The purpose of this game is to highlight the impact that context switching has on individuals. By running this very simple game with senior managers, teams or individuals you can show how unproductive it is to keep asking people to do some small thing.

Setup

You will need some blank sheets of paper for every person playing this game and either pens or pencils for them to write with.

Before the session the facilitator should print out (or write) several topics on sticky notes i.e. Things that are red, Things that are fruits, Things that move… try to come up with 10 or so topics, keep these to yourself.

Playing the game

This game is played by everyone at once, but taking part individually.

Round 1 – no context switching

Once everyone has their paper and pen ready, randomly select a topic from the list you’ve created and set a timer for 30 seconds, then ask everyone to write things that match this topic on their paper. At the end of the 30 seconds repeat this again 2 more times, so 3 rounds in total, each with a different topic per 30 seconds. After the third round is complete ask each person to count the number of items written down for each topic and then the total number of items.

Round 2 – context switching

For this round you should select 3 topics from the list you’ve created and tell them to everyone so they can write them across the top of their sheet of paper, as soon as everyone has written the 3 topics you should start a timer for 1 minute 30 seconds and ask that everyone writes 1 answer in the first topic, then 1 in the next and finally in the third topic. They should then repeat this until the time is up. Now the time is up, ask everyone to count the number of items per topic and then the total number of items again.

Analysing the results

Once the 2 rounds have finished it should be clear that when people are asked to think of items for 1 topic for 30 seconds they can think of more than when they are asked to think of 1 then move to the next topic, then the next and switch back again.