Raeph takes on the ICE Challenge

Hi, I'm Raeph a Project Manager at Cougar Automation. On the 29^th October 2006 I took part in the ICE (Institute of the Civil Engineering) Challenge along another 100 engineers from the major civil engineering companies in the country. This challenge is organised annually and aims at consolidating the engineers’ team building spirit. 12 teams of around 8 people competed against one another in a series of tasks including: building a zip line to cross a river, building a raft, launching water rockets,…

Raeph (back row, third from left) with his team-mates on the ICE Challenge

Besides having a lot of fun taking part in this event I learned an awful lot about how a team functions. I also realized to my team’s expense that planning is of the essence: we often tended to rush into action before considering and discussing all the options we had. Communication within the team proved to be one of the most important aspects for a team’s success. Through communication I really experienced that “the whole is greater than the parts”, that the team’s strength is greater than the sum of its people individual strength.

Raeph (back row, third from left) with his team-mates on the ICE Challenge
 

We were very happy with the results we got and we learnt so much from taking part. In particular we learnt a lot from the team who took the trophy home. They were so motivated it was unbelievable, their motivation was nearly palpable, looking back I now understand how they did it! They truly believed that they would win the challenge, they shared the vision of winning the competition and gave it a 110% and guess what! Not only did they win the competition but they won hands down. Compared to the other teams their performance was nearly miraculous. They were winners before even starting the competition…

real people - real solutions

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