Kaiser Permanente Team Building Yields World Record

Kaiser Permanente Team Building Yields World Record

A Kaiser Permanente Team Building event yielded a World Record robot build time for the Speed and Skill Model 2 robot. Eclipsing the previous record held by Edwards Life Sciences of 39 minutes and 34 seconds, two Kaiser teams finished with times of 39 minutes and 15 seconds and the new world record time of 37 minutes and 50 seconds. This shows that building a robot faster has much more to do with teamwork than with engineering prowess. Although not familiar with robots before the event, the world record team and others were able to effectively communicate, delegate, adapt, and execute at a high level.

As important as setting a world record is having fun and being inspired with your work mates! The Kaiser team had an incredible time competing in 5 different robot events against each other. Some of the teams who didn’t build as fast as others took to these competitions and ended up being the overall winners for the day. Team 5 located directly in the center of the ballroom at the Double Tree in Pleasanton managed three 2nd place finishes and one 1st place finish to end up the overall winning team.

Many groups are attracted to the BattleBots style robot team building format for obvious reasons. The Kaiser Permanente Team Building event is a reminder how much fun competing in the speed and skill competitions is for groups. The main reason is that every person competes in every competition making them truly team competitions. The winning teams inevitably do a better job of coaching their teammates that are less adept at controlling a robot. In fact team 5 in this example had one teammate who was exemplary in this respect. He himself was incredibly adept at controlling the robot, however his best attribute was the deft way he handled his teammates. He was patient, calm, and excellent at explaining how do it better from the participants perspective. He generated many smiles throughout the 2 hour event!

A huge thank you to Kaiser and a wonderful group for a truly inspiring team building event in Pleasanton California!