tom-wujec

Why can children be better at building a tower (or business model) as directors?

Well, not exactly true. It has been found that children can be better in building the tower from spaghetti stick in the so called spaghetti challenge as recent graduates of business schools. Only MBAs otherwise substantially improve their performance if they have a group leader or better to say facilitator. Interestingly, what do you think?

What am I actually talking about? About the game, spaghetti challenge or as it is also called the “Build a tower, build a team.” And what has a game to do with the new business models design? A lot. While playing the game a number of properties, feelings, skills, cooperation … comes out, all of which are some essentials in the business models design. It is hard to write about the game, so here are only the basic instructions of the game itself.

You need:

  1. 20 spaghetti sticks;
  2. 0,91 m of tape, 0,91 m of cord and 1x marshmallow; and
  3. 18 minutes of time (for one repetition of the game).

Then, it makes sense to consider at least the following basic instructions:
+ we are looking for the highest free-standing structure,
+ complete marshmallow must be on top;
+ use all or not of the spaghetti, cord or tape, or their parts.

Winning team (which should have four participants) is one achieving the highest structure (to make a stable stand), measured from the ground (which is usually a table) to the top of a marshmallow. And, who is in your winner?

The key to success in the game is the ability of prototyping. If you have been trained in finding a single one correct solutions to the problems (as is still is the case in the most business school), it is very likely that in this game you will not show all of your potentials. Designers have the advantage here. Because they were already basically trained to understand the value of prototyping.

 

Tom Wujec: Buid a tower, build a team. Learn more about the presented game in the video (6.52 minutes)

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