Field trip, teambuilding and Belbins test

At the end of last week we traveled on a field trip with the entire class up to Nordsæter. I didn’t know what to expect and I guess neither did my fellow students, but what followed was a wonderful and different experience that I’ll never forget. As we arrived we were gathered and the first two hours of the day was designed to give us confidence in front of our class mates, this was done by suberb motivation and instruction by a company called KreaKonsult. We were given different tasks to complete that strengthed the community because everyone gave their 110% no matter how rediculous the task was. After about 2 hours of doing this we were split up into the groups that we are going to be working with this entire semester.wbe reckoned with this year. The rest of the day was used to walk to the nearest mountaintop with our new team while solving different riddles that we were handed.

After we got back from the mountains we ate dinner and then gathered outside in the dark. We stood in a ring lit up by flaming torches, it almost had a ritual feeling to it. And in this circle where we were all gathered we would all go on to do rediculous things like performing songs that we made up in minutes, or screenplays that were improvised on the go. It was all really funny and created a sense of community within not just our group, but the entire class.

On friday, we gathered again to clarify our roles and strengths in our set groups. This was done by each team member individually taking Belbins team role test. On this test I found out my two strongest roles were co-ordinator and implementer, closely followed by shaper. I had a very high score in all of those three fields, and very little in the remaining 6. We then compared our results and figured out what kind of roles we had in the team and what we lacked. Overall we had a very well-rounded team, however we lacked a few roles like «Plant». We then sat down and formed a set of group rules for the group to adhere to. We decided not to have a set leader, but rather chose a leader for each project so that everyone can get a chance to improve the areas where they didn’t score high in the test. Overall I think it all worked out rather well, I’m very happy with the decisions the group reached and I look forward to working with them on projects this semester.

After the semester was over I went home to Kongsberg for the weekend. It was refreshing to meet family and friends again and I’m now ready for another week packed with challenges.

PS: For all of those who attended the field trip:

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Fredrik