InterActive Teams:
program overview

The InterActive Teams program involves participants in a series of fun and engaging problem solving activities that promote team skills and mind sets for working collaboratively across boundaries and locations in an organization.

Participants interact in a team with up to twelve people, which is paired with another team, which then set out to conquer a challenge for which they share the same goal. (See the Activities Descriptions page for descriptions of several of the activities that can be included in the InterActive Team schedule.)

A 6 hour schedule, for example, allows time for four or five main challenge activities, and an action planning session at the end to identify shared strategies for working together in the future. The program can be conducted indoors or outside.

InterActive Teams gets everyone involved in activities that require teams collaborate effectively with other teams to be successful. Participants gain insight from the experience, share perspectives within their team, and then, together, with other groups at the program.

InterActive Teams can occur among top management areas, among cross-functional work groups, with product development or sales teams, across production process teams . . . drawing together people with related roles but different perspectives around a common need.

Themes have included:

• Relationship and trust building among top management of a newly merged company.
  
  
• Building a common orientation among teams on a national sales force to improve communication and problem solving, and better support personal initiative and risk taking.
  
  
• Improving communication and problem solving between the engineers and technical production staff in a manufacturing plant, and
  
  
• Improving the "Total Quality" hand-off among work groups on a high-tech production line.

Skill Training
InterActive Teams programs combine clear concepts with fun skill practice that's directly transferable to work situations. Popular program topics include:

• Identifying & Acting on Shared Values
• Team and cross-team Problem Solving
• Leadership and Followership for Teams
• Valuing People Differences
• Effective Communication Skills
• Creativity and Innovation

We can target real issues that are difficult to communicate and yet require everyone's involvement to get results. For example, how do we think about and act together on our shared values? What is it that we do (shared process) - or need to do together - that's critical to our success?

InterActive Teams Program Outline
A Framework for Learning:
Longer programs allow a greater opportunity to identify - and prepare to act on - what is learned from this experience. Time at the start and end of the program is scheduled to talk through the team improvement needs and follow-up actions.

At the Start: Identify the Learning Opportunities (20 minutes)

• Introduction to the Action Learning Principles and how we can act on them
• Useful information about successful teams
• Pre-assessment feedback
• Team and individual questions to explore in the activities

The Main Event: Activity Modules and Discussions: We have dozens of activities to select from and new ones are always in development. Choose one for each hour of the program. Typically each activity requires a ten minute set-up, 35 minutes for the problem solving portion, 10 to 15 minutes for discussion of "what-happened, so-what, and now-what". (click here to view activity descriptions)

At the End: Action Planning on How to Apply New Insight at Work

• Each Person identifies their own key learnings
• Small discussion groups identify applications to work
• New Team Norms can be proposed
• Needed skills can be identified
• Personal and Team commitments can be stated

InterActive Teams Program Specifications & Logistics

• Length: 2 to 8 hours
  
• Location: large indoor meeting area or flat outdoor area. This is a very mobile program format that can be conducted anywhere in the world you want us to go.
  
• Group Size: total participants can be in the 100's, operating in smaller activity teams of from 7 to 26.
  
• Budgeting: A typical InterActive Teams program costs between twelve and thirty-five dollars per person per program hour. Prices vary with the number of participants, staffing required, customization needed, program length, and location.

Custom Program Guides
Programs longer than four hours include customized booklets for each participant that contain clear descriptions of targeted learning concepts, scenario descriptions of the day's activities, and room for personal comments, learning goals, and action plans.

The Team Craft professional staff has extensive background in experiential training and group process. Or we can train your people to do a modified program for your participants.

__Download an InterActive Teams "PDF" Acrobat file for printing this information and sharing with others offline.