“Again, idiotic team building!” - you hear from a disgruntled employee. Well well. If such thoughts enter the heads of your colleagues, there will be no benefit from team building.
Team building and business games should not only teach useful skills, but also bring pleasure. They help team members get to know each other better - who thinks, works, solves problems and has fun.
We've put together a list of 12 business team building games that won't make your employees unhappy - on the contrary, they'll make you want to play them again and again:
Fast business games
Game of Possibilities
Time: 5-6 minutes Number of participants: one or more small groups Equipment: any items Rules: This is a great five-minute business game. Give one player from each group a random item. Players take turns coming forward and showing the group how the item can be used. The rest of the participants must guess what exactly the player is showing. Showing should be done silently. Use cases should be as non-standard as possible.
Purpose: This game involves creativity and teaches creative thinking.
Advantages and disadvantages
Time: 5-6 minutes Number of participants: two or more Inventory: not needed Rules: player A tells player B some unpleasant episode from his past (from his personal life or from work). This must be an event that actually happened. Player A then talks about the event again, but only talks about the positive aspects of it. Player B helps find the positive side of an unpleasant situation. After this, the players change roles.
Goal: Participants learn together to reframe negative experiences and learn valuable lessons from them.
Mixing goals
Time: 1-2 minutes Number of participants: any Inventory: not needed Rules: an excellent team office game that won’t take much time. Before holding a meeting, ask each participant in the game to go around their colleagues and tell as many people as possible what they are going to share at the meeting. If you want, you can give a prize to the player who tells the maximum number of people about his plans, and to the one who successfully outlines what he told his colleagues about before the meeting.
Purpose: This team building option makes meetings more effective and forces participants to think ahead about what they are going to say rather than what they want to hear.
Outdoor business games
Treasure Hunt
Time: 1 hour or more Number of participants: two or more small groups Equipment: pen and paper Rules: Divide the team into groups of two or more people. Make a list of different wacky tasks for each group. For example, take a selfie with a stranger, take a photo of a building or object near the office, etc. Give each group a list and do not forget to assign a deadline by which they must complete all tasks. The group that completes the tasks the fastest wins. (If you want, you can create your own scoring system according to the difficulty of the tasks.)
Purpose: This is an excellent exercise to develop team spirit. It will help you temporarily break up your usual company routine and encourage you to collaborate with colleagues from other teams and departments. You will notice that managing your project team will become easier after this.
*Fun fact: We played treasure hunts in Wrike using our own quest tracking tool.
Clew
Time: 15-30 minutes Number of participants: 8-20 people Equipment: not needed Rules: place all participants in a circle shoulder to shoulder and face in the center of the circle. Ask everyone to reach out with their right hand and take the hand of someone standing opposite them. Then ask them to reach out with their left hand and take the hand of another random person. Within a certain time, the team must unravel this tangle without unclenching their hands. If the group is too large, organize several smaller circles and have them compete against each other for speed.
Goal: Communication and teamwork skills are essential to success in this game. And after it, the participants will have something to discuss at their leisure.
Perfect square
Time: 15-30 minutes Number of participants: 5-20 people Equipment: a long piece of rope tied at the ends and a blindfold for each participant Rules: Place the employees in a circle and give them a rope in their hands. Ask everyone to blindfold themselves and place the rope on the floor. Then ask everyone to move a short distance away from the rope. Next, ask you to return to the rope again and try to lay it in an even square without removing the blindfold. To make the game more interesting, limit the time you complete the task. To make it more challenging, ask some team members not to talk.
Purpose: The game helps improve communication and leadership skills.
By asking some team members to remain silent throughout the game, you practice trust, allowing team members to lead each other in the right direction. Did you like this article?
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Minefield
Time: 15-30 minutes Number of participants: 4-10 people (even number) Equipment: various small objects, several blindfolds Rules: Find an open space (for example, an empty parking lot or park). Chaotically place the items you brought with you (cones, balls, bottles, etc.) on the ground. Divide the participants into pairs and ask one player from each pair to blindfold themselves. The second player must guide his partner from one end of the “minefield” to the other without touching any mines, using only verbal instructions. A blindfolded participant must not utter a word. To make it more challenging, designate routes that the participant must follow while blindfolded.
Purpose: This game is designed to train trust, communication skills and listening skills. It's a great game to play on the beach.
Eggfall
Time: 1-2 hours Number of participants: two or more small groups Equipment: various office supplies Rules: Divide the team into groups of 3-5 people and give each group one raw egg. Place all the items you brought together. Give participants 15-30 minutes to assemble a protective package from available items that will prevent the egg from breaking if dropped. You can take, for example, the following items: tape, pencils, straws, plastic cutlery, packaging material, newspapers, rubber bands. When the time is up, drop the eggs in the protective packaging made by the teams from the second or third floor - see which of them will survive this Yaipocalypse.
