The Three Describers
the three describers exercise (introductions, icebreaker, johari mutual awareness, team dynamics, team development)
This is a long explanation for actually a very simple activity.
The game is for groups of up to twenty people, or more provided they know each other.
Equipment and set up:
• Split the group into equal teams of three or four people.
• Teams of five or six are okay although will require firm time control. Teams of seven or more are not recommended.
• Issue each person a pen/pencil and four note-sized pieces of paper, or four sticky-notes - 3-5 inches wide.
• Each team should be sat around their own table, or around ends/corners of a big table, or alternatively on the floor, or around a wall-space if using sticky notes.
Instruction to both teams (to each person):
• Write your own name on one of the notes (in plain handwriting which cannot be identified to you - or ask someone else to do this if you have a distinctive writing style).
• Write clearly three words - one on each note - which strongly describe or represent you. Do this hidden from others, and again in a plain style of handwriting which will not identify you as the writer.
• Move all describer notes and name notes to the centre of your team's table (or wall-space) and mix them up.
• (Optionally before this, turn/fold the notes face down. There is benefit where people do not reveal their descriptions to their own team, so that discovery and surprise as to who 'owns' the describers is experienced by everyone and not just the guessing team.)
• Ask the teams to move to the/an other team's table/wall-space so that they are working with another team's describers.
• The task for each team is to re-arrange the describers in sets of three beneath the appropriate name note, correctly allocating the describers to the 'owners'.
• The winning team is the one which achieves the most correctly allocated describers.
This is a long explanation for actually a very simple activity.
The game is for groups of up to twenty people, or more provided they know each other.
Equipment and set up:
• Split the group into equal teams of three or four people.
• Teams of five or six are okay although will require firm time control. Teams of seven or more are not recommended.
• Issue each person a pen/pencil and four note-sized pieces of paper, or four sticky-notes - 3-5 inches wide.
• Each team should be sat around their own table, or around ends/corners of a big table, or alternatively on the floor, or around a wall-space if using sticky notes.
Instruction to both teams (to each person):
• Write your own name on one of the notes (in plain handwriting which cannot be identified to you - or ask someone else to do this if you have a distinctive writing style).
• Write clearly three words - one on each note - which strongly describe or represent you. Do this hidden from others, and again in a plain style of handwriting which will not identify you as the writer.
• Move all describer notes and name notes to the centre of your team's table (or wall-space) and mix them up.
• (Optionally before this, turn/fold the notes face down. There is benefit where people do not reveal their descriptions to their own team, so that discovery and surprise as to who 'owns' the describers is experienced by everyone and not just the guessing team.)
• Ask the teams to move to the/an other team's table/wall-space so that they are working with another team's describers.
• The task for each team is to re-arrange the describers in sets of three beneath the appropriate name note, correctly allocating the describers to the 'owners'.
• The winning team is the one which achieves the most correctly allocated describers.