Content of an an OMDP

1) Briefing of participants

Clarifying objectives of the program, assuring participants of their safety in the program, dealing with apprehensions and skepticism about the program

2) Event design

The OMDP starts with simple exercise that act as ‘ice-breakers‘ and help the participants get used to the challenging outdoor environment. The exercises draw on existing management ideas and skills, and past experiences. The program incorporates a wide range of activities from simple ‘low risk‘ games, to very intense experiences with a higher degree of ‘perceived risk‘. Generally, the complexity of tasks and the coordination required between persons gradually increases, keeping the program challenging enough to engage the participants as also to build up the reviews. The program allows opportunities for participants to experiment with new learning and new roles in fresh situations.

• Flexibility of design is a major advantage of OMDPs. The event design is flexible to accommodate

• Capacity of individuals. This directly relates to the grade of difficulty that an activity should contain in order to strike a rewarding balance between risk, challenge and sense of achievement.

• Emergence of roles. Such a program facilitates inter-changeability and emergence of new roles depending on prevailing situations.

• The review sessions also have a progression. The initial reviews are intended to encourage all the participants to actively share their opinions. They progressively become more intense and ‘probing‘ and the participants are encouraged to deal with deeper issues involving themselves and the organizations. It is possible to change the event design depending on what happens in the reviews, to make the program more effective.

3) Review and reflection                                                                  Top ^

The main purpose of reviews is Interpreting the relevance of experiences and facilitating transfer of learning Gaining insight into interpersonal behaviors and team dynamics Controlling the design to steer the course of events in a way that would maintain an apt balance between physical and mental & emotional aspects of the OMDP

4) Follow Up                                                                                      Top ^

An OMDP sparks off a lot of questions in the participants’ minds, and the process of re-examining their action choices and consequences thereof is likely to continue for a long time. Follow-up programs are thus extremely important. These may be in the form of in-house sessions or smaller outings, and not necessarily full-fledged outdoor programs.