MANAGEMENT GAMES ARE WIDELY USED in training programs and team building for a variety of reasons. This article explores openers, also referred to as icebreakers, and why we use them.

When people, particularly strangers, enter a training room, they may feel tense and uncomfortable with each other. It is vital, however, to the success of a training program that participants feel comfortable in the group and receptive to the learning environment. Openers are excellent vehicles for helping learners evolve from isolated individuals into an effective team. 

The purpose of openers is to provide a game environment that develops interpersonal and knowledge-based skills within a framework of teamwork. When participants cooperate on a task, they reveal to each other, and often to themselves, a bit more about their attitudes, skills and abilities. Utilizing these skills is essential if a team is to maximize its effectiveness and those of the individual team members. 

Openers contribute four basic functions to a group:

1. Individual development - by encouraging alternatives, coping mechanisms and thinking
2. Team building - bonding through the completion of a task
3. Networking while becoming acquainted
4. Icebreaking - reducing tension and breaking the link with the workplace by focusing the learners' attention in the classroom 

1. Openers that get people talking to each other. These openers don't have to be course related and should be very short. It often helps to have learners gather in different parts of the room because people prefer physical movement to being "chained" to a chair or table.

Openers provide participants with an excellent opportunity to communicate.

2. Openers that generate familiarity and cooperation through successful task completion. Tasks should require that all team members work together on a solvable problem. Successfully solving a problem together makes participants feel good about themselves and about the group as a whole. Successfully completing a task also prepares them to take a constructive attitude to whatever they are subsequently asked to do.

3. Openers that introduce concepts upon which the course will dwell in greater depth. These openers introduce behavioral examples that can be used to help achieve course objectives. Here, the facilitator must accept that he or she has relinquished control of the situation to some extent and cannot predict exactly what will happen.

A class as short as one hour will benefit from a five minute icebreaker. A three-hour class calls for a ten-minute opener. A full-day class, a twenty-minute opener with another ten-minute opener after the lunch break. Multiple-day sessions work best with a twenty-minute opener on the first day and a ten-minute opener on each succeeding day. 

"Worst Day Ever" is a simple icebreaking opener that can help participants network while building teams, and it only requires a blank sheet of paper and a pen for each group. The facilitator asks teams to collaborate in building "worst day ever" scenarios. The first person starts with, for example, "I didn't sleep very well last night …" the next person adds a phrase, for example, "My alarm didn't go off this morning …" and each participant adds a phrase until the day is complete. Each group then shares their day with the others in the room and the facilitator leads a discussion about all of the stresses that can build up when learning new information or performing in new ways after a training session. 

The importance of preparing learners for learning cannot be overemphasized. Openers are wonderful ways to set the stage for a positive classroom experience.

Pike, Bob & Solem, Lynn (2000): 50 Creative Training Openers and Energizers. Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, San Francisco, CA.

Rik Barnes
SDSU Educational Technology