Plastic Wrap
Time Allowance: 10 Minutes
Equipment Needed: A role of very inexpensive plastic wrap cut to four inches wide.
Steps
1. A group moves from one side of a room to another as fast as they can as a unit wrapped by plastic wrap. Icebreaker, gets people close, sets tone for creative problem solving, fun!
2. Ask everyone in the group to gather in a tight clump, shoulder to shoulder. Take the four inch wide roll of plastic wrap and begin wrapping it around the whole group at about waist height. Make about five rounds while emphasizing to the group that they should not break the band holding them together, and they should not take it off the group.
3. Once they are wrapped up, ask them how fast they think they can get from one side of the room and touch the other side of the room. When they have guessed, time their travel, and celebrate the effort regardless. Ask them if they could travel the same distance in a shorter time. “Yes” is almost always immediately the reply. Time them again when they have problem solved enough. Usually the time has shortened significantly, but they are resistant to make another run.
4. Ask everyone to move to the center of the room and back away from the center of the circle until the band breaks or they just can’t move back anymore. When you use good stretchy plastic wrap, the circle often stretches thirty feet in diameter or more and people see that they just had to stretch their boundaries to accomplish their goals.
5. Variation: Place three objects in three separate locations. Put them far enough apart so that the whole group has to move from place to place to touch each one as quickly as possible. Emphasize that they should not break the band. When their time is as low as they want, ask them to stretch the band. Hopefully you placed the objects in such a way that all three can be touched simultaneously.
Processing Issues
Making Group Decisions
Communication