Building Friendship & Teamwork
By Pakorn Chutinimitkul, BBA#12
It was a sunny afternoon at Thammasat Learning Resort while buses of BBA freshmen arrived. Bright and shiny BBA freshmen came together for this year’s BBA Business Orientation. A brief icebreaking session was held by Dr. Edward Rubesch in the big conference room with a famous ‘Simon Says’ game, then the freshmen were told to quietly form a semi-circle sorting by age. Small group of people who talked were ‘arrested’ by silence police.
Fourteen groups were formed after a fun and short icebreaking session. They were assigned to Roon P’ and spread around the learning resort to make their own team name, team flag and team cheer, an hour long activity that encouraged freshmen creativity and communication skills. Then all the groups gave fantastic presentations of their team identities in the auditorium.
Team building exercises had been prepared for them later by Roon P’ from BBA#12 and BBA#13, along with supervision from Dr. Edward and BBA office ladies. Going through seven team building stations, freshmen were challenged physically and mentally. Plus, friendships were made throughout the game along with the rain that kept falling down and gave all of us an unforgettable experience. Not every team passed all challenging stations. However, the most important thing expected from this activity was not winning, but friendship and learning of four essential skills: - teamwork, leadership, communication and strategy.
After five hours long with fun and wet team building activities, a large feast was provided and everyone seemed to enjoy their dinners. At night, the best performing group was awarded and groups were engaged in business game preparation for tomorrow!
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Business Game
By Pattawan Phanussopakul, BBA#12
After a good breakfast (or not), the new day began with the business simulation game. The business game, or the Enterprise, is a simulation game where the groups of freshmen have to set themselves as a furniture manufacturer to produce bed, chair or desk. Each group also has to make decisions on various business issues like where they wanted to build their plant, how much they wanted to bid for the location they desired, what size they wanted their factory to be, what products they wanted to produce and sell, how much they wanted to bid on raw material (wood), how much profit margin they wanted to earn from each product and etc. The game is comprised of 6 periods and the winner will be judged based on Net Asset Value at the end of period 6.
Last night after a brief explanation about the business game, each group has to make the first decision on company name, location and plant size. Each group has to make 3 choices of location and bidding price ranked based on priority and the result will be announced on the next day when the second period start. The Central Unit, or the judges, will give out the location based on the bidding prices, where the highest bidding on that location will get that location first. The group that cannot get the land will receive the land they required from the Central Unit at the highest bidding price for that location plus the penalty fee.
This morning began with an exciting announcement of the bidding result. The real emotion started here where some groups were happy since they got what they wanted while some groups were disappointed with very high price of land derived from the penalty put by the Central Unit. However, this did not mean that the game was ended here since there are five more periods to improve the result for the disappointing group. Thus, the second period began with more challenging business decisions that will have direct effects on company’s performance. Period 2-5 will be in the same format, where each group will make decisions on the product line, bidding price on raw material (wood) and selling price of each product. As each period went by, the game became more and more challenging since the result of each period showed different winner and the loser of last period can become the winner of next period depending on the decision on each period.
At the end, each group has to prepare a five-minute presentation and came up with the company’s slogan. As the end of the game came, the winner was announced and prized by Assoc. Prof. Dr.Kulpatra Sirodom. Along with the winner, there are prizes for the team with the best teamwork, best improvement, best presentation and best slogan. Finally, Assoc. Prof. Dr.Kulpatra Sirodom gave out speech about what the freshmen have learned from this business game. This business game taught them on leadership, teamwork, analytical, logical, presentation and various business skills. After all the ceremony, the relaxing time came with karaoke provided by BBA office allowing the freshmen to enjoy and have fun. We are hoping that all the freshmen will enjoy all the activities we provided and learn as much as they wanted. Having fun with lives in BBA na ka….
Posted date: June 15, 2007 |
