This question was asked in a discussion group on Linkedin this week, along with another similar one about your favourite team-building activity.

It was great to see that without any input from RSVP Design, two of our activities were mentioned: Challenging Assumptions was described as a ‘go-to’ activity by a training consultant from Australia and a number of people in the USA cited Colorblind (even if they didn’t spell it correctly!) as their favourite (or favorite) ever tool.

It is great to know that these products are now being used and recommended around the world and it made me think of my favourites from our portfolio, apart from the obvious pair mentioned above.

I guess there would be three more that I’ve used more than any others and that still give me a buzz every time I see people learning from  them.

1. The first has to be Images of Organisations. These cleverly designed and produced cartoon images of the feelings people experience in a range of organisational situations are so versatile and open discussion on everything from teamworking and leadership to change management and training itself.

2. My second choice would be Webmaster – a challenging exercise that brings large groups together in a problem-solving and process improvement activity that represents a wide range of organisational challenges. It offers masses of opportunities to learn about teamwork, planning, supervisory leadership – and appeals to all those learners who like a real ‘hands-on job’ to get stuck into!

3. My third choice would be a less well-known product: the T-trade toolbox that combines two great inter-group activities – the tough negotiation exercise that is T-Trade itself and the fantastic accompanying exercise, PosT-iT. Despite seeing this activity hundreds of times, I never cease to be amazed at the patterns of human behaviour it illustrates and the potential for conflict, competition and collaboration that it raises….

If my favourite activities have triggered your interest, read more about them through the following links.

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/colourblind%C2%AE-p-13.html

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/challenging-assumptions%C2%99-p-27.html

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/images-of-organisations%C2%99-p-70.html

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/webmaster%C2%AE-p-26.html

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/ttrade%C2%99-p-12.html

Please let us know your favourites and how and where you use them!

Best wishes,

Ann

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It is 25 years this month since I began to work in the ‘development training’ business and recognised the power of using experiential learning activities. Since then, much has changed in our knowledge and understanding about why and how we use experiential learning and in the organisational landscape in which we offer our services. Here are a few of the things that have changed since I began my chequered career through learning and development!

1. My first programme in 1986 was a twenty-one day residential programme for young, high potential graduates on a management development programme for a major retailer. In three weeks of personal development we could change lives! I can’t see many employers releasing their staff for a continuous period of twenty-one days in 2011. We have become skilled in achieving powerful results from short, relevant activities and targeted interventions that really focus the learning on specific outcomes established in advance. Examples are our ‘bite-size’ workshops that can be delivered in 2 hour modules: have a look at this example around the theme of ‘Breakthrough Thinking’

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/breakthrough-thinking-workshop-p-31.html

2. Almost all structured experiential learning was done in the outdoors. We offered a full range of adventure and outdoor activities and it was an essential requirement of every programme that participants found multiple ways of getting wet! Since then, we’ve been able to use the power of experiential learning by creating smaller scale but carefully designed activities that can be offered in classrooms, seminar rooms and offices as well as an outdoor environment. The RSVP design website gives you a broad choice of activities we’ve developed over this time!

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk

3. We had to type, Tippex and photocopy all of our paperwork: we thought twice about making a change to a programme! Who would have imagined the potential of modern technology to offer learning through electronic and mobile media and to bring together learnign groups from around the world? Contact us to check out RSVP Design’s work in the field of mobile learning and our connections with Dynamically Loaded – breaking new ground in learning using mobile technologies.

4. We were learner focused: everything we did was designed to meet the needs of our learners. Over 25 years I’ve experienced a move away from the needs of the learner to delivering ’sheep-dip’ training to meet organisational targets. However, more recently, as organisations have been forced to recognise the need for flexibility, adaptability and resilience in the face of change we are starting to focus on the learner again. We’ve recently had the honour of being selected to bring a new model of ‘Learning Power’ to the business world: it is an exciting initiative for 2011 and one we are convinced will make a genuine contribution to organisational learning.

See our new work on ELLI: the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/trainer-training/

I could list many more changes – I’d be really interested in hearing how you feel our profession has changed and developed, what we do better now than 25 years ago – and what we may have lost in the process of change!

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I am delighted to announce that Interel Inc. from San Francisco and RSVP Design Ltd. are forming a new partnership that will see their respective product portfolios merge and both organisations work together to continue to support customers around the world with the most effective activity-based learning tools and learning design support. Although RSVP Design and Interel have worked together informally for several years this is a new development in formally providing all shipping and logistical support for both sets of products. Interel in the US will support all US customers and RSVP Design in the UK will support all non-US customers – both sets of products will be available for purchase from either location.

Key product designers Boyd Watkins, Geoff Cox and Ann Alder have worked together before but this announcement signals an intention to provide a truly global and probably unparalleled level of experience in designing effective learning environments.

You can download the official press release here: RSVP Design & Interel Press Release

Please visit the RSVP Design online store to see the additional Interel experiential learning devices now added. Larger scale devices like Pyramid, Network and Mosaic provide some fantastic new tools for large group meetings and for use in outdoor environments.

