← Strategy & Decisions
Desert Survival
RankingRemote or in person
Rank twelve items alone, then as a team. Teams beat individuals.
Your plane has come down in the desert. Twelve salvaged items, ranked first alone and then by the team. Nearly every team scores better than the average of its own members, and about a third beat their best individual — which is the finding the whole activity exists to produce.
Run this when…
The situations it was built for. If none of these is the room you have, it is probably the wrong activity.
- A leadership development programme
- A team learning to decide together
- The centrepiece of a classic offsite
How it runs
Order a list alone, then as a team. The gap between the two is the debrief.
- 1You start a session and put the code on the big screen.
- 2Everyone joins on their phone — no app, no sign-up, just the code.
- 3You drive the pace from the host screen; the room answers as they go.
- 4Ending the session builds the report, with every answer in it.
Running it well
Only the host sees these. Participants never do.
- The debrief is the activity. Compare each team's score against its own members' average, and against its best member.
- Ask the team whose best individual was overruled how that happened. That conversation is the entire point.
Run it yourself
Free for thirty days, no card. Add it, share the code, and your room is playing in about fifteen seconds.
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At a glance
- Players
- 6–120
- Runs for
- 18–30 min
- Where
- Remote or in person
- Big screen
- Required
- Teams
- Supported
- Best for
- Thinking together
What it builds
decision makingcollaborationcommunicationstrategy