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The Creative Zoo

Creative and energetic activity that is helpful when introducing collaborative design, lean development, and customer-centred design. This is also useful for reinforcing concepts such as cross-functional teams, collaboration and incremental delivery. The group is split into two (or more) teams and everyone is assigned a role to create a zoo model with play dough and craft material. The winner is the team with the most points for their zoo model at the end of the third iteration. You need a minimum of 9 people and this activity works well with larger groups.
9-any
1-1.5 hours

High

Preparation

  1. Find 1 or more volunteers to act as ‘Customers’ and give them instructions:
    • To determine their vision before the first iteration — make their preferences clear in their heads (eg ‘my ideal zoo has a lot of large animals and lots of greenery’).
    • Increase their availability to the teams throughout the iterations (ie sit in a corner and only reply to questions if asked in the first iteration, and mingle and proactively share information in the last).
  2. Set the space up for each team with paper, pens, foam or cardboard, playdough and plenty of craft material.
  3. Write down the safety and point rules (and later on put them up and make them visible throughout the session):
    • An animal must be inside a closed enclosure.
      Predators & prey must be inside different enclosures (eg lions and giraffes cannot be in the same enclosure).
    • For a zoo to be considered open there has to be a gate and at least 1 animal.
    • The team gets 1 point for each animal.
  4. Write down the rules specific to each of the 3 iterations (described in the steps below)

Steps

  1. Split into similar sized teams, with at least 4 people in each team. These are the Zoo Building Teams.
  2. Ask each Zoo Building Team to appoint a minimum of 2 people as Planners. Everyone else is a Builder.
  3. Introduce the goal — become the most successful zoo, by getting the most points over 3 iterations.
  4. Introduce the Safety and Points rules (see above in Preparation) that apply for every iteration.
  5. Tell the group they will have a 5-minute iteration that includes 3 phases; planning, handover and building. These cannot be overlapped.
  6. Introduce the rules for iteration 1:
    • There are 3 phases; Planning, Handover and Building, and these phases cannot be overlapped.
    • Only Planners can create a plan
    • Only paper and pen can be used for the plan (craft material can only be used for building).
    • Builders can only ask questions about the plan during the handover (not during planning or building).
    • Builders must follow the plan.
  7. Ask the Builders to step away so that they cannot hear the Planners’ conversation
  8. The Planners start creating a plan and ask the Builders to come back once they are done.
  9. Give the teams a heads up half-way through the iteration and stop after 5 minutes.
  10. Do a safety inspection. If a zoo does not follow the safety rules, the zoo is closed and no points are given.
  11. For any open zoo, the customer(s) pick their favourite and reward 2 points per customer.
  12. Count the number of animals and write down the result.
  13. Give the team 3 minutes to retrospect.
  14. Introduce the rules for iteration 2:
    • Only Planners can create the plan, but Builders can listen in and ask questions at any time.
    • Everyone must follow the plan, it cannot be changed during the build.
    • Planners can help in building, but only using their non-prominent hand (reflecting that they are not expert builders).
  15. Give the team 5 minutes for planning and building.
  16. Repeat the safety inspection, customer voting and animal counting steps and let them retrospect on the iteration.
  17. Introduce the rules for iteration 3:
    • Anyone can participate in making the plan and it can be changed during the iteration.
    • Planners can help in building and can use their prominent hand (as they have been up-skilled in iteration 2).
  18. Repeat the safety inspection, customer voting and animal counting steps.
  19. Tally up the numbers and announce the winner.
  20. Debrief.

What you need

  • Whiteboard and markers
  • Paper & pens
  • Play dough
  • Pipe-cleaners
  • String
  • Blue-tack
  • Anything else that you think could create a creative zoo
  • Timing device

Debrief

Ask the group questions to find out what they observed and learned throughout the zoo building experience.

Collaborative design and cross-functionality
  • How did they feel about the first iteration and strict rules around roles?
  • How did they collaborate as a team throughout the different iterations?
  • How did collaboration impact through-put in terms of quantity and quality?
Customer focus
  • How did they feel about the customer’s decision on picking a winner?
  • Was it clear to them how the customer made their selections, and if not, did they actively involve/ask questions to the customer(s)?
Iterations
  • Did their emotions change during the iterations, and if so how (stressed, happy, frustrated, productive etc)?
  • In what way did the retrospectives help?
Compare to their current situation
  • Which iteration do they feel best reflects their current working situation?
    Iteration 1 – traditional and waterfall process
    Iteration 2 – increased collaboration but with separate phases
    Iteration 3 – highly flexible and collaborative
  • What could they do in their team to take collaboration even further?
  • How could they get further insights from customers?
  • What else did they learn from the activity that they can apply at work?

Bonus tip

Some teams may drag out planning during the first iteration, not leaving much time for building. Avoid the urge to step-in and help, but ensure they reflect on it in the retrospective to allow more building time in the second one.

In times of doubt, as to whether something is really an animal or just an ‘unrecognisable blob’, let the Customer(s) decide if it qualifies as an animal or not.

Keep the Zoo creations on display in the team area. This can spark conversations from people outside the group, and the team reiterate what they have learned — or just have a laugh at the creations : ) If there is no space to keep the Zoos around, take photos and put up the pictures.

Creator

Variation of Play-Doh Zoo by Cathie Hagen, Marie-Claire Dean and Megan Cook

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Examples

creative zoo