Opening Questions

While crawling through my hard drive storage from 1983, I came across this useful opening activity.

Synopsis

Present five questions, one at a time. Ask the participants to pair up with a new partner and share their answers to each question. Later, select a random participant and read one of the questions. Ask the earlier partner to recall this person’s answer. Repeat the procedure with other participants and other questions.

Purpose

To help the participants to become acquainted with each other—and with the training topic.

Participants

Minimum: 6

Maximum: Any number

Best 10 to 30

Time

15 to 20 minutes

Preparation

Prepare five questions related to the participants and to the training topic. Here are sample questions from a workshop on presentation skills:

  1. How frequently do you make presentations on your job?

  2. Who are the audience members for your workplace presentations?

  3. What is your biggest fear about making presentations?

  4. How would you usually begin your presentation?

  5. What suggestion would you give to a new manager in your workplace about making a presentation?

Flow

Ask the participants to stand up, move around, and find a partner. Ask the pair of participants to stand close to each other and away from the other pairs.

Read the first question from your list. Ask the partners to share their answers to this question with each other. Warn the participants that they have to recall and repeat the other person’s answer later.

Wait for the participants to share their answers with their partners. After a suitable pause, ask the participants to say goodbye to their partner and find a new partner.

Read the second question from your list. As before, ask the partners to share their responses Remind them to listen carefully so they can later recall the other person’s answer.

Repeat the process of forming new partnerships and responding to the remaining questions, one at a time.
After the fifth question, ask the participants to return to their seats.

Randomly pick one of the participants to play the role of the celebrity. Ask this person to stand up. Read any one of the questions from your list and ask the person who had listened earlier to the celebrity’s answer to share this answer. Encourage the other to listen to this piece of information.

Repeat the activity by asking another celebrity to stand up, read a different question, and ask the appropriate partner to share the answer.

Stop after a suitable number of repetitions. Tell the participants that you will continue this activity from time to time throughout the rest of the raining session.