5 Responses

1. Don’t bother
   Hi Paul
   My suggestion would be not to bother.

   You can do more harm than good when you try and achieve the unachievable.

   If I was asked to attend a 90 minute team building exercise I would seriously question who thought of the idea!

   Good luck

   Steve

   PS: If the group are under 12 years old ignore the above…they just like running around and won’t care if the team is built or not. 🙂

2. Reply

   Hi Paul

   What issues are you looking to address with the team? There are different exercises that spring to mind, but hard to recommend without knowing what you are trying to get out of it.

   Thanks,

   Jane

3. Ask why??

   Hi Paul

   I agree with the other two comments – more info is needed before even embarking on the exercise.

   If these are a group of people who are strangers and you need them to form up into a team for a project or something you could use several short introduction/icebreaker activities. However, I feel you should find out precisely what needs to be achieved. Are there some problems in the team which are supposed to be addressed by this activity? 

   If you can find out and let us know I am sure people will offer suggestions (even if that is to leave well alone!)

   Jenny

4. Keep it simