Extroverts have no difficulty in making themselves known, but introverts often remain an enigma, bowled into silence. This exercise gives them equal footing to reveal facts about themselves as well as expose the assumptions others have made.
Participants learn about others and also learn about themselves through the lies they thought were true. Break your team into groups of equal members. Give each team a distinctly different jigsaw puzzle of equal difficulty. Explain that they have a set amount of time to complete the puzzle as a group. Explain that some of the pieces in their puzzle belong to the other puzzles in the room. The goal is to complete their puzzle before the other groups, and that they must come up with their own method of convincing the other teams to relinquish the pieces they need, whether through barter, exchange of team members, donating time to another team, a merger, etc.
Whatever they choose to do, they must do it as a group. Purpose: This exercise is time-consuming, but it accomplishes creative teamwork on several levels. As a team, they must build the puzzle. As a team, they must find a way to convince the other teams to help them. In other words, they must solve both the puzzle and the problem of getting their pieces back. Talk about team bonding, huh?
Divide your team into equal groups. Create a specific project with clear restrictions and a goal. For example, you might have your team create a device that involves movement without electricity, and moves a golf ball from point A to point B.
The challenge is completely up to you. Then give each team the same supplies to work from, or create a pile of available supplies in the middle of the room. Give them a specific time to complete the project, making sure to mention that they can only use what is available, though how they use it is completely up to them.
The final reveal is a fun event, and a great opportunity for your team to compete. Purpose: Problem solving as a team, with a strong mix of creativity, is exactly what this exercise accomplishes.
It also brings an element of fun and maker-ism into the mix, with the added twist of learning how to solve a problem with reduced options. In the book Weslandia by Paul Fleischman, the young boy Wes creates his own language, culture, and economy one summer.
A new startup created a small economy and ended up having a great deal of fun as well as learning about what motivated other team members. Get your team together and decide if you want to create an economy or some mini-aspect of larger society. Set up the rules you will abide by, leaving enough wiggle room to experience problems that need group agreement to solve as the system is put into action. There are rewards and penalties. Some team members will reveal themselves to be rule-abiders and others as creative rule-benders.
The team will quickly learn how others work, solve, and think outside of the typical work-related realm. This will bring new understanding to work-related projects that need solutions.
This team-building exercise takes place not in one sitting, but over time. Make a large, blank journal or scrapbook available in the break room or other common areas. The book may have prompts on each page, asking questions or suggesting things to write or draw. Or, you may have guidelines printed and displayed next to the book i.
Leave pens, markers, tape, and other items that your team can use to write and draw in the book. When the book is full, put it on the shelf and get a new one. Purpose: This team exercise creates a living history of your business that you can keep adding to.
It is somewhat similar to the Zappos culture book, but allows your team a chance to build it more directly. This game encourages creativity, collaboration, and recollection. Divide your team into equal sized groups, and send them out with a list of items to locate and bring back.
Whether they remain in the office or are to leave the building is up to you. The ultimate goal is to get back first with the most items. You may want to set a time limit so that all groups are back in a reasonable time, whether they found all items or not. A scavenger hunt can be themed, and might involve a variety of clues or other twists that force a team to get creative and work together. One variation is to make it a digital scavenger hunt in which they must find examples and specific information or web pages online.
You may wish to restrict which search engines or methods they use to complete the challenge. Purpose: A scavenger hunt is a fun activity that forces people to work together as a team. It spurs creativity, particularly if clues or riddles are involved. Much like a scavenger hunt, a geocache adventure relies on clues but has the added level of using GPS coordinates to find an item. Each group will need to have a GPS device that will work for finding geocaches. There are several apps available to use on smartphones that would suffice.
You may wish to have a set time in which all groups must return. The clues you hide in specific geographic locations could be part of a larger riddle or message that you wish the teams to have revealed to them.
A variation of this might be to use QR codes placed around the office or neighborhood, mixing GPS locations with other clues found in QR codes. Purpose: This exercise helps team members work together to achieve a specific goal using a specific and narrow process in which close enough is not good enough.
It also promotes problem solving in a creative way if riddles and puzzles are involved. If you do this over lunch, be sure to cater food and make it a fun time. Require team members to be present. Have a question and answer session afterwards. Purpose: Most people are eager to let others know interesting things about themselves, but not all team members are able to make that happen. Most teams are lopsided, with some members dominating discussion.
Before your regular staff meeting, break your team into groups. Instruct the groups to find out one commonality among themselves. It might be a hobby or an interest they all do, or having the same favorite genre of music or favorite food.
Once they discover a commonality they can agree on, they create a list of what might be stereotypical qualities of such people. Then, the groups come together to announce to the rest of the groups who they are. The Roller Coaster Buffs, for example, might periodically raise their arms and holler, or the Jane Austenites might rephrase all of their speech to co-workers as quotes from Jane Austen books.
At the completion of the meeting or day , talk about stereotypes that we assign to people. Talk about how people managed to find a commonality, and the process it took to dig it up. Purpose: The idea is to force your team to confront the foolish nature of stereotypes and how, if people really behaved as we casually write them off to be, the office would be much different.
The teamwork and team dynamics of your workplace, developed through exercises like these, is just one part of your employer brand. Contact CareerArc today to learn how to develop your employer brand even further so that you can both retain and attract top talent.
