Collaboration is key for development teams. Development is hard, and it’s not getting any easier; projects are more complex and always changing.

In 2010, Tom Wujec reintroduced the Marshmallow Challenge, designed by Peter Skillman at TED. The premise is simple: “in eighteen minutes, teams of four must build the tallest freestanding structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow has to be on top.” Since Skillman’s introduction, Wujec has conducted over 70 marshmallow challenges with leaders of the Fortune 50 companies, architects, engineers and students.

Results vary from team to team, but not as you might expect. According to Wujec, “Among the worst are recent graduates of business school. It’s actually amazing to watch them: They fight. They cheat. They produce lame structures.” Among the better teams? Recent graduates of kindergarten. He suggests that while business grads create a single plan and try to execute, kindergarteners prototype and iterate. They try, fail, try, fail… until something sticks (or, in this case, the marshmallow stays).

Christian Prusia, Vice President of Sales at Jama Software, conducted his own Marshmallow Challenge in Mrs. Larson’s first grade class. Like Wujec, he found the kids to be collaborative and build structures through trial and error. The kids loved the experiment, and he’s conducted several experiments since his first. Next week, he’ll lead all the first graders at the elementary school — along with their sixth grade partners — through the Marshmallow experiment.

What he’s learned? A little prototyping and collaboration goes a long way. As Wujec says, “design is a contact sport.” We have to bring our experiences together, apply different skills and think, feel and do the challenge.

The fundamental lesson, I believe, is that Design is a contact sport. It demands that we bring all of our senses to the task and applying the very best of our thinking, feeling and doing to the challenge. Sometimes a little prototype of this experience is all we need to take us from oh-oh to ta-da.

Other lessons from Wujec’s experiments? Incentives aren’t enough. Different skills matter. For more information about the Marshmallow Challenge, Wujec’s TED talk and more about the results, check outwww.marshmallowchallenge.com.

After the Marshmallow Challenge in Mrs. Larson’s first grade class, our own “Marshmallow Guy” received thank-you notes from the students. Here’s a quick sample: