I most recently used this activity with a group of predominately theoretical learners, so was a bit worried about their reaction to it. But I needn’t have been. They loved it. Threw themselves into it, and even built up their own characters.

It illustrated unhelpful reactions/beliefs to negotiation extremely well. My only learning point has been in giving people really clear instructions at the start of the exercise. The first time I did it, I wasn’t clear about expectations, and one group didn’t understand what was expected – but I think that was more me, than the activity. Definitely one I’d recommend!

I used this activity in Negotiating and Influencing Skills; it was excellent for this course and it promoted some friendly competition of who actually managed to reach a deal and for how much, this was a talking point for the whole day and all of the delegates recognised the negotiation based on position theory we all use when we want something. I liked the different sections to this activity which allowed group and individual tasks.

I have used Negotiation Based on Position which uses the buying and selling of a house several times in negotiating skills courses. It is a good activity for illustrating the need to look at people's interests in a situation rather than only taking positions on money. I find that where money-based negotiating is involved, most people think they need to reveal as little as possible, whereas this exercise shows that this is not the case. I've had some very creative solutions to the negotiation - and people usually enjoy it.