Tool Description
The Cooperation Map is a story-telling activity, that helps to reflect on the life of a team and their potential for collaboration.
Each participant is given a ready-to-print map of cooperation, which represents some ideas about collaboration-competition’s through geographical places that create a geographical map.
The facilitator invites everybody individually to focus on the last 15/20 days of their life and to think about them as if they were a trip (“in which territories have you been? how often? in which circumstances? etc”). When everybody has thought about their own trip, invite them to gather in couples (if participants of the training are from different organisations) or the whole team together, and to describe their personal trip to each other answering some guiding questions given by the facilitator.
If the sharing is done in couples, a plenary debriefing should follow
Aims
Working individually and then collectively, the provided map of cooperation helps to understand where and why a person/team cooperates well or faces obstacles. It is not a simulation, but a reflection based on the real life situation of the participant(s) and on their personal experiences. It addresses competencies such as: Collaborative skill, capability to understand the difference between collaboration, competition, individualism
Recommended for
It can be used as an introductory tool for assessing the internal life of a team. Cooperation, team dynamics, care for the individual as well as the group needs, collective reflection and readjustment of collaboration processes, are all important elements in an SSE initiative. They are an intrinsic part of SSE working principles and they are vital to the sustainability of the project. This activity supports a team, or even just an individual part of a team, to understand the ups and downs as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the team.
Duration
1,5 hours minimum
Background and where it has been employed
Developed within “ISSE - Community Works” Erasmus+ project. It has been used during an international training course on sustainability in SSE in the summer 2018.
Material needed
For each participant: A copy of the “Collaboration Map” (see the manual for Download); A sheet of paper and a pen
Links and downloads
Download the full ISSE Training Manual: the description of the activity is at p. 22, the map for printing is at p.92
Created by
Partnership of “ISSE:Community Works” project funded by Erasmus+ (activity proposed by Vedogiovane from Italy)