New ball points game record?
Last night Mike and I ran Boris Gloger’s “ball points” game for the monthly Cape Town SPIN meeting.
We had a group of twenty-something IT professionals who got off to a flying start by immediately organising themselves into the classic concentric circle formation. Yet their score in sprints 1 and 2 were pedestrian. In the reflection after sprint 2 they shed one member to make their number even (illegal?). In sprint 3 the team ‘gelled’ and the score raced up to 60! They asked what the record is. We said we thought it was eighty-something.
Then they made an adjustment to their process that Mike and I had not seen in perhaps 20 times we’ve done this exercise: they threw the balls two at a time. Not exactly throwing, mind you; more like dropping from one person’s hands into the next. To my surprise it worked brilliantly with very few ‘bugs’ (dropped balls). They managed 93 and 103 points in their final sprints and were justifiably pleased with themselves.
Is this a new world record?
Yes – besides a story I have heard of Tobias this is the new world record. boris
Hi Peter. Sounds like fun. I guess the rules change from trainer to trainer. I remember Stacia once telling me that a team of hers threw the entire bag of balls around multiple times. I think they probably scored more than 103
…but I’ll let Stacia speak to that.
I have a “one ball at a time” rule, exactly to encourage throwing rather than dropping. What I have found is that when teams are using ‘drop’ instead of ‘throw’ they don’t get into the same flow state. The rhythm isn’t quite there, or something. With a team following the “one ball at a time” rule, and throwing, I have seen as high as 80. It is an extraordinary sight.
In the end, the rules don’t matter so much. What matters is the move towards self-organization and the awakening of a team to the power of an empirical process. It’s all good.
I had a different kind of record set by a team recently.
In the first round they scored 0 points.
In the second round they scored 0 points.
In the third round they scored 3 points.
This was positively the worst ever. I let them run to 8 rounds (unheard of previously) and they reached 35.
If I could analyze the problem I’d say they never strove for greatness, being happy with “better” and they wouldn’t ever stop talking and actually listen to each other. The most successful groups I have seen do this are almost completely silent by the final rounds.
Fascinating, Tobias. I know for myself that learning to speak less and listen more is a life-long journey! It also makes me wonder if we need to incorporate some training in listening skills into our courses? Do you know of a good game to teach this?
Boris reports today that Alan Atals recently had a team score 104. Fame is short-lived. Happily the learning from this game about empiricism is not.