Valley Crossing!!

Well, this blog is not about some adventure but it is about one of the POM class in which we demonstrated teamwork by a valley crossing exercise.

It was a virtual valley marked on the ground which was crossed by volunteers using wooden rod.

Constraints:

• Distance between two edges: 2 steps
• No. of people: 3
• No one can jump to cross valley
• They have to carry wooden rod to other side and that is the only thing that they have

Considering, all these constraints, following model was employed to cross the valley.

Fig Valley Crossing

Using this model, valley can be crossed in 9 steps during which each person is in 3 states of riskiness. This can be explained by using the figure below-

Fig Valley crossing in 9 steps

We can see that, work done by each worker is same and also risk taken by each worker is also same. Equal delegation of work and risk is done in order to achieve goal.

To complete the task successfully, there are several factors which should be taken into consideration during exercise. Those can be explained as-

• Coordination: Coordination and mutual understanding must exist among volunteers as task going on is very risky.
• Communication: In order to have better coordination, participants must have excellent communication among them.
• Trust: Trust is the most important factor which affects the performance of participants. In this case, person can take risk only if he trusts other two members of a team. Similarly in any team, trust on each other is very important.
• Responsibility: Any work cannot be completed unless team is ready to take responsibility of it. In this case, unless everyone is ready to take responsibility of others, trust won't exist.

So by taking all these factors into consideration, model was actually implemented to cross valley by a team of 3 members.

Volunteer demonstrating 9 steps in valley crossing