teams will focus on building the tower taking for granted the weight of the marshmallow, which will increase the probability of the tower to fall.
The marshmallow could be used as an allegory of the different assumptions and constraints that are not thought when pursuing a goal. Therefore the more you test and adapt your prototype having these constraints in mind, the more probability of succeeding on the goal.
🔍Where did I find it?
From the Ted talk "Build a tower, build a team" by Tom Wujec.
There is a blog under this name as well, that provides information on the dynamic and posts on entrepreneurship marshmallowchallenge.com.
👨👩👧👦 Play it: Teams of 3-4 people (minimum 2 teams).
⏳ Duration: 18 minutes for the dynamic + up to 10 min for results and reflection.
💻 Possible on remote?: Not really.
📎 Materials:
Each team should have:
20 sticks of spaghetti
Tape
String
Scissors
1 marshmallow
The moderator should have:
Measuring tape
Countdown timer
📐Directions:
Hand the material and explain the objective to the group > Build the tallest tower in 18 min, each tower must have the marshmallow on top.
Set the timer to 18 minutes.
Go!
While you see each group building their towers, pay attention on the way they organize to plan, design and build. Some questions for you to notice and reflect at the end of the session.
Observe: Did they iterated? Did they waited for the last minute to add the marshmallow? Did the towers fall? What do they think went right and wrong on their process that lead to their result?
4. Stop the dynamic after the 18 min pass.
5. Ask everyone to remove their hands from the tower.
Optional: Make a joke or two to the teams for which their tower did not survive... such is life. 🤷
6. Measure the towers and ask for an ovation (or few claps at least) for the winner team.
7. Reflect on your and their observations.
🖤 Inspiration: Here more ideas googling "Marshmallow Challenge"