Zoom – Istvan Banyai

Zoom is a book by Istvan Banyai made up of a series of images, included one inside the other. This interesting concept can be used in an Ice Breaker or Group Energizer activity. Indeed, I often use it during Kick-Off projects to get people to work together because not only is this workshop fun, but it also allows participants to experience a group dynamic and learn from it. Here is a description! 🙂

Instructions

After counting the number of participants, I select a sequence of images (of the same number) that I mix and I present the workshop:

In this workshop, you are all part ofone team.

You have one and the same objective : reconstruct the coherent sequence of images of this story.

However, your constraint is that you do not have the right to show your image.

THE result what I expect is for you to physically line up in the order of the images that you think is correct.

Is it clear to everyone? You have 15 minutes.

Questions then arise such as:

But can we…?

What I always answer:

You have one and the same objective : reconstruct the coherent sequence of images.

Your constraint is that you do not have the right to show your image.

I then distribute the images, start the timer and let the magic happen! 😉

Unrolled

Here is an example of a group of about twenty people to whom I proposed this workshop. Let's see what happened, from my point of view! 😉

Step 1: Discovery in small groups

The beginning of the workshop was an opportunity for each participant to discover their image, some being much more explicit than others! Naturally small groups formed to try to understand what the story concealed. Everyone then moved without hesitation from group to group in search of common ground.

Step 2: Grouping by themes

When themes emerged (boat, houses, Indian…), a movement of regrouping took place. Each group then tries to give meaning to its piece of history, but it was not always easy. It was then necessary to seek more information.

Step 3: Beginning of positioning

New small groups are formed to have a finer understanding of the different themes that have emerged. The participants begin to have a beginning of positioning with respect to each other. It is during this stage that the term “Zoom” is mentioned.

Step 4: Group sharing

First sharing in large group. The safest positions are materialized to prepare the final alignment and together they complete the sequence of images.

Step 5: Final check

I specify that there are 5 minutes left before the end of the allotted time. The group decides to do one last check, each describing aloud the content of their image.

Step 6: Final Alignment

Here is the final roster set by the team. Everyone discovers the images one by one in order and we celebrate their faultless performance together! 🙂

Debriefing

As always, the debriefing phase is essential to ensure participants' learning. Here are a few things:

Self-organization

What are the unique instructions you received?

Indeed, the participants are only given an objective, a constraint and a result to be obtained, which are the necessary components to stimulate self-organization. Let's not forget that freedom like self-organization only exists within a framework.

As General George Patton said: don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and be surprised by their ingenuity. »

Trust

Have you ever doubted what someone said to you?

The answer is most of the time “No” and this is perhaps one of the most profound learnings of the workshop. Indeed, each simply focused on what he had to do, based on the information shared by the members of his team and acted in order to achieve their common goal. The atmosphere of the group is then light, the exchanges effective and the interactions without hitches. There is finally something irrational in the trust at the start because nothing proved to us that everyone was of good will. Now the fact of starting from this postulate makes it easier to consider this hypothesis.

Global vision

If you had confined yourself to your image, what would your vision of history have been?

If everyone had stayed on the content of their own image, the story could have been about a rooster, or a boat, or a farm, or a bus... a set of seemingly incoherent elements with the others. However, put end to end, they then take on their full meaning and the general story is enriched.

Isn't this a striking parallel with the reality of the projects? Some may spec, others may develop or test, but all have a role to play in delivering the final product. I then often image this subject with the help of theallegory of the stonemasons.

Role of the facilitator

If you had the role of facilitator in the group, what would you have done?

If you have more than 31 people, so more people than the number of images contained in Zoom, you can always define other roles: observers or facilitators for example. I had the chance to observe a group of 45 people carrying out this workshop under these conditions and the facilitators chose 2 different strategies: they centralized the information or they linked people. Which strategy do you think is the most relevant? 😉

Imagine all the same the situation of the first strategy: I am a facilitator and therefore I do not see any image. I centralize information that corresponds to my interpretation of the various descriptions that I hear and that I must transmit to others. In other words, I have a role of serving hatch with a risk of tripping on the way. This strategy totally blocks self-organization.

The second strategy gives perspective to the team. As a facilitator, I have the opportunity to hear more things and therefore to give a more global vision of what is happening. I can then connect people to help them find the key to their problem. Isn't that ultimately the role of a facilitator? 🙂

Accuracy of descriptions

How precise was the information to be provided?

The concept of Zoom takes on its full interest here. Indeed, the picture-in-picture idea means that several people will see the same thing but from a slightly different perspective. So, how do you know what is the right information to give? How do you know what level of detail is needed to share? The important thing is ultimately not in the detail of the image but rather in the overall understanding of the story which becomes clearer as the conversations take place. We can then briefly talk about Agile documentation, which no longer acts as a reference base but rather as a support for conversation.

Conclusion

Zoom is a workshop that I particularly like, especially in the Kick-off and team alignment phases. Indeed, it is simple to animate, the instructions are simple for the participants and the learning is numerous. You therefore have the flexibility to direct the debriefing as you wish, depending on the team dynamics and the messages you want to convey as a priority! 🙂

Next step on my side: test Re-Zoom! 😉