Team Building Inc.

Save the Titanic

Save the Titanic
Save the Titanic Challenge provides teams with the opportunity to alter history and keep the Titanic afloat! This challenge tests the best of teams to innovate, execute, meet aggressive performance measures and integrate diverse work processes and/or functions all while simulating a virtual team environment. What’s the result? A Titanic Ship that stays afloat and keeps her passengers safe.

How does the Save the Titanic Challenge work?
Using only the materials supplied, each team must create a ‘piece of the Titanic ship’ that is capable of carrying a minimum of 4 passengers. Each ship consists of three separate pieces (bow, middle, stern). After the independent pieces have been created and tested, the final challenge is to bring the Titanic together into a working craft that is capable of carrying 9 passengers around a distant iceberg and back to shore.

• Efficiency: Effective use of resources and materials – least amount of materials while performing effectively

• Time to Market: Length of time for the Titanic to return to shore

• Risk-Taking: Ability to maneuver and take over the competition

• Customer Appeal: Overall design and packaging of the Titanic and how well it appeals to customer needs

• Team Collaboration: How well the team executes together during the race

• Quality: Ability to return to shore with a fully intact ship with all passengers securely onboard

The process gets increasingly complex when the diverse pieces of the Titanic must be ‘Integrated’ seamlessly under the pressure of time. Add a few budget cuts that alter the availability of resources and you have an environment that requires adaptability to change. Which team(s) will earn the most revenue points while managing the complexity of these measures and changing dynamics? It’s not the fastest team that wins – rather the smartest team or the team that can think ‘outside of the ship’.

From mid-level teams to executive teams, the Save the Titanic Challenge requires team members to think strategically while working across a virtual team environment. Strong collaboration is a must to bring the multiple processes or functions together successfully.

Save the Titanic Challenge Learning Outcomes:

Each program is tailored to the goals and objectives of the client. Examples of possible learning outcomes are:

• Product and Service Quality – executing a strategy that meets customer expectations

• Team collaboration – multiple teams coming together to ‘integrate’ a diversity of processes for final execution

• Team roles – evaluating each team member’s ability and effectively managing team resources that will drive the team to a successful solution

• Virtual communication – a collaborative project without ‘seeing’ the other teams progress

• Effective management of time – managing strategy, innovation, evaluation of alternatives, execution, measurements and process improvements within a designated period of time

• Focused communication – aligning diverse team priorities into an overall integrated system

Save the Titanic Challenge Sample Agenda
The program requires a minimum of 3 hours and can extend up to 6 hours depending on number of teams, level of integration, and complexity of the resulting Titanic ships. Each of the phases below will be timed according to the final program timeline.

• Phase One: Team Foundation & Titanic Briefing

• Phase Two: Strategy, Design & Planning of the Titanic - Team Leader Meeting at end of Phase Two

• Phase Three: Building the Titanic - A Series of Three Team Leader Meetings

• Phase Four: Titanic Independent Process Execution & Evaluation

• Phase Five: Titanic Process Integration

• Phase Six: Titanic Process Integration Execution & Evaluation