Who are you? The pirate ship exercise (dinámica del barco pirata)

This an easy but powerful exercise to open a meeting or session and get participants to reflect on their attitudes or feelings about a topic, in the organization, team, or in the project.

Duration: 10m +
Participants: Any
Difficulty:  Low
Juan Daniel Sobradoby 

Goal

- Reflect individually or/and as a group about our role and attitudes in an organization, a team, or in a project.

Materials

    Instructions

    • Show participants the image of the ship. If you are running an online meeting you can just share your screen and show the image.  
    • Invite each participant to reflect on which person in the picture best represents them in relation to the topic. 
    • Ask participants to share (for example in the chat) the number of the person who best represents them and explain in a sentence why.
    • Debrief with the group.

    This exercise can be also used as an icebreaker to start conversations. For example, you could ask "Which character in the image best represents you in relation to online training? Why? Put your answer in the chat".


    Attachments

    • pirateship.png
    • image.png

    Background

    I drew the picture of the ship again starting from this image I found on the Internet: https://thinkingforthechange.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/20130215-183845.jpg 

    Source: learninglegendario.com

    Author

    Juan Daniel Sobrado
    Juan Daniel Sobrado
    I create innovative marketing and learning experiences | Marketing | Medical Devices & Equipment | Training
    linkedin.com/in/juansobrado
    More about author

    2 Ratings 

    This method has been rated 2 time(s), with an average rating of 4.5.

    13 Comments

  • Would love to hear some of the ways others debrief this activity. I'm planning on using it for a senior leadership energizer, but can't imagine that anyone would choose some of these people in the picture (for example, 15, 17, 18, or 20). Is there additional information on what each person in the picture represents?
    over 4 years ago
  • This is great! I can definitely see using this to begin a conversation with an intact team about alignment, particularly in the context of a 5 Behaviors workshop or the start of a project.
    over 4 years ago
  • Hi Mike. You are right. Probably noone chooses 15,17,18 or 20 for themselves but they do to point others. You can also reflect as a group what behaviours do you see in others in relation with the work or project.
    over 4 years ago
  • Which picture represents how you feel about starting a new school year? Love this activity and image.
    almost 4 years ago
  • Brilliant! Thanks Juan, I will use this in a workshop tomorrow. My question will be "Which person best represents how you feel about your role in the youth sector in our region?"
    almost 4 years ago
  • I loved it!
    over 3 years ago
  • Five stars!!! This is a powerful activity when working with learners who don't really want to be part of a training or program. Sharing in pairs opens them up to really thinking about why they are there. Revisiting this same activity at the end allows them to adjust their thinking and perspective.
    over 2 years ago
  • This is such a lovely exercise! I have used it on multiple occasions and would highly recommend it. Many thanks to you, Juan, for posting :)
    over 2 years ago
  • Amazing exercise and I love the picture! Everyone can relate to it and it makes invisible feelings or thoughts visible. Thanks for sharing! Is there any way to get the image in a higher quality to be able to print it in large format for a workshop? Thank you so much for sharing this exercise!
    about 2 years ago
  • My coworkers and I just loved this.
    almost 2 years ago

  • Brilliant! Don't be mistaken in thinking that no one will choose numbers 17 to 20. I just conducted a session where I used this exercise, and numbers 17, 19, and 20 were chosen. It's all about providing a safe environment for people to express themselves. 10/10

    about 1 year ago

  • I would also like to hear what others are saying about each of the numbers so I can give a few examples. I don't feel my descriptions were as good as they should be. Please help. My free trial ends in 3 days. If someone could email me directly, I would appreciate it: smcgoran@miottawa.org

    12 months ago

  • @shannon mcgoran - This exercise isn't about giving examples of what each number means. That is up to the participants to decide for themselves, which is the beauty of the whole exercise.

    12 months ago
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