Marshmallow Challenge

Transcript

1. Marshmallow Challenge Derek Chen・Nov 2023
2. Who Am I 2 Derek Chen Agile Coach An agile practitioner who love to promote agile practices, and has rich experiences in Scrum, Kanban and Large Scale Scrum “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”
3. Challenge 3
4. Objective Build the tallest free standing tower that will support a marshmallow on the top 4 Game was introduced by Peter Skillman. Tom Wujec has conducted this game in 70 workshops, he has conducted with the bigger group of 800 people. Source: https://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower_build_a_team
5. Materials 5 20 sticks of spaghetti 1 meter of tape 1 meter of string 1 fresh marshmallow
6. Rules • The tower must be free standing • Only use the materials listed • You will have 18 minutes to build • Measured from top of table 6
7. Building… 7 Source: https://www.playmeo.com/activities/team-building-problem-solving-activities/marshmallow-challenge 18 mins
8. Debriefing • Was the task harder than you initially thought? • Did you make any assumptions during the exercise? • If you could do this task again, would you do anything differently? • What lessons does this challenge present to us? 8
9. Performance 9
10. Question Who perform better? 10 Kindergarten Students Business Students
11. Question Who perform better? 11 Kindergarten Students Business Students
13. 13 Start 18 Mins • Play, prototype, experiment • Focus on the marshmallow • Find the best plan & execute • Focus on the structure
14. 14 10 20 30 0 Average Business School Students Lawyers Kindergarten Architects & Engineers CEOs CEOs & Executive Adm ins Height (Inches) Specialized Skills + Facilitation Skills = Success
15. Incentives 15
16. Average Team Performance 16 10 20 30 0 Height (Inches) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Teams
17. High Stakes 17
18. Guess What Happened? 18 10 20 30 0 Height (Inches) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Teams
19. 19 Four months later…
20. Incentivized Performance 20 10 20 30 0 Height (Inches) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Teams
21. 21 Incentives + Low Skills ≠ Success Incentives + High Skills = Success
22. Motivation 22
23. Karl Duncker’s Experiment 23
24. The Candle Problem 24 How can you fix the lighted candle to the wall without the wax dripping onto the table?
25. An Alternative Version 25 How can you fix the lighted candle to the wall without the wax dripping onto the table?
26. Solution 26 You use the box containing the thumbtacks as a base to hold the candle. And then you use thumbtacks to attach the box to the wall.
27. Functional Fixedness 27 Limit a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used.
28. Sam Glusburg’s Experiment 28
29. Two groups are asked to solve the Candle Problem 29 Group A is offered no reward Group A Group B is offered monetary rewards • The fastest 25% of people get $5 • The fastest person get $20 Group B
30. Results: Group B is 3.5 minutes slower 30 Faster despite no reward Group A Much slower despite being offered reward Group B
31. This makes no sense! Everyone knows that if you want people to perform better you reward them, right? 31
32. What if “Functional Fixedness” was removed 32 Group A is offered no reward Group A Group B is offered monetary rewards • The fastest 25% of people get $5 • The fastest person get $20 Group B
33. Results: Group B is much faster than Group A 33 For the simpler task, Group A now performs relatively slower to group B Group A The reward motivates Group B to complete a straightforward task faster Group B
34. What Is Your Problem? 34 When the task requires cognitive skills, a larger reward may lead to poorer performance. Non-routine When the task only requires mechanical skills, bonuses function as expected: a larger reward leads to better performance. Routine
35. 35 Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/fan-of-100-us-dollar-banknotes-lCPhGxs7pww If we are going to give rewards, it is better to make them unexpected without directly linking them to the result of specific work. In other words, it is much better to reward attitude and effort, not result.
36. Closure 36
37. Summary • Rapid Prototyping, Small Iterations • Effective Communication • Identify the Hidden Assumptions • The connection between incentives and success 37
38. Reference • Marshmallow Design Challenge by Peter Skillman • Build a tower, build a team by Tom Wujec • Spaghetti tower- Marshmallow Challenge by Todd Bloch • DevOps game marshmallow challenge by Murughan Palaniachari • Dan Pink 談叫⼈意想不到的激勵科學 by Dan Pink • Can money actually be detrimental to performance? The Candle Problem by aknowbrainer • The “CANDLE” problem by Nicholas Chee 38
39. 39 Q A