Decision Insight Information Group
“Supporting our Customer’s Journey”
Decision Insight Information Group delivers comprehensive information, infrastructure and decision support products and services for financial and legal professionals. Its HR Director and Operations Training & Development Coordinator approached Maximillion to facilitate the team building element of their annual Conference in Maidstone, Kent. The main objective, and key challenge for Maximillion, was to provide an engaging, interactive and hands on team development activity which a group of 150 could participate in within a 45 minute time frame. The activity also had to align with the conference theme of ‘keeping the customer at the heart of everything we do’.
Event detail
- Venue: The Village Hotel, Maidstone, Kent
- Format: Bespoke conference activity to reflect key business messages relating to customer engagement
- Group: Cross-functional staff group of 150 delegates
Outline
Maximillion’s response was to provide a facilitated version of our popular Mexican Railway team challenge. The format brings a whole group together in a fun, memorable way, encouraging teams to work inter-dependently towards a common objective; a great metaphor for organisational working.
Using paper rods, cable ties and ‘T-bar’ connectors, teams build a giant hand held ‘railway’ track circuit to transport a series of footballs around the room. The whole group has to co-ordinate the track movements “mexican wave-style” to propel the balls around the circuit. Split into three distinct sections, teams first design and build a prototype before going into mass production and finally collaborating with the other teams.
Through consultation with the Group HR Director and the Operations Training and Development Coordinator, we re-positioned Mexican Railway as “Supporting our Customer’s Journey” to fit with the scope and feel of the conference. This concept was created around the idea of the balls as the metaphor for the customer; how everyone should be working together to support them on their journey and what the implications were in the event of any of the balls being dropped! This was reflected in the briefing of the activity by Event Facilitator Martin. During the course of the activity, Martin, supported by the Event Team, ensured that the activity experience consistently linked back to the theme of “keeping the customer at the heart of everything we do”.
Outcomes
The event:
- Provided opportunities for participants to interact and network, encouraging cross team communication, collaboration and creativity
- Assisted in reinforcing participant awareness of the significance of customer focus
- Allowed individuals and teams to identify with the whole group and create a real sense of team spirit and shared achievement
Feedback from HR Director
“Absolutely delighted with communication, speed of response, especially as we were a challenging customer and working to time constraints”
“The event demonstrated our key messages for the conference in a fun and enjoyable way. Spot on.”
“It was a great success and Martin and Nick were both excellent. It was extremely well organized and absolutely perfect as an exercise to put the customer at the heart of the organization. Great fun was had by all!”