Bushfire Survival Situation

The Bushfire Survival Situation helps teams to test their communications, interpersonal relations, and group problem-solving skills in a safe environment.

What is the Bushfire Survival Situation?

Developed by Michael Gourley of Human Synergistics New Zealand, the Bushfire Survival Situation places participants in a vacation home located in the Dandenong Ranges, east of Melbourne, on a dry summer day. Suddenly, someone notices smoke…a bushfire!

What It’s Best Used For

This exercise is best utilized by corporate trainers, HR professionals, and team leaders for internal employee development, leadership workshops, and organizational retreat icebreakers.

• Measuring Team Synergy: Participants first complete the ranking individually and then work as a group to reach a consensus. Final scores are measured against expert guidelines from the Country Fire Authority in Victoria, Australia, to objectively prove whether the team achieved true synergy or collapsed into conflict.
• Testing Interpersonal Relations: It functions as a safe, low-risk environment to observe how group members listen, share information, negotiate differences, and handle competing priorities during a crisis simulation.
• Versatile Interactive Applications: The simulation works perfectly as an engaging kick-off to corporate planning meetings, an offsite team icebreaker, or a diagnostic tool for long-term team development.
• Optional Behavioral Integration: It can be paired seamlessly with the Group Styles Inventory (GSI)™ to help team members actively rate and analyze the behavioral styles they used to solve the problem.

The assessment is available in a paper format scored by hand, and it is fully legal for use in Canada.

How does the Bushfire Survival Situation work?

Participants are challenged to rank 12 potentially useful items in order of their relative importance to their survival. Solutions are developed first on an individual basis and then by groups. Scores are generated by comparing individual and team answers to those provided by the headquarters staff at the Country Fire Authority in Victoria, Australia. Comparisons between individual and team scores indicate whether teams were able to achieve synergy by fully using and building on the knowledge and skills of their members.

The Desert Survival Situation takes approximately 1½ to 2 hours to complete, including scoring and debriefing.

Applications

The Bushfire Survival Situation can be used as an icebreaker, central activity, pre-test/post-test, or follow-up activity for programs focusing on:

• Building new teams
• Team development
• Problem solving and decision making
• The simulation can also be used as:
• An icebreaker for an extended offsite gathering (particularly one that is being held in a cold climate)
• A kick-off to a group problem-solving meeting
• A tool for basic survival training

COMBINE SIMULATIONS WITH THE GROUP STYLES INVENTORY™

The use of the GSI is optional, but highly recommended.

Significantly enhance the key learnings of the simulation, by using the real time version of the Group Styles Inventory™.  The GSI enables teams to determine the styles they used to solve the problem. The GSI has been proven to be significantly linked to the team’s meeting quality.  We strongly advise the use of the Group Styles Inventory™ (GSI) as part of your team development program. The GSI allows team members to rate their teams’ attitudes and behaviours along the same twelve styles and three clusters as used in the LSI and OCI. The GSI guide provides strategies that elevates the program from a game to a valuable learning experience.

The Bushfire Survival Situation assessment is a registered trademark of Human Synergistics®, Inc.