We are looking to make some “technological improvements” to some of our team building simulations and would like to know if those changes would impact your capability of delivering them.
For those of you with The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, for example, we are going to add the ability to use a video to present The History of The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine along with a tight presentation of how to access and use The Videos by a tabletop.
My questions are:
- Do you have TWO lcd projectors?
- Do you have a Document Camera?
Explanation and Background:
We will give users the option to use ours or do this themselves as they explain the exercise. As many of you know, accessing information and resources available in The Mine and Its Gold and the Tortilla Flat videos allows for improved play and results.
Users of our Professional Edition of the exercise know that we suggest that the presentation use a map of the territory along with colored dots to represent the location of each team each day. This feedback allows for more information to go to the tabletops about the decisions made, relative progress, and might lend them information about the availability of Turbochargers.
In the past, we have suggested the use of overhead projectors, which can be purchased for $50 and used reliably to show progress and also share a pod’s results. In the larger games of 15 or more tables, it was very inexpensive to use that OHP to show the map and share the results for the teams.
We are thinking about suggesting that every person delivering the exercise use a Document Camera to capture movement and to share the results summary but those would also require a large monitor (for smaller games) or an lcd projector for larger sessions. These can be purchased for $300 or less but they do require projection onto a screen or monitor. Rentals of these are often $1000 or more, so there is a potential cost issue.
For big corporations and large training departments, these are probably very simple questions. For an individual consultant using the game as a profit center, these can be considerable capital expenditures.
Thanks for any comments and suggestions, either in this blog or directly back to me. Have fun out there and note that we are making significant improvements in ALL of our team building games,
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For the FUN of It!
Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement products. Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant who designs simple, powerful learning tools.
See our new teambuilding game, The Collaboration Journey Challenge
You can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com
See his poems and performance haiku poems at www.poemsontheworkplace.com
Learn more about Scott at his LinkedIn site.
Also published on Medium.
Dr. Scott Simmerman
The basic ideas in the post above generated some good discussions about how people are using new technology as the entire world shifts because of covid. Early problems with Zoom caused some companies to back away, but those access problems were fixed and Zoom continues to innovate. Zoom seems to be the most common interface to remote workers although a few are using Teams and Adobe and some of the others.
Browsers continue to be an issue for online trainers, but the standard ones like Chrome and Firefox and Safari continue to be the mainstream choices.
Most workers seem to use two screens for their remote work. Some work on desktop computer arrangements and many are using laptops connected to external monitors.
I have not seen any formal reporting of surveys of technical capability or the amount of technical support companies are providing to their remote workers. Training continues to be an issue, turnover continues to be an issue, and motivation continues to be an issue, but most companies are now firmly established with their remote work processes and with some hybrid adaptations as desired.
The world has changed. And we can also start to do things differently to better address so many of the old issues about how work is accomplished.