Golden Gate A bridge from ...

team to team
The Golden Gate exercise gathers teams together,in order to work for a common goal, facilitates communication and the way of overcoming obstacles that come out when some tasks are divided in subtasks. It is a challenging exercise that connects fun with the feeling of collective success/achievements.

Objectives of the Golden Gate exercise: The development of any possible communication channels among sub-teams that work for a collective goal The development of resources management and planning in order to accomplish their objectives having shortened resources Practice of the ideas implementation and the transition from theoretical side of a project to a deliverable. Neccessary resources: white papers, A4 15 quires/packs 15 scissors 15 staplers Makers Scotch tapes Notebooks and pens Participants: 150 participants that will be divided into 15 sub-teams, self-organized and supervised by 5 trainers. Necessary time: 90 minutes

Exercise consecution First phase: plenum for 10 minutes The participants will be given their mission and methods of how should they work: o Their task is to build a bridge, named Golden Gate, as they can see in the picture below, using only the given resources o The participants will be divided into 15 teams according to an established algorithm ( coloured name plates, preformed groups etc.) o Each sub-team will have a name and a victory call o Each sub-team will have to build only a part of the entire bridge; the parts will be negociated among the group leaders o Finally, the Golden Gate will be built from different parts, but it has to be a unitary design/construction that is self sustainable,too.

o Each team will receive certain technical requiremets for building the Golden Gate.

Dimensions: Total length of the Golden Gate: 5m Height of the bridge: 1 cm max. Height of the entire bridge,including the bankseats: 1.5m Width of the bridge: 50 cm No.of bankseats: 8 bankseats and 2 bridgheads The bridge has to be self sustainable. 2nd phase: Each team will establish its own name and victory call that will be practiced and heard by the others. Moreover, they will name a leader that is the only person who can communicate with/ contact the leaders of the other teams. 3rd phase: in teams, 5 minutes Each team will be given several necessary materials in order to accomplish their final goal (a unitary bridge) and the needed instructions 4th phase: only the leaders, 10 minutes All leaders will meet and negociate the parts of the bridge they will build in their teams ( there are 2 bridgeheads and 8 identical segments in the middle) The leaders will create a first draft of how they will build the bridge and join their teams afterwards 5th phase: in teams, 45 min

Each team will build their chosen part of the bridge, taking into consideration that in the end all the parts should build a unitary bridge,Golden Gate During the 45 min the leaders can meet again 3 times at most) with permission from the trainers

6th phase: plenum, 10min Teams come together and assemble the built parts of the bridge They have the chance to touch up the bridge and to fix on other piles, too.

Debriefing To observe: activity planning, roles in teams, communication, teams collaboration, use of/sharing resources.