Teaching Activity: Dog & Bone (Diseconomies of Scale)

‘Dog and Bone’ is a 10 – 15 minute introductory activity which illustrates to students the potential for ‘diseconomies of scale’.

The primary function of the activity is to illustrate that as the size of the group taking part in the activity increases the quality of the outcome diminishes. The activity is attempting to mimic some of the causes of diseconomies of scale such as:

• The re-interpretation of ‘commands’ as the chain of people involved increases

• The issue of how a group outcome can be affected when one or more members do not possess the correct skills

• How a part of production towards the end of a process can be affected by an earlier part.

Give it a try!