Last night's meeting of the Engineering Managers' Support Group at the British Bankers' Club was an intimate affair, as inclement weather kept a lot of members home. Those who did brave the rain thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere, drinks and pub food–the engineering of the Tuna Nicoise, pictured, drew quite a bit of praise.

Chris led the group through a lively discussion on the topic of the economy and how it has affected our companies, jump-started with a game known as the Sudden Survey (hat tip to the thiagi newsletter).

What is a Sudden Survey? It's a lightning-fast exercise in which teams have mere minutes to gather information from the whole group, analyze it, and prepare a presentation. We had just enough participants for two teams, and as we happened  to have an even number of men and women, we decided to make it a battle of the sexes. Here are the questions the teams addressed:

• How has the economy affected staffing at your company?
  
• What other steps has your company taken in response to the recession?
  
• What lessons from the past will be valuable during this downturn?
  
• Has the recession affected how you manage your team? In what ways?
  

Both teams made their presentation "deadlines" and performed admirably; the men nabbed the flip chart for their presentation, but the women dealt with the resource deficit by pantomiming theirs, after which it was universally agreed that pantomime beats PowerPoint hands down.

The survey results held a couple of surprises: first, of the six companies represented by the participants, only one had actually experienced layoffs. A secondary commonality that emerged was an atmosphere of belt-tightening that included conserving resources, but also conserving intellectual capital by focusing and sharpening business and marketing plans. After the survey, several participants said they felt reassured, and that they would henceforth worry a bit less.

The Sudden Survey seems like it could be a useful tool, especially for groups where the participants don't already know one-another's opinions and backgrounds. I can see a planning body, for instance, using it at the beginning of an important meeting to identify assumptions, determine experience levels, or simply take the temperature of the room.