Decision Making Exercise

In class on wednesday each group participated in a decision making activity.  The scenario was that we were all survivors of a plane that crashed 65 miles off course somewhere in the desert.We were left with 15 items to help further our survival, and it was up to us how maximized each items use. The first step of the activity was to rank the items from 1 - 15 individually.  After this was done each group convened on it's own and made a group list that was decided on by the entire group as a whole.  Needless to say team Wicked Awesome put their collective heads together to gain the lowest score by far out of all of our colleagues.  Our group score was 16, which was considerably lower than that of any other group, or any one individual within our group.  This showed that leadership can become a much more successful process when attacked by a team rather than one individual trying to take control of the situation.  Our group leader, Tricia, allowed everyone ample time to put their two sense in, and then allowed everyone to give feedback after each decision was made.  She showed great leadership qualities while trying to manage 18 different peoples ideas and suggestions.

I thought this exercise was a great opportunity for not only the group leaders to show that they can take charge and lead a group of people to a common conclusion, but it also gave other students in the group an opportunity to step up and show that they can handle group work as well.  It could not have been accomplished by any one person, and I am extremely pleased as to how my group handled the exercise.