Length: 845 words. Reading Time: ~4 minutes.

Deconstructing Design (DD) is a blog series dedicated to reviewing an instructional design challenge, output, or experience. Readers are encouraged to confirm, challenge, or improve on the logic presented.

Context

"What would happen if you tried to build an escape room on-the-fly at a conference?" When Elliott Masie asked me that question, my gut said: "It won't work." But, perhaps sensing my skepticism, he assured me that "success is in the attempt, not in the result." That's gotta be a Yoda-ism, right? OK, sign me up.

Making it Happen

Five weeks later, it's Sunday morning before the Learning 2016 conference. Dan Laicha and Mandi Christensen and I are sitting sitting in a small back room at the Disney Coronado Springs Resort trying to figure out how to make this thing work. Early on, Mandi emphasized the over arching goal, to let participants build the escape room:

"They need to come up with the story. They need to own it."

To strike that careful balance between freedom and chaos we developed this simple strategy:

Facilitate the start Create groups / Spread-out the experience Limit the length Get out of their way

Facilitate the Start

Approximately 40 volunteers joined us at lunch on Monday. Most of them didn't really know what they'd signed up for (it just sounded fun!). To avoid losing time "collaborating" we lead a Who's Line is it Anyways? rapid brainstorm. Everyone called out ideas for a theme and we quickly landed on communication (compliance was also an option, which garnered a round of "boos"). To narrow the focus and prevent overlapping ideas, we used the same approach to generate four topics on communication and settled on:

Listening,

Types of Communication,

Persuasion & Influence, and

Emotional Intelligence in Communication.

Create Four Groups / Spread-out the Experience

Participants separated into four groups and anyone with escape room experience was asked to identify themselves and spread-out among the groups. Allowing these participants to draw on their previous experience really got things rolling, as they became the early facilitators within groups.

Limit the Length

We gave each group only one constraint: their puzzle chains (a series of connected puzzles) could be no more than four puzzles deep. This was to control the length of the build and the length of the escape.

Get Out of Their Way

As facilitators, it can be hard to just get out of your learners way. We made it easy on ourselves by giving little direction and literally telling participants "you're on your own." Leaders quickly emerged and projects began to take shape. Dan, Mandi, and I walked the room, listened in, provided a few guidelines (e.g. "No, we can't buy a drone."), and gave an occasional nudge when a group was really on to something.

Group Dynamics

This was an exercise in group dynamics. Each of the groups operated in very different ways. If they had been in different rooms, you wouldn't have known they were working on the same projects! This was a strength of the design, as each group also produced decidedly different results.

Group 1 gelled almost instantly, launched rapid prototyping, and declared their "Mission Accomplished" before lunch was over. Their end result was as efficient as it was creative and was the only group to utilize the internet (YouTube) in one of their puzzles.

Group 2 was far more adversarial. Different group members challenged for control and they didn't come to a solid solution until a few team members opted-out. Their final product was also divided, with two puzzle chains of two puzzles each that had to be brought together. It turned out to be an excellent (and unique) solution.

Group 3 were day-dreamers. They sat on the floor, shared ideas and built on each other's creativity. They probably considered a dozen puzzle combinations before they finally settled on what was literally a piece of art. Suiting their style, they were also the only group that didn't use any boxes in their puzzles.

Group 4 stood in a circle and politely shared ideas, intently listened to each other, and didn't build anything until they'd settled on an approach (this was, not surprisingly, the emotional intelligence group). This group also produced the most elaborate and difficult puzzles (one was so difficult it had to be eliminated).

The Result

So, "What would happen if you tried to build an escape room on-the-fly at a conference?" Well, Elliott... something truly amazing! Four groups of learning professionals, with little to no escape room experience, collectively produced a fully functioning escape room in under five hours (with participants coming and going during this time).

More impressive was how little they had to work with:

9 locks and latches

Paper and markers

Cipher key

Whiteboard and markers

Flip chart paper

Word lock container

6 boxes

Halloween Candy

Scissors

Tape

I was skeptical entering this challenge and it was an important reminder for me that (a) you don't know what's possible until you try and (b) the fear of failure should never hold you back from trying something outrageous. Thanks for the reminders, Elliott.

In Part 2 - "The Escape", we'll take a look at the actual puzzle chains our volunteers developed and share insights and observations from this project.

About the Author

Clint Clarkson, CTDP is just another victim who accidentally stumbled down the rabbit hole of corporate learning and development. He is the Founder & Managing Partner of eLearning Alchemy, a custom eLearning development firm. While he’s known for being upbeat, positive, and enthusiastic, Clint is still easily offended by comic-sans, bullet points, and the excessive use of buzzwords. Connect with Clint on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter.