Why is this?
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Either… they have no idea what Project Management is all about!
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Or… they have already been involved in a project, and what they remember most is the planning tool known as GANTT, which holds nothing but bad memories for them!
Armed with this knowledge, together with a couple of Project Management teachers (Clément Desgourdes and Magali Thomas Lavielle) responsible for Year 1 Master students, we asked ourselves the question:
How can we generate interest, even create a real passion for this management method?
And, the unanimous answer was… through a game!
Description of the game:
- Teams of 8-9 students
- Each team receives various pieces of Lego
- Aim of the game: To build the tallest tower possible, of openwork design, able to withstand an earthquake
- Time permitted: 30 minutes
How does this game replicate real project management experience?
- A project delivers a unique product
Each tower was a unique creation (see photo below)
- A project has a start date and an end date
Each tower had to be completed in 30 minutes
- A project is progressive, with a number of key stages
The stages required to complete the tower included understanding the client’s requirements, team brainstorming to put forward a solution to the client, client validation, execution of the project, and client approval of finished tower
- A project is a question of teamwork
Teams comprised 8 - 9 students (which included 1 observer)
- A project has resource constraints
Each team of students had the same amount of Lego
- A project should capitalise on the experience gained, and incorporate a system of feedback
We allowed the teams time to share an analysis of their results and to carry out a team debriefing
Up to this point, the 2 hours allocated for this game achieved the intended objectives in terms of methodology, but not in terms of pedagogy!
The value of this particular experience lay in the mistakes made by the teams in terms of organising and managing the project! Indeed, like so many project teams, the students made a number of fundamental errors, such as:
- They didn’t refer back to us (the client) to determine our expectations and requirements
- They didn’t take time for structured reflection to decide what they were going to deliver to the client, and to plan the different stages of the project
- They didn’t ask the client to validate their ideas before starting the project execution stage
- They immediately appropriated the resources (Lego) without considering how to optimise their use
- Most of them didn’t take the time to get to know each other in order to capitalise on their diverse experience and knowledge
- They didn’t coordinate their work nor divide up the tasks
- They listened to each other, but due to a lack of ‘leadership’, they were unable to implement the ideas suggested
Etc.
And all this became clear to them when they analysed the reasons why all these towers, although being ‘masterpieces’, did not satisfy the client!
In just two hours, using a method that was extremely simple to implement, I believe that we managed to arouse their curiosity about this type of management.
They discovered the most obvious mistakes that occur when relying on ‘intuition’ in project management and, although they were disappointed and ‘frustrated’ that their projects did not satisfy the client, they certainly gained a lot of experience!
