10 Teambuilders: Ready-to-run games for Team development’
Michèle Barca and Kate Cobb
Gower, 1999. Boxed set of loose-leaf sheets in folders, £225 plus VAT. ISBN 0566 07907 0.

This is a format variation collection of 10 activities in a boxed set, rather than the more traditional bound book or clipfile. Teambuilding is very much an interest of training and development practitioners and organizations at the present time as it offers the development of the staff as a coherent real team, rather than a possibly autonomously working group of people. These activities can be used in any circumstances when the team is brought together for developmental purposes. The set consists of a slim facilitator’s guide which contains advice on planning, running and reviewing the activities. Otherwise, the box includes five wallets, each containing two activities on related subjects – communication; decision making; leadership; problem solving; and team working. Each wallet contains a handout on the subject; a sheet containing the basic information about each activity – background, materials, time, numbers and method; a trainer’s guide sheet and a trainer’s debrief sheet; and individual briefs for the team members. The activities are timed to run between 45 and 90 minutes and are suitable for teams or groups numbering 5 (or multiples thereof) to 20, being either fantasy-based or based on workplace scenarios.

They are all interesting and useful variations of activities intended to engage enthusiasm and a sense of fun, in addition to achieving a significant learning outcome, but the price is against it. If the 10 activities had been published in a more traditional ring-binder collection, the price would have been significantly lower and users would be looking for more than 10 activities.

Leslie Rae
June 1999