35:1

Here’s a great activity when you want your learners to agree upon their top 3 challenges.  Often the more outspoken learners will suggest what these challenges are – which may or may not be true for all.  You will also get some, “Yes but what about”, or “I don’t agree with ….”  This activity:

• Involves all learners
• Avoids the outspoken learner suggesting the key issues
• Avoids any disagreements with the top 3

How to facilitate the activity

Let’s assume this is a workshop for ‘Making Meetings Work’ but it could be any workshop content where you want learners to identify challenges they face.

• Hand out index cards to each learner.
• Ask learners to work independently and write down what for them is their biggest challenge when holding a meeting.  This can be prior to the meeting, during the meeting or after the meeting.
• Allow 2-3 minutes for each learner to write down their biggest challenge.
• Ask learners to form pairs – ideally with someone not in their team.
• Ask learner to spend 1 minute each and explain their challenge to their partner
• Allow 2 minutes.
• Say, “Each pair have a total of 7 points to distribute between the 2 challenges. They can allocate 0 to one 7 to another, 3 to one and 4 to another etc.  The bigger they agree the challenge the higher the score given to that challenge.
• Allow 2-3 minutes.
• Ask each person to write the agreed score for their challenge onto their index card.
• Ask learners change partner and carry out the same process.
• Repeat the scoring and changing partner until each learner has 5 scores written on their index card.
• Ask learners to return to their original teams.
• Ask learners to total the scores on their index card.
• Ask for the challenge that scored 35, 34, 33 etc until you get the first card.
• Ask the learner to read out the top scoring challenge, take the card and stick it onto a flip chart.
• Continue the countdown to find the next high score.
• Repeat the process until you have the 3 highest scoring challenges in the room.
• Say, “For this group, your 3 biggest challenges are ….  Towards the end of the workshop, I’d like you to come up with practical ways of overcoming these challenges when you next facilitate a meeting.  To help you get there, we will ….(explain the content of the workshop).

What happened

• I’m sure that the challenges agreed by the team are the same as the challenges you would have suggested.  However, if you had suggested them, people would disagree.  Here they will all agree, because they came up with their top 3.
• Learners will buy-in as they know that they will be working with their challenges and not just following the trainers thoughts.
• Everyone was involved in the process, but nobody was ‘put-on-the-spot’.
• Any poor-quality challenges were removed by the scoring system, even if they belonged to a learners that is normally quick to offer their suggestions if it is done via the whole group.