Comments on ‘Operation Challenge’ at Kangaroo Valley (standard:non fiction, 526 words)
Author: PeterFromOZ	Added: Apr 02 2011	Views/Reads: 3106/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Comments on ‘Operation Challenge’ at Kangaroo Valley - is comments about a physical and team-work building exercise in Australia

Comments on ‘Operation Challenge' at Kangaroo Valley 

‘Operation Challenge' strikes me as being about making the participants
feel good about being team players. I have nothing against this. But 
what also strikes me about it is that when I reflect on its activities, 
I have learnt lessons which were unintended. The lessons I learnt from 
OC, on reflection, are: 

1. Question Authority 

2. When inadequate resources are provided, more personnel are needed. 

The Red Machine 

The red machine is a ‘problem' where a small team is given the job of
disassembling a widget – into the smallest possible parts, passing each 
piece through the smallest hole of a screen, each team member going 
through the screen, and reassembling the widget. This must be done in 
the fastest possible time. 

The lesson that I learnt from this is: Question Authority 

Q) Why disassemble the widget (at all)? Q) Why disassemble it into the
smallest possible components? – Why not simply disassemble it into a 
few large pieces and then pass them through the largest hole? Q) Why is 
necessary to pass the pieces through the smallest holes? This is not 
for quality control reasons, as there is no time taken to inspect the 
pieces of the widget once it has been disassembled. Indeed consider the 
case of if the widget were comprised of 1000 pieces, surely you would 
agree that the same procedure would be foolhardy, and that the faster 
you did it the greater the chances of incorrectly reassembling it. The 
lesson learned then is: disassemble it into the fewest number of 
pieces. 

If the team were to simply disassemble the widget into a few components,
then the design of the screen could be simplified to just one large 
hole – which need not be any bigger than the biggest existing hole in 
the current screen. 

Q) Why is speed a factor? Surely safety has not been considered. I am
surprised that someone has not yet had an eye poked out. Are the pieces 
consider to be unbreakable? If yes, then they could well injure 
someone, particularly if they are rushed around. If not, then the 
pieces could be broken easily. Indeed one tip we were given was to 
loosen the strap then hit it hard to make it fall apart (then continue 
disassembly). Not a good idea if it is fragile! 

The Bottom-Less Pit 

This is an exercise where the team has to cross a bottom-less pit using
limited resources. There are 2 long planks supplied – but neither of 
these will reach across (and some other equipment). This exercise is 
meant to emphasis the importance of teamwork – yes it can be done, 
however, this seems to illustrate lesson #2: When inadequate resources 
are provided, more personnel are needed. If a long-enough plank were 
supplied then only one person would be needed. The extra people are 
required because the resources supplied are inadequate for one person 
to get across to the other side. 

There were other activities which were quite enjoyable. I'm sorry that
these comments are quite negative but I feel that they needed to be 
said, and while others may have thought them, no-one was saying them.


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