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Four Walls Communication Activity This quick activity is all about learning how each team member prefers to communicate, allowing for better collaboration, and less miscommunication in future interactions. Team Birthday Lineup A classic for a reason, this team-building exercise requires your team to communicate with each other without the use of words. Penny For Your Thoughts This sharing game is often used as an icebreaker and provides a unique way for your team members to learn more about each other.
Spider Web In this game, the team must work together to get all individual employees through the challenge. Scrambled Puzzles Jigsaw puzzles are just the background for this selection from our 5-minute team building activities.
Helium Stick Another simple 5-minute team building activities for the workplace, this exercise is all about overcoming the initial frustration of a challenge to find the right solution—all while working together as a team. Paper Tower Paper Tower is another fun game that can be used to spark innovation and creativity in your team.
More posts by CareerArc Staff Writer. Related Posts. Learn more about Jackbox Games. If the train was late and people were standing on the platform longer, sometimes the two dudes would stop playing for a bit. Neither of those songs was Yellow Submarine. Yellow Submarine is also an online team building game you can play with remote teams. Here is how:. The mechanics work for online team games because the incentive is for each player to show their submarine as many times as they can.
If you wait it out, then you may be one of the last players in the game but you will also need to catch-up on points. A few years ago, video game cafes took the world by storm. The idea of going to play Mario Kart or Goldeneye while someone delivers you nachos and beer was a strong pull.
You can host a Nintendo Game Night for your team by using an emulator. The emulator allows you to play team building games online via most modern web browsers. Choose a game like Excitebike, Popeye or Ice Hockey and host a tournament to see who gets the most points.
Learn more at Emulator. The strategy in Ten Strikes is to share facts about yourself that are unique enough that other players will not be able to say it is true of them and will have to put fingers down. Generally the more fingers and toes you start with, the longer the game will go. The Question Game is a fun and free online team building activity that requires no prep or special equipment. To start playing, ask someone a question, and that person must respond with a question directed back at you or another participant.
If you delay for five seconds then you are out. Escape games are a popular group activity in person, and are increasingly popular online team building games too. These virtual escape games provide opportunities for teamwork, collaboration, and developing team building skills. There are dozens of options to choose from, including free or DIY escape rooms, and fully facilitated ones.
Check out this list of online escape rooms for more ideas. Virtual murder mysteries are similar to online escape rooms, but generally have more theatrical flair. Typically, you either download scripts and choose actors on your team, or hire an outside company to perform the murder mystery for you.
These online murder mysteries tend to have fun themes that match holidays, entertainment and other interests. Here is a list of online murder mystery games. Game shows are a ubiquitous part of growing up. You can play online versions of these game shows with remote teams. These games are fun since they are familiar, a little nostalgic, and easy to match with prizes.
Check our our list of virtual game show ideas and this on on how to play Jeopardy online. Playing fun team games online is a great way to do team building and create meaningful relationships with coworkers while working from home.
You can play the online team building games on this list, create your own, or check out other resources for more ideas. Be sure to check out our lists of online games for large groups and offline team building games too. With online team building, the most important element is that you dedicate some time to games, because all work and no play makes for a pretty dull time.
Next, check out our lists of fun games to play on Zoom , Google Meet games and this one with virtual game night activities. The following are a few common questions and answers about online team building games to play with coworkers. Online team building is any formation of relationships between team members that occurs via online platforms. For example, you can do icebreakers at the beginning of virtual meetings.
Online team building games are any games that you play virtually to help foster collaboration and team spirit with employees. Virtual team building games and remote team building games are closely related. Organizing team building games online is one way to increase morale and engagement with remote teams. At a basic level, games are a fun way for your people to spend time with each other away from work projects and the requirements of meetings.
Of these four games, Werewolf is the best known, and Water Shots is my favorite. An easy way to get started with team building online is to allocate either an entire virtual meeting or at least a portion of one to playing online team games.
You can organize some of the games on this list, or create your own virtual games to play with coworkers. The game is a familiar format, easy to learn and a lot of fun. Plus, the game format lends itself to prizes and other forms of recognition. Here is a free icebreaker Bingo card template you can play with. In this game, eight individuals, each representing a different intelligence, are stranded on a desert island.
Because the island has a finite amount of resources, your team must decide what order to eliminate the individuals in, in order to ensure survival. For similar ideas, check out this list of problem solving games. While Speed Networking may seem better suited for large group icebreakers, this activity can also be reworked as an intimate icebreaker activity.
This exercise provides a fast and easy way for teams to get to know each other. To play Speed Networking, using a random team generator , pair your team into groups of two. Then, give each pair icebreaker questions and five minutes to make their way through as many questions as possible. After five minutes are up, switch up the pairs.
Since you are playing with a smaller group, you can cycle through the pairs more than once, so your colleagues can ask even more questions or simply chat about some information that came up in a previous question. Need help thinking of ways to break the ice? Check out our list of icebreaker questions for some pointers. Hometown Map is an icebreaker game for work that is easy to set up. To start, pin a large world map to a bare stretch of wall and place a marker, small Post-It notes, and box of push pins nearby.
Then, notify your team to use the push pins and Post-Its to mark birth places or hometowns on the map over the next few days. When your team members walk past the map, the pins may prompt your colleagues to ask each other about experiences growing up in different places. Psychology Masks is another icebreaker activity pulled from Psychology that is especially suited for artistically inclined teams.
To get started, order blank white masks and paints. Then, ask your team to fill the outside of the masks with images signifying what others think of them, and illustrate the inside with drawings that symbolize their inner selves.
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