01
What to practise for a planning exercise
Group planning involves making sense of a situation and working towards a practical proposal. The wider group-testing process includes mental and physical activities; a planning exercise is not simply a speech contest. Start by identifying the objective, the known facts and the constraints. Keep assumptions separate. This guide offers Academy practice methods, not an official scenario, task sequence or scoring system.
02
Check whether the plan can actually work
Before defending a solution, test its dependencies. Does a person need to be in two places at once? Have you allowed time for the activity itself as well as travel? Does the proposed resource exist in the information supplied? A plan can sound decisive while relying on an unavailable vehicle or an impossible connection. Where a detail is unknown, explain the uncertainty rather than silently treating it as favourable.
- List objectives and deadlines before assigning roles.
- Record resources and their availability.
- Check travel, action and handover time separately.
- Identify what happens if a key assumption fails.
03
An original, low-risk practice scenario
Your college team must set up two registration desks by 10:00 and deliver printed programmes to the hall by 09:45. It is 09:00. Four volunteers are available. Each desk requires two people working for 25 minutes. Collecting and delivering the programmes takes one person 20 minutes. Everyone starts together, and all walking time is included in these task durations. Make a feasible schedule, state who does each task and check the deadlines. This fictional logistics exercise develops planning habits; it is not a replica of an SSB problem.
04
Compare alternatives before selecting one
Write your own plan, then compare it with two peers. One feasible arrangement uses two volunteers for the first desk from 09:00 to 09:25, one for programme delivery until 09:20, and the remaining volunteer joins the returning person to complete the second desk by 09:45. Other workable allocations may exist. Now delay programme delivery by 15 minutes and reconsider the arrangement. Discuss which deadlines still hold and why. The useful outcome is reasoning that others can check, not memorising this example.
05
Work towards a shared plan
When comparing proposals, name the constraint that makes an alternative stronger or weaker. Build on a useful suggestion even if it was not yours. Clarify responsibilities and the sequence before summarising. An online group can practise this exchange; a one-to-one session can examine your reasoning but cannot reproduce interaction among several candidates. Ask observers to note missed facts, unsupported assumptions and how the group handled disagreement rather than assign an unofficial GTO score.
06
Review one improvement at a time
After practice, separate reading errors from calculation errors and discussion difficulties. If you missed a deadline, repeat with a fresh scenario and a clearer timeline. If the plan was sound but poorly explained, practise a brief summary of objective, allocation and fallback. Do not turn emergency-themed exercises into invented medical or rescue instructions: use qualified authorities for real emergencies and keep self-created practice safe and hypothetical.