In Marshmallow Challenge the task is to use 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string and one marshmallow to build the tallest free-standing structure with marshmallow at the top in eighteen minutes with group of people (ideally team of 4 persons). This idea presented by Tom Wujec in Ted talks, Build a Tower, Build a Team.
Few months back we had an internal training and facilitator introduced us Marshmallow Challenge, we tried it in different groups and it failed. we were not able to build the structure as per Marshmallow challenge and then we followed work-around 🙂 through crazy ideas to stand it with water bottles, stick to the table, hang from the roof 🙂
This week again we had a same task from another facilitator and you know we were able to make out and if you have already listened above Ted Talk in which Tom is talking about the same experience where he has presented his research that on 2nd try, exponential change in overall percentage of people who were able to succeed.
Today i just explored this challenge and got all the info how widely it is used in different management/team building, design thinking workshops. thought to share with all of you and here is the task for all of us for this weekend.
Task for Weekend:
- Buy required “tools”
- Do a challenge with your kids
- Share your story here in comments