Maestro: The Team Performance Game

Orchestrating Team Success

Team training is an integral part of the modern working world – not to mention a critical component for every organization's success. Infuse fun into your next training session and develop vital group processing skills such as leadership, creative problem solving, planning, and communication with Maestro: The Team Performance Game. Hands-on and engaging, this interactive game leads to a productive and meaningful dialogue that improves team performance and prepares teams to perform more effectively in the workplace. It is the perfect kick-off for your team-building initiative, team energizer, or standalone learning event.

How It Works

Maestro simulates an unstructured problem so participants can experience company problems and their solutions from the inside. Rehearsing to audition for the top honor of playing handbells at Carnegie Hall, teams are presented with a song they must practice and then perform in front of a panel of judges.

Your team first decides who should lead as maestro. The ensemble then prepares to practice but realizes they are unaware of which song they're expected to perform. They also discover they will not be given access to their instruments until the audition. The activity draws to a close when teams perform, and a winner is chosen based on points earned for the quality of leadership, quality of performance, and song recognition.

Uses and Applications

Maestro is a team-building training game for employee and management development training. The experiential learning aspect is an engaging and interactive way to improve teamwork, team performance, team leadership, and problem-solving skills.

Maestro is effective either as a standalone activity or as part of a more comprehensive training program. The game is the perfect kick-off for your team-building initiative, team energizer, or independent learning event. It is also a remarkably useful tool for leadership, communication, and creative problem solving training.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this workshop, participants will:

• Learn how to apply skills to solve an unstructured problem.
• Prepare teams and leaders to develop critical group process skills.
• Practice leadership skills under pressure.
• Experience what it takes to be a high-performing team.

Product Details

• Product Type: Game.
  The Facilitator Guide is a detailed resource binder used to deepen participants' understanding of the concepts throughout this simulation.
• Target Audience: Intact and cross-functional organizational teams.
• Measures: Team performance issues.
• Dimensions: Communication, creative problem solving, and planning. (We recommend looking at our other problem solving training programs as well.)
• Time Required: One hour.

What to Order

Complete Game Kit
Order one game kit to train up to 32 participants. The Complete Game Kit includes reusable materials to train up to four groups of four to eight participants. The Game Kit includes one Facilitator Guide, eight Hand Bells, a Bell Bag, four Batons, and a Tote Bag.

Extra Parts Set
Order to train one additional group of participants. Order an Extra Parts Pack to train one additional group of four to eight participants. All the parts are reusable.

About the Author

Steve Sugar is the president of The Game Group, a consulting firm. He is an editor and contributor to several American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) INFO-LINE publications and has created three game systems.