Treasure Hunting - Science-to-Business Marketing Research Centre

Step-by-Step

1. In preparation for the Treasure Hunting method, the project leaders must formulate questions that the participants should later ask each other. You can adapt the questions individually to your project. The questions can be related to the personal and cultural background of the participants as well as to developments or challenges in the project.

2. Stand together with the participants in a circle and explain the method to them.

3. Each participant receives a list of the questions developed beforehand. In order to find answers to these questions, the participants now move around the room for about 15 minutes and talk to the other participants. For this, they can ask any person for the answer, but it is not allowed to get more than one information from one person at a time. Also, there should not be asked more than one person at a time.

4. Ask the participants to come back to the circle after 15 minutes. Go through all the questions together. The people who have received an answer to the question raise their hand and state the answer.

5. Now conduct a retrospective ft he activity by discussing the following questions:

a. Who feels that he/she received a unique or surprising answer?

b. Who was asked the same question by other participants, why do you think that happened?

c. What did you learn from the exercise and how did your confidence in the other parrticipants change?

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Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages:

The method enables newly formed groups to gain a deeper understanding of people in other disciplines and to build personal bonds.
It is very helpful with transdisciplinary groups or when there are many different cultures, ages, experiences and backgrounds.

Disadvantages:

It should be avoided to ask delicate/socially undesirable questions.
Moving around the room requires a relatively large amount of space, depending on the size of the group.

Application into practice

After the individual subprojects of münster.land.leben had not been in communication for some time, the Treasure Hunting method was used at the beginning of a joint workshop to rebuild mutual trust. For this purpose, the leaders of münster.land.leben formulated ten questions in preparation for the meeting. The questions were related to the personalities of the employees and to the progress oft he project work. This included questions about how conflicts were handled, how attempts were made to involve the community, or what approach was used to do so. To carry out the exercise, the participants moved freely around the room. After 15 minutes, all participants returned to the initial circle and recited the answers to the questions. It was particularly important to reflect on the participants' answers in order to consolidate mutual understanding. After just a few minutes, it was noticeable that the atmosphere in the room was completely different than before the method due to the mutual exchange. A positive basis of trust ensured that the subsequent workshop could be conducted effectively.

Hints from practice

You can use this method at any time - but it is especially helpful to use it as an ice-breaker at the beginning of a workshop, in the early stages of a project, or after a long break - whenever you feel some "trust work" is needed.
You should adapt the questions for the Treasure Hunting method to the project, the team and their background.
Reflecting on the exercise together is part of the method and reinforces your mutual understanding.

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