Goal: This is a classic fun (and not the most neat) team game. Brings team members together using teamwork and problem solving skills. The more people participate in this egg chaos, the more interesting it is! And don’t forget to stock up on plenty of eggs in case some of them break while creating the packaging.
Dragging over the line
The players are divided into two teams and face each other. Lines are drawn between teams. The distance from each team to the line should be slightly less than arm's length. It is advisable to select players for teams so that players of approximately equal strength face each other. At the signal, the players approach the line and join hands (one or two by agreement). At the next signal, everyone tries to pull the enemy over the line into their territory. The team that attracts the most people wins. Before the start of the game, you need to choose a leader who will give signals and count the number of people pulled by one and the other team.
Games for building relationships
Puzzle barter
Time: 1-2 hours Number of participants: Four small groups or more Equipment: One puzzle for each group Rules: Ask participants to break into small groups with an equal number of players. Give each group one puzzle of equal difficulty. The goal is to complete the puzzle faster than the other groups. But! Some of the pieces of each puzzle are in the hands of another group. And each group must decide how to get them - through negotiations, trade, exchange of team members, etc. Whatever the participants decide, the decision must be made jointly.
Purpose: This game trains problem solving and leadership skills. Some players are more active, others remain on the sidelines, but it is important to remember that every decision of the group must be agreed upon by all its members.
I believe - I don't believe
Time: 10-15 minutes Number of participants: five or more people Equipment: not needed Rules: Ask participants to sit in a circle facing each other. Everyone must remember three true facts about themselves and come up with one false one. A lie must appear truthful. Then ask them to take turns telling three true and one false facts in random order, without saying which fact is false. After one participant tells the story, the rest must guess which fact is false.
Purpose: Great game for bonding, especially for newly formed teams. It helps avoid jumping to conclusions about colleagues and gives introverts the opportunity to share something about themselves.
Drawing blindly
Time: 10-15 minutes Number of participants: two or more Equipment: picture, pen and paper Rules: Divide participants into groups of two. Seat the groups so that their participants sit with their backs to each other. Give one group member a pen and paper and another a picture. The participant holding the picture must describe it to their partner without directly saying what it shows. For example, if the picture shows a worm in an apple, do not say: “Draw an apple with a worm.” A person with paper and pen must draw what, in his opinion, is shown in the picture according to his partner’s description. Set the game time: 10-15 minutes.
Purpose: This game trains communication skills and teaches how to interpret information. When the drawing is ready, it is always interesting to see how the drawer understood the descriptions of his partner.
What's better?
Time: 15-20 minutes Number of participants: any Inventory: four or more objects Rules: choose four or more different objects (or the same objects that look different). Divide participants into groups of equal numbers. Create a situation in which each group must solve a problem using only the objects available. This could be anything from “you are stranded on a desert island” to “you need to save the world from Godzilla.” Ask each group to rank the items according to their usefulness in each situation and explain their choices.
Purpose: This game stimulates imagination while solving problems. It is important not to come up with too simple situations, otherwise it will be obvious which items will be more useful than others.
How to choose active competitions - tips
A wedding is not just a solemn event, it is a lot of fun, which cannot be ensured with the help of professionals performing in front of the guests. Games and active competitions will not let the party participants get bored. When creating a program and choosing the most interesting entertainment, it is worth considering such points as:
- age of players;
- the opportunity to take part in competitions in evening dresses;
- the need to organize a special play area;
- availability or preparation of inventory.
First of all, you need to choose the right time when you can invite guests to take part in competitions that require them to leave their seats at the tables.
First, you should make sure that all potential participants in the game have had time to refresh themselves after the ceremonial registration and a long walk.
The host will not allow the guests to get enough, so as not to make it difficult to participate in outdoor competitions, so the first stage will be a game in which you can take part without leaving the table.
For example, the presenter speaks a word into the ear of the nearest guest, and he, in turn, whispers to his neighbor the association that is caused by the word he heard. Along the chain, it is the association that is transmitted from one participant to another, and what happens and how close the last word is to what the leader said will be clear only when the circle is closed.
This kind of warm-up will be an excellent preparation, after which guests can be invited to play together or divided into teams.
Can play:
- boys vs girls;
- elders versus youth;
- friends and relatives of the groom versus those invited by the bride.
The choice of place for games and competitions depends on the time of year and style of celebration. In the warmer months, it is better to organize such entertainment in the fresh air and open space.
In winter or in rainy weather, you need to free up space in the hall rented for a banquet, on a closed terrace or veranda of a restaurant.
