Valley Crossing

Crossing the Valley

Valley Crossing or river crossing is a famous exercise used to promote teamwork and bonding in a team.

This game is played with 3 people, objective is to cross a gap which is larger than a step but smaller than 2 steps using nothing but a plank or a rod as shown in the figure. 

As it is clear from the figure shown, all the three members of the group should work in perfect harmony for the completion of the task. The activities required for completion of the task is pictorially depicted below for the convenience of understanding, followed by risk analysis in tabular form

 

 

 

Persons	First Person	Second Person	Third person
Step/Action
1	Safe	Safe	Safe
2	Half Risky	Safe Fulcrum	Safe Pull Down
3	Full Risky	Safe Fulcrum	Safe Pull Down
4	Half Risky	Half Risky Fulcrum	Safe
5	Safe	Full Risky	Safe Carry
6	Safe Carry	Half Risky Fulcrum	Half Risky
7	Safe Pull Down	Safe Fulcrum	Full Risky
8	Safe Pull Down	Safe Fulcrum	Half Risky
9	Safe	Safe	Safe

Now as it is clear from the table each member of the group is equally at risk for equal amount of the time. And each member had almost similar amount work. This is an example of a perfect team.

Applying same concept to the organisation, one can design a task in such a way that anyone with simple training and no skills could do the task. As the saying goes, a task so easy that even a blind person can do it. That's the beauty of a perfect task, it's so elegantly designed that anyone can accomplish it.