Panacea Pandemonium is a fun problem solving activity. The interactive role-play activity focuses on collaboration, compromise, and conflict resolution to achieve an overarching goal.

Participants are broken into two teams representing fictitious companies that are highly competitive with one another and seeking out a limited supply of a very rare medicinal plant for their own purposes. The facilitator will take on the role of a small business owner who has fallen on hard times and needs to make quick money to get out of their financial slump. Fortunately for the facilitator, their land is the only known place where the much desired rare plant grows.

Using their communication and conflict management skills, the two teams must first nominate a spokesperson from their respective team to negotiate with the other team’s spokesperson. Next, the two team’s spokespeople must negotiate with the land owner on their final course of action. The catch is that the landowner wants more money than the two individual teams have been allotted to bid for.

The ultimate goal for both teams is to come to a Win/Win compromise through collaborative problem-solving that results in both parties getting what they desire.