Egg Catapult

Interesting morning looking at our test results, and particularly where there were big differences between us. It was very much a test looking our own perceptions of ourselves, and there were some surprises in how we perceive ourselves compared to how others see us. We then spent a lot of time looking at decision making, how we make decisions, how we communicate them, what decisions we're happy to delegate and not have any involvement in. Everything is of course linked to communication and we spent some time on how we improve that within the department. We also looked at managing meetings, and how to make them more effective, whether we need to have as many, whether we need to attend more or less. Lots of very interesting and thought provoking stuff.

In between the discussions, we go outside for a couple of team exercises. Always great fun, but very telling in how we operate together and the differences between us. One of them today involved building a catapult out of some wood, plastic tubing, string, tape and bungee rope, and then firing a fresh egg from it at least 10 metres so someone could catch it. Instead of building a 5 minute catapult, we spent a lot of time building and designing a complex piece of equipment which closely resembled a canon balanced on a wooden horse! We just about managed to catapult the egg the required distance, and Kath had bravely volunteered to catch it, but didn't need to as it hit the ground just in front of her. If nothing else, I think we would all agree that I would never make an engineer!