Forest Fire – a consensus seeking game

Your group is a helicopter rescue team, responsible for organising air/land rescues over a specified geographical area. A forest fire of unprecedented violence has broken out in an uninhabited region of thickly wooded foothills in the south west of your area. The only buildings in this vast area are five isolated wooden chalets which were built during the last war as look-out posts. They are now used exclusively as base camps for volunteers from all over the world who have been hired by the International Parks Commission to spend some of their free time surveying and evaluating the terrain for use as a World Recreation Centre.

Each chalet has a radio link with your rescue centre. Your team has already assigned four of the tiny rescue helicopters to evacuate chalet numbers 1-4 and they cannot be re-diverted.

Using the one remaining rescue helicopter at your disposal, the team's task is to evacuate the people in chalet no. 5.

However, your helicopter can only rescue one person at a time and it is unlikely that all 10 volunteers can be rescued from the chalet. In fact, the pilot says he may only be able to get three or four people safely evacuated before the fire reaches the chalet.

Your team must decide the sequence in which the people in the chalet should be rescued. This is an agonizing decision since only those near the top of the list will stand a realistic chance of being rescued. The only information available on each volunteer is on his/her resume card that comes from the IPC confidential personnel files.

Team members may use any criteria they wish in making their personal rescue sequence. The group must then discuss the problem and reach a consensus on the ranking.

Training Objectives:

• To study the impact of individual attitudes, values or prejudices on team decision-making
• To practise consensus-seeking behaviours and methods

Time: 90 minutes

Delivery: All materials required for this exercise are provided in a downloadable .pdf file including full trainers instructions, clue cards and solution. You will be able to download the exercise as soon as payment has been accepted.

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