Everest simulation essay sample

Objective of a game based approach to teaching teamwork skills: To focus on very specific problems those are usually hard to identify and correct. 1. Teams often prove dumber than individual members. Why? This is caused by a phenomenon called “ process loss” – the opposite of “ wisdom of crowds”. Process loss happens because teams fail to share information, get trapped by various conflicting goals, lose themselves in unproductive argument, and fall into a pattern of groupthink.

What should you expect?
1. You would be shown a video describing the mountain climbing experience 2. Team-members will be assigned roles with individual descriptions and goals – ranging from extreme sports enthusiast to trip doctor 3. Some challenges you would face – Shortage of oxygen, terrible weather, sudden illness 4. How to get to the top:

a. Work together as a team, leveraging the strength of each team-member b. Share information
c. Adapt to rapidly changing circumstances
d. What the leader needs to do: Align the goals of each player to the goals of the team. The big picture is the most important, but individual goals need to be given sufficient importance as well. 5. You would interact with stylized map of mountain via a selection of checkboxes 6. Graphs and graphics will be there for reference – for team meteorologist to predict weather or for team doctor to analyze illness 7. Slightly different goals and slightly different information is provided to different players – This is the biggest challenge 8. The goal is to reach at the top as a team, sticking solely to individual requirements/goals may be disastrous.

Example: a. The doctor may be having crucial information about various diseases, but he cannot act on that info if the marathon runner fails to report she is feeling ill – a likely occurrence given that the game encourages her to hide the information 9. You would be chatting with each other privately using some IM system 10. These simple elements combine to create a very immersive and emotional experience — conspiracies form between the meteorologist and the photographer, while the doctor hides the fact that there is only one dose of aspirin remaining. Halfway through the exercise, any observer will be able to tell the differences between teams that are overcoming process loss and teams that have succumbed to it. The functional teams are productively calculating their remaining oxygen supply, while the dysfunctional teams horde information. 11. The rules are designed to encourage teamwork and punish failures to communicate.

1. Have a clear strategy as to the approach your team intends to take, and how would you deal with situations wherein the personal goals collide with the team goals 2. Share the character profile information with each other at the very beginning. Do not be hasty in deciding what information is relevant and what is not. This has been proven wrong many a times, since you would face situations that will be open to more than one interpretation