EMBA and BSBA Spring 2017 Orientation

Introductory ActivityProfessor Jay Martin Hays

Part I

As a group at your table, pick a team name.

You will keep this name during the subsequent activity which is a competition amongst tables / teams.

Your team name should say something about you as a group of individuals… who you are, what you care about, what you want to achieve as individuals and a team.

Share your team name with facilitator / larger group.

Part II

Introduction to The Orange Metaphor and indulge in fruit and juice.

As a team, list out all the parts of the orange system. Hint: where do oranges come from and what is required? How do oranges make it to your table? Then what????

Team with most items wins.

Minimum items expected = 10

Jay Hays

The Orange Metaphor

The Orange Metaphor

A Journey to the Heart of Systems and Process Thinking

Systems Thinking is thinking about things as whole systems—all of the parts comprising and involved in a problem, situation, or organisation and their interactions and influences upon one another, including its environment.

A process is any set of steps to reach an outcome. Every outcome is the result of one or more process. Process Thinking involves identifying and under-standing elements of a process and how one element or step leads toanother.

List all the aspects or elements you can think of that are part of the “orange experience”—what does it take to get from the very beginning to the very end of the orange cycle?

Team with the greatest number of elements—parts of the orange process and system—wins.

The orange that we peel and eat or squeeze and drink represents what appears to be the culmination of a vast system.

But, it doesn’t stop there. Processes a part of that complex and enormous system continue…

Reflections

What have you learnt through The Orange Metaphor activity? What do you think the important points are?

What did you observe about yourself and teammates during the activity?

What might be different about today’s “lesson” than you might expect from a typical learning activity?

What is the biggest or most-important “take away” for you from today’s activity (about systems, process, or whatever)?