Marshmallow Challenge

棉花糖挑戰

1. Marshmallow Challenge
Derek Chen・Nov 2023

2. Who Am I
2
Derek Chen
Agile Coach
An agile practitioner who love to promote agile
practices, and has rich experiences in Scrum,
Kanban and Large Scale Scrum
“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”

3. Challenge
3

4. Objective
Build the tallest free standing tower that will
support a marshmallow on the top
4
Game was introduced by Peter Skillman.
Tom Wujec has conducted this game in 70 workshops, he has conducted
with the bigger group of 800 people.
Source: https://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower_build_a_team

5. Materials
5
20 sticks of
spaghetti
1 meter of
tape
1 meter of
string
1 fresh
marshmallow

6. Rules
•The tower must be free standing
•Only use the materials listed
•You will have 18 minutesto build
•Measured from top of table
6

7. Building…
7Source: https://www.playmeo.com/activities/team-building-problem-solving-activities/marshmallow-challenge
18 mins

8. Debriefing
•Was the task harder than you initially thought?
•Did you make anyassumptionsduring the exercise?
•If you coulddo this task again, wouldyou do anything differently?
•What lessons does this challenge present to us?
8

9. Performance
9

10. QuestionWho perform better?
10
Kindergarten StudentsBusiness Students

11. QuestionWho perform better?
11
Kindergarten StudentsBusiness Students

12. 12

13. 13
Start 18 Mins
•Play, prototype, experiment
•Focus on the marshmallow
•Find the best plan & execute
•Focus on the structure

14. 14
10
20
30
0
Average
Business School Students
Lawyers
Kindergarten
Architects & Engineers
CEOs
CEOs & Executive Admins
Height
(Inches)
Specialized Skills
+ Facilitation Skills
= Success

15. Incentives
15

16. Average Team Performance
16
10
20
30
0
Height
(Inches)
12345678910
Teams

17. High Stakes
17

18. Guess What Happened?
18
10
20
30
0
Height
(Inches)
12345678910
Teams

19. 19
Four months later…

20. Incentivized Performance
20
10
20
30
0
Height
(Inches)
12345678910
Teams

21. 21
Incentives + Low
Skills≠ Success
Incentives + High
Skills= Success

22. Motivation
22

23. Karl Duncker’s Experiment
23

24. The Candle Problem
24
How can you fix the lighted candle to the wall without the wax dripping onto
the table?

25. An Alternative Version
25
How can you fix the lighted candle to the wall without the wax dripping onto
the table?

26. Solution
26
You use the box containing the thumbtacks as a base to hold the candle.
And then you use thumbtacks to attach the box to the wall.

27. Functional Fixedness
27
Limit a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used.

28. Sam Glusburg’sExperiment
28

29. Two groups are asked to solve the Candle Problem
29
Group A is offered no reward
Group A
Group B is offered monetary rewards
•The fastest 25%of people get $5
•The fastestperson get $20
Group B

30. Results: Group Bis 3.5 minutes slower
30
Fasterdespite no reward
Group A
Much slowerdespite being
offered reward
Group B

31. This makes no sense! Everyone
knows that if you want people to
perform better you rewardthem,
right?
31

32. What if “Functional Fixedness” was removed
32
Group A is offered no reward
Group A
Group B is offered monetary rewards
•The fastest 25%of people get $5
•The fastestperson get $20
Group B

33. Results: Group Bis much fasterthan Group A
33
For the simpler task, Group A now
performs relatively slowerto group B
Group A
The reward motivates Group B
to complete a straightforward task faster
Group B

34. What Is Your Problem?
34
When the task requires cognitive skills, a larger
rewardmay lead to poorerperformance.
Non-routine
When the task only requires mechanical skills,
bonuses function as expected: a larger reward
leads to betterperformance.
Routine

35. 35Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/fan-of-100-us-dollar-banknotes-lCPhGxs7pww
If we are going to give rewards, it is better
to make them unexpected without directly
linking them to the result of specific work.
In other words, it is much better to reward
attitude and effort, not result.

36. Closure
36

37. Summary
•Rapid Prototyping, Small Iterations
•Effective Communication
•Identify the Hidden Assumptions
•The connection between incentives and success
37

38. Reference
•Marshmallow Design Challengeby Peter Skillman
•Build a tower, build a teamby Tom Wujec
•Spaghetti tower-Marshmallow Challengeby Todd Bloch
•DevOps game marshmallow challengeby MurughanPalaniachari
•Dan Pink 談叫⼈意想不到的激勵科學by Dan Pink
•Can money actually be detrimental to performance? The Candle Problemby aknowbrainer
•The “CANDLE” problemby Nicholas Chee
38

39. 39
QA