We want to go far, so we go together Post 7: Collaboration from Beginning to End: Building an Escape Room

Introduction

Project development teams come together for a variety of reasons, each person bringing unique skills, knowledge, attitudes, and abilities. On our effective team, each member had a contribution to make. Our project came together in a way that none of us had anticipated, nor could any one of us have accomplished without all team members contributing. We discovered that indeed Together Everyone Achieves More. 

While using escape rooms for team building and learning experiences is not new, virtual escape rooms are a relatively new educational approach and our team took on a challenge—to build an interprofessional virtual escape room for HSSA’s I-PASS 2021! In early September, more than 700 first-year health science learners came together for I-PASS. Our development team had less than five months to create the virtual escape room for this event. 

Forming the Development Team

The idea of creating an interprofessional escape room began about eighteen months prior—before there was any need to even think ‘virtually’! Kelly Hu (HSSA, co-president 2019) shared with Sheryl Mills and Getahun Lombamo that she thought an escape room would be an awesome way for interprofessional teams to interact and practice their interprofessional skills. 

Getahun shared with Sheryl that Chantal Lecuyer, a peer in the Master of Health Professions Education (MHPE), was creating virtual escape rooms. Sheryl thought this could be a cool way to involve veterinary medicine. Chantal had worked with Jen Loewen (WCVM) and Arlene Dies (Pharmacy and Nutrition) on a MHPE assignment, and thought they might be interested in being on the development team. Jen thought Jordan Woodsworth and Xiao Ma might be interested in participating as well. By this time, the HSSA president baton had been passed from Kayode Adesina (2020) to Sarah Smith and Emily Tang (co-presidents 2021), who were very keen on the idea!

The Development Team was formed! Each team member was uniquely prepared to contribute to the project–a good idea waiting to happen. The unique skill sets, knowledge, abilities, interests, and availability aligned to move the project forward (see Figure 1). 

Figure 1: I-PASS 2021 Virtual Escape Room Development Team Tree

Discovering our Working Rhythm Together

It took a few meetings for our team to form, and even more time for us to figure out each other’s role. The development team started with synchronous meetings to get to know each other and to set up the project. At this stage, there was a lot of uncertainty, which we learned is common in project development! (We were, in retrospect, working our way through the ‘fuzzy-front-end’ of our project. Figure 2) Each team member had their own idea of how this might look and the direction it would go based on their own experiences…what was left was to focus on the objectives of the task: develop and deliver an interprofessional virtual escape room for I-PASS 2021.

Figure 2: Design Squiggle

Defining the Context

Unlike previous health profession-related escape rooms that various team members had experience with, the goal of this project was to develop an escape room for first-year learners from eight different health science programs. All learners were novices in their specialty areas and did not yet have a lot of clinical knowledge to work with at this stage in their program. 

We knew we had to change the focus away from clinical content towards transferable professional skills. The puzzles included enough clinical content to be healthcare-related, but not so much that they were frustrating. We incorporated transferable professional skills that everyone could relate to, and we even added an unexpected twist!

This shift away from specific health-related professional knowledge was our turning point…we had started to make sense of our ‘fuzzy-front-end’ and began to enter the ‘Concept/Prototype’ section of the Design Squiggle. The focus of the escape room became teamwork and transferable professional skills that are important to all health professions. Participants used all their skills like communication and negotiation to escape the virtual room! Once we had our focus and shared, clearly defined goal, we were on our way!

Hitting our stride with virtual Asynchronous Teamwork

Every team discovers an effective way to work together—we were no different. We initially started with synchronous meetings to (1) develop content and overall concept, and (2) clarify individual roles and levels of involvement. As a team, we knew we couldn’t work in person…But hey! Go virtual and stay home! We moved to using a shared document asynchronously (see Figure 3). This meant that we could all contribute when we were able and communicate with each other within the document to make sure we were happy and in agreement with the development and ultimately with the final product. 

Figure 3: I-PASS Virtual Escape Room Collaborative Document In-action

As we worked on puzzle development, there were many comments within the document such as, “Yes, I like this”, “I’m not sure about this, what does the team think?”, “Hmm, let me see if I can find anything for here”, and “Thoughts on this [insert link here]”. If comments weren’t made by an agreed upon deadline, we moved forward assuming team members were all in agreement. This kept us accountable, and the asynchronous conversations helped us keep the project moving forward. Working in this way, we developed the instructions and the five puzzles for the interprofessional I-PASS experience.  

But wait! There is more Teamwork!

The final step before the BIG REVEAL at I-PASS was to get a fresh set of eyes on the experience. As a team we were proud of what we had created, but we still needed feedback. A small team of veterinary and medical learners, who shared our excitement about the project formed our ‘Second-Set-of-Eyes’ Team! We now had two levels of collaboration in one project, and had made it to the final stage, the “Design” section of the Design Squiggle. 

With this team’s attention to detail and honest feedback, we were able to fine tune and make final adjustments. The experience went live for I-PASS–we were so excited! We were on time and ready to roll—our team delivered! 

But wait! There is even MORE Teamwork!

The collaboration didn’t end at the Development Team or ‘Second-Set-of-Eyes’ Team…it continued into the participants' experience. For escape room teams to be successful, participants have to learn, in a short period of time, how to work together as an effective team to solve the puzzles. 

The teamwork that began with the Development Team creating the interprofessional virtual escape room continued with the teams escaping said room! 

Now, here we are together again developing this post to share our experience. A good sign that our team worked well? We didn’t run away from each once the project was done. 😉

In Summary

The process that our development team took, although seemingly organic to us, is not unusual. On an effective team–like ours–each member has a contribution to make both in the way the team works and the product that is created together. Teams that create something special together value the diverse and unique contributions and perspectives of each team member. In our case, each team member brought a specific set of skills, knowledge, interests, background experiences, perspectives, and voilà! The project came together in a way that none of us had anticipated. No one member of the team could have completed the whole project without the rest of the team. All team members were ‘ready’ with their part. 

We each had a part of the puzzle to contribute. We had two main motivating factors: the shared ‘picture on the box’ vision and the sense of urgency to meet the I-PASS deadline. These two motivators contributed to us completing this project as quickly as we did! Within that we developed the process and clarified the vision for our team. We were all clear on the ‘puzzle’ we would be contributing our piece to! 

If you have a cool idea or someone approaches you with a cool idea, say YES! That’s how we met–and discovered that our diverse perspectives and contributions resulted in a well-rounded, high-functioning, and productive team. We urge you to get out there and chat with new people! You never know where a simple introduction may take you—and where you can contribute your unique skills, knowledge, attitudes, and abilities! Together, we achieved more.