An experience of non-musical chairs

The game of non-musical chairs is a game that I have observed on several occasions and that I have always found very fun! This is why I decided to insert it in return for a break during a training session, shortly after the Emergence of Values workshop that I described in a previous post.

 Reminder of the framework of the activity

A number of chairs corresponding to the number of participants + one chair are placed in an empty space.

Note: The layout is often done naturally in a circle but it is not mandatory (quite the contrary! ;-)).

Each participant sits on a chair, so there is one left empty.

• The team's objective is to keep the game host from sitting for 60 seconds, usually by moving onto the empty chair.

However, participants must respect the following rules:

• You cannot touch the host: it is forbidden to block him, push him, hold him back… We are civilized people after all!

• Each time a participant gets up from his chair, he is forced to sit down on another chair.

What we can expect

Yes, I've often seen him play, but I've never animated him! And like any good self-respecting workshop facilitator, it was important that I knew what I wanted to convey – let's not forget that we are not here (only) to play! :-p

So I went to see the description done by Alexandre Boutin on the subject and focused on the learning objectives:

• Self-organization
• Communication
• Simplicity
• Trust

Procedure

The game took place in several iterations with about 2 minutes of time between each to allow the team to organize themselves.

Note: It may be appropriate to use a flipchart to record the results of the different iterations.

Iteration 1: the shock

The first iteration is often the most shocking to the team. Indeed, it usually only lasts a few seconds (2 in my case!) because everyone looked into each other's eyes while I sat quietly on the empty chair. Who should have stood up? :-p

The most common case is rather the case where a person moves on the empty chair and where the animator takes his place directly. People often think about what to do in relation to the objective, but forget the impacts that this generates and therefore the behavior to adopt accordingly!

This is then the questioning of the group:

• “Ah, I didn't think it would be so fast! »
• “We have to get organized! »
• " It is not possible ! »
• "I didn't see it like that! »

The 2 minutes of time is filled with ideas, so much so that when the time was up, they hadn't agreed on a strategy!

Iteration 2: individuals

Iteration 2 lasted about 12 seconds. Not having agreed on a strategy, some people acted on their own while others were still waiting.

Having a better knowledge of the context, the team was better able to develop actions to be able to respond to the problem, however, not having organized itself, we only saw individual initiatives independent of the team. Very little communication or at least a lot of directives on both sides but without any real strategy.

However, we will still notice a nice improvement in the time, which I would simply explain by the fact that some were able to let their intuition speak and therefore instinctively acted! 😉

The 2 minutes of time are more constructed, everyone tries to quickly express their ideas and leadership behaviors emerge. The strategies become complicated: turn in different directions, move diametrically to the empty chair, swap chairs in groups...

Some exchanges begin with me to fully understand the rules and the objective, I could feel some anxiety after this second failure.

Again, there is no decision made until the next iteration restarts.

Iteration 3: despair

Iteration 3 starts with a bang but it's chaos, and the iteration stops after a few seconds.

The exchanges were this time a little more inflated:

• " It's impossible ! »
• "It's the rules that don't work!" »
• " I am tired… "
• “But he is next to us when we talk, he hears everything! »
• “We will never get there! »
• “He anticipates our movements, that's not normal! »

The anxiety anticipated in the previous iteration had increased to the point of almost causing abandonments. It was nevertheless important to remember that the constraints were indeed those expressed initially, and that the solution was not in changing the framework.

However, the hitherto inconspicuous leaders began to appear more precisely:

• "Come on, we'll get there! »
• “We are experimenting! »
• "Let's keep it simple! »
• "Let's all get up at the same time so he doesn't know where he is anymore!" »

The 2 minutes of team time were conducive to the development of a simple strategy to implement, refocusing people on the objective to be achieved. Everyone speaks more or less and listens to each other to organize themselves as well as possible for the iteration that follows.

Iteration 4: experimentation

Iteration 4 begins with the eyes of the participants fixed on me as I enter the playground – I had moved away to let them think among themselves. I don't rush but I already feel more organization in the movements of the team, the communication is still discreet and managed mainly by the few leaders of the group identified previously.

All it took was a movement error and the team's misunderstanding for the iteration to stop, around 20 seconds. A person did not move at the right time, we can see that the team strategy is not yet clear for everyone.

Feeling that the team had regained some energy with this iteration, I offered them one last before moving on to the debriefing.

2 minutes of team time where we could have believed in a real scrum for the final sprint. I let them once again think about their last strategy before coming back for the last lap.

Iteration 5: The Force Awakens

Iteration 5 begins in motion. As soon as they arrived on the playing field, the team began to move, some stand so that the movement of one makes everything move.

The noise level is quite high, the group expresses itself and communicates – well ok, they shout! – and still won't stop moving, adapting to my attempts. At one very moment, I feel an opening in this formation and go towards the chair left empty and one of the participants gets up and throws herself on the chair all out of breath! A great proof of initiative for the group!

The iteration felt like a kind of organized chaos where people acted a bit on instinct while generally respecting the group strategy.

The iteration ended in 48 seconds with a few smiles on their faces, sweat on a few foreheads and above all the feeling of having done the maximum.

Debriefing

The game phase lasted about 30 minutes. The debriefing was particularly interesting, the energy of the group having returned after this phase of depression in the middle of the game.

Here are a few things:

• Participants were able to experience theself-organization speak teamwork. They didn't need a leader but a point leaders. Indeed, when the inspiration provided by one leader decreases, the inspiration of another takes over.

• There communication enabled the team to to commit and to find a strategy that suited him as long as the latter remained simple. Indeed, little time was allocated to the team to organize itself and the respect of timeboxes was deliberately rigorous. They were thus able to use thecollective intelligence so dear to agility during periods of retrospectives team what made them live thecontinuous improvement.

• When the iteration is launched, the team members must have trust in the fact that the right person will do the right thing at the right time, we could even speak here of Just in time.

• A person did not feel listened to during certain phases of team retrospectives, it is then that the role of facilitator team was raised. Indeed, the profiles in a team are different, and you have to make sure that everyone can express themselves.

• To this I have added a brief description of the model of group dynamic of Tuckman (Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning) which I found relevant in view of the behaviors observed during the different iterations. We could also draw a parallel with the calibration of the team in Scrum which takes about 4 to 5 iterations to stabilize.

Animation notes:

• Make sure that the workshop instructions are understood by everyone as this can lead to misunderstandings that will hinder learning.

• Don't forget that the participants are there to learn, even if frustration can be a way, don't let them taste like failure. Encourage them, value their progress and their learning, ask the right questions… in other words, “coach them”! 🙂

Finally, I went to the Paper Board and asked the participants what process, what actions they had taken during this experience.

With a little help, we came up with the following actions, which I wrote on post-it notes:

• Preparing a strategy
• To move
• To certify
• To reflect on
• Communicate

I placed the post-its on the Paper Board by linking them as follows:

Does this remind you of anything? 🙂