8 Responses

1. Questions ….
   Hi Carson, well done on the new job! A couple of questions first: how long should the activity last? Do you have any specific objective in mind, e.g. icebreaker, energiser, breaking down barriers, encouraging better communication? A little more background will help to source the most appropriate task. 🙂 Thanks!

2. More info
   Hi Clare

   The duration is 1 hour & the objective is to help people get to know each other. Basically, a whole load of new people have joined the team in the last 2 months. Previously it was a small group. I hope this helps.

   Thanks

3. team building principles
   Hi Carson

   There are tons of material on this and all emphasise different aspects of team building. Of course they highly depend on team size and the available time.

   We have some team building exercises and products which you might find useful.

   In general go for some creative/competitive excercise. Divide the group into two teams. This way you get them to compete against each other, but they also learn how to cooperate. For example give them 3 simple types of items and ask them to make something large out of it (like a bridge made only with newspaper). They have to be creative and also listen to each other to win against other teams.

   Hope this will be helpful. Good luck for the hunting.

4. Free games
   Carlson

   You could look at the two games via the link below, they are free and you can use them how you want.

   http://space.businessballs.com/index.asp?profile=744&score=

5. teampedia
   Have you tried teampedia.. http://www.teampedia.net/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page some excellent material

   But before you rush off into the sweet shop – do you want a team working or team building activity? What are the objectives of the session? how will you know you have achieved them – more importantly how will your participants know they have achieved them?

   Team activities work best when they are activities linked to the role or job of the team itself, the more real it is the greater impact it has.

   Sure activities can be used for team building, however they often ‘appear’ trite, and you can often get better value by having the team experience real world situations together and solving real problems together – not to mention just spending quality time together outside of ‘normal’ work hours.

   I hope the session goes well for you next week
   Mike

6. Team
   If you want something fun but barrier breaking try http://www.drumdynamics.co.uk

7. getting to know each other
   Dear Carson

   As many of the people are new to the team I would sugggest that you focus the activity on helping them to get to know each other better. You could start by asking them to do a pairs interview where they talk to someone they don’t already know and find out a number of things about them such as where they like to go on holiday/their most enjoyable holiday; what they like best about their current job; a person they admire and why etc. About 5 questions is about right. Avoid anything too personal. They then move into groups of 4 where each person ‘intoduces’ their interviewee to the others. You wont be able to ask everyone to introduce people to the whole group as that would take all the available time. You could then move on to one of the fun activities/games that other people have signposted you to.

8. Business Focused Team Building
   Hi
   Here is a video of a team building excercise which is both fun and also business focused – which seems to be more of a requirement these days.
   http://www.business-smart.com/html/events_video.html