Sorry Pebbles

Earlier this week in my management class, the professor told the class to get into groups of 5 so we could work on an activity. The activity involved planning a way to use 8 straws and 2 feet of tape to secure an egg in such a way that when dropped from standing on a desk, it wouldn't break. As a little motivation, he said that he would give us 10 points towards our grade if we were successful. That was enough incentive to actually want to put effort into this activity. So my group and I started with step 1 of the planning process: Define your goals and objectives. We understood that we would be given 25 minutes to plan out and draw a way to wrap the straws around the egg so, as required, at least 50% of the egg would be seen, and so the egg wouldn't break when dropped. We also understood that we would be given 10 minutes to actually put together the contraption, and name the egg (which we named Pebbles) and have a paper with the drawing and names of the group members on it. Step 2 of the process is: Determine current status compared to objectives. We knew that we'd have 8 straws and 2 feet of tape, but we didn't exactly assign everyone in the group a specific task. We didn't establish an individuals strengths or weaknesses, or who would do what. I guess we didn't think that to be very important, or we all just assumed that everyone was equally skilled. That lead to step 3: Develop premises and several alternative strategies. Everyone in the group thought of ways to wrap the egg up in a safe way to ensure it from staying in tact. We all threw out ideas, made drawings, critiqued each others ideas, and eventually agreed on one idea, and kept another one as a backup. The 4th step of the planning process is: Analyze alternatives and make a tactical plan. We planned to make a sort of square base with 4 straws, with the other 4 straws attached to the base (standing) and bending over to cradle the egg in the center. Our backup plan was to sort of imprison the egg in the straws so it would be properly shielded. So we made a decision, and knew how we were going to carry it out. However, once again, we didn't assign certain jobs to everyone because it was assumed that the person whose idea it was would direct, and the rest would all help with the assembling and taping. This all lead to the last step: Implement the plan and evaluate results. My group and I were rather unsuccessful in this step. As soon as the 10 minutes started, so did we. When it came time to tape the egg to the straws in the center (to cradle it), it didn't seem to work out very well. Everyone then got a bit nervous, and a couple of members of the group decided it would be better to resort to the backup plan. Unfortunately we were unable to finish putting it together, and what we had turned out to cover more than 50% of the egg. Even though my group was disqualified, we got to drop Pebbles, who was tragically cracked in a terrible fall. My group had very good communication and decision making skills, but our execution lacked. If we had distributed the work and had given a certain job to everyone, and maybe even had spent more time on how we would put together the egg securer, we would probably have successfully accomplished our goal. Regardless of that, I think this experience has taught all of us in the class what it takes to plan and implement based on that plan, and now, how to improve on that in future situations that require planning.