MOVE YOUR AVATAR! Improvisational Theatre Methods in Virtual Teams

Abstract

The importance of a process for a successful start of a new project team is common in business management. Warming up and cooling down exercises are already well accepted methods to activate learning groups. Improvisational theatre has become very popular during the last years as one of these activating practices. Compared to real life settings, meetings in avatar-based, 3-dimensional virtual environments suffer from various communication issues - there is no body language, no gestures or mime you could see in the face of an avatar. To increase the interactivity of virtual avatar groups, face-to-face best practices of improvisational theatre methods were transferred into virtual 3D course sessions at the Berlin School of Economics and Law. The impact of these extemporaneous exercises on the interactivity and team performance during the virtual sessions was observed using the participatory action research method (PAR). The transferability of successful real life settings into a virtual 3D course was analyzed. The paper recommends the top improvisational theatre trainings and their impact on the interactivity and team building outcome.