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We have been struggling for several years to adequately describe what we do in terms of our ‘30 second elevator pitch’. It’s that horrible bit when an acquaintance or even a close friend/relative says ‘Graham, what do RSVP Design actually do?’ We use terms like experiential learning or activity-based learning – but these typically only work for people who are immersed in learning & development and understand this jargon. I was glad therefore to read a couple of articles recently which describes some of what we do in more plain English terms. The first was the wonderful Thiagi (see http://www.thiagi.com/index.html ). Thiagi was talking about ‘Jolts’ – short pieces of activity/games/training that can be used to ‘wake-up’ delegates and remind them that things were not what they thought, or to ensure that they are ready to accept a change in pace, direction, content or some other move in terms of the training programme. What I love about Thiagi’s philosophy is that he still maintains that you spend every second you have with your learners focused on delivering the required learning outcomes (even although he sometimes uses some very simplistic ideas that I think might not work with a typically cynical UK senior management group). This is in contrast to many US-based trainers who still use rubber chickens and a host of other childish ice-breakers that they genuinely believe will somehow make people more responsive to their forthcoming, and finally relevant, learning content!

I think a ‘jolt’ is a good example of what we provide through some of our learning tools and helps people understand what we mean by creating ‘learning tools that are effective and engaging’. I’d consider tools such as Challenging Assumptions, Images of Customer Experience and Seeing the Point as successful ‘Jolts’ . Although Thiagi maintains Jolts should be short in time duration, I’ve also seen many wonderful insights created through a  Jolt delivered by a longer experiential activity like Colourblind that can take 30 minutes to complete. I do think people often need a good amount of time to really reflect on the ‘Jolt’.

The second article discussed the ‘triune brain theory’ (also important in Whole Brain Learning Theory) and the fact that although humans have many specialist parts of our brain, a lot of training seems only to be aimed at particular parts. The triune brain theory model considers our brain as evolving from three distinct parts – the reptilian brain, which manages typical ‘fight or flight’ responses; the mammalian brain or limbic system which manages emotions and memory; and the neo-cortex or ‘upper’ brain which deals with logic, analysis, synthesis etc. A lot of training aimed at the so-called higher-order thinking processes can forget to include key areas such as emotion and memory – much of which makes learning ’stick’  and therefore be more likely to be applied, and is key in behavioural change. This article can be found in the October 2010 edition of Training Journal: ‘The Three Brain of Training’. There are a lot of tips and techniques for trainers that we would certainly agree with – and would also suggest that well designed experiential activities can provide the necessary engagement with all three brains:

1. They can provide that ’safe’ environment necessary for rehearsing new skills and behaviours, satisfying the reptilian brain

2.They can provide the emotional engagement for the mammalian brain through providing engaging and elegant game play that can provide a memorable ‘anchor’ for later recall and application

3. They can provide the necessary challenge required in adult learning that is also clearly linked to workplace issues,  to satisfy the upper level thinking processes for the neo-cortex that allows for generative learning where participants can integrate their new learning with old models.

I’m happy tell people that ‘we design games that engage each one of your three brains!’

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There are times when a trainer or facilitator ask me for an ‘icebreaker’ and it makes me shudder. I’ve seen some great training delivery in my time – and I’ve sat through some pretty awful sessions too. I think most learners have made up their minds about what a session is going to be like after the first few minutes and that decision is often made on the basis of the introductory activity – or lack of it.  So I’m quite prepared to stand on my soapbox and claim that getting your introductory activities right is a crucial part of your learning design process. Any old ‘icebreaker’ just won’t do!

Face-to-face time in learning is becoming increasingly precious. Yet very often, the process of introducing the course, the participants and ‘breaking the ice’ takes a disproportionate amount of time and doesn’t add value or move towards the learning objectives. And I’m sure we’ve all sat through the lengthy ’round table introductions’ that we could have done informally in a few minutes if we’d had the opportunity to get up and move! So here’s the challenge – find a means of introducing yourself and the group that delivers new insights and learning and ‘tunes people in’ to the core content of your training session.

Here are a few ideas:

1. Use what I call ‘people bingo’. Create a grid of 25 squares. In each one, write a statement about something that it would be genuinely useful to know eg. ‘Someone who is currently working on Project X’, ‘Someone who has experience of Y,’ ‘Someone who has experience of working with a competitor’, ‘Someone who has qualification Z’. Choose things relevant to your group and objectives. Give everyone a copy of the grid – the ‘bingo’ sheet – and give them 10 minutes to circulate and collect as many different signatures in the boxes as they can. They’ll need to talk to each other!!

2. Use imagery. RSVP Design’s ‘Images of Organisations’ and ‘Images of Customer Service’ are great examples of how carefully selected images can generate useful and relevant early discussion and focus people on the theme of the training or to benchmark how they are feeling at the start of an event.

3. Begin with an activity that gets people thinking and talking about the content of the programme. Our  ‘Challenging Assumptions’ puzzle is a quick and simple way of introducing people to themes around problem-solving, innovation and  change management. In just a few minutes they experience an activity that they want to talk about and, as they do so, the introductions happen naturally in a relevant learning context.

4. On a ‘technical’ training programme, use a group activity that gets a group working together and also identifies what they already know of the material they will be learning about. RSVP design’s ‘Learning Loops’ is a great example – a quick, multiple-choice question game that can be tailored to use your own content and then provides an excellent way of testing pre-training and post-training knowledge, whilst also building your learning group as they problem-solve together.

For more ideas and more information about any of the activities suggested above, have a look at the website or drop us a line!

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Welcome to RSVP Design’s website and online shop. We are designers, authors and facilitators of a wide range of activity based learning tools, resources and programmes.

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