The Marshmallow Challenge

What does 20 sticks of dry spaghetti, a yard of tape, a yard of string, and a jumbo marshmallow have to do with project management? Well, surprisingly, a lot. The Marshmallow Challenge entails teams of four attempting to build a tower out of the given materials and topped with the marshmallow over the course of 18 minutes, with the tallest tower being awarded the winner. In his TED Talk, Tom Wujec discusses some points about who may do well, and why they would do better than others.

But what does this have to do with project management? Well since a project can be defined as "A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result" according to the Project Management Institute, we can look at the spaghetti tower simply as a project that we undertake. This exercise can help a group to learn how to go through the steps of a project management.

1. Conception / Initiation: As people decide whether or not the building of the tower is a feasible project that can be completed.
2. Definition / Planning: The group can make a plan of how they plan to build the tower by discussing the plan or even drawing plans out of how the should achieve their goal.
3. Launch / Execution: By either appointing a project leader, or someone stepping into the position, that leader can then delegate tasks to each member in order to execute the building of the tower.
4. Performance / Control: After completing the tower, the members must be sure that the tower will stand on it's own with the jumbo marshmallow on top.
5. Close: Once the competition is over, the group may do whatever they like tower, which can include eating the marshmallow if they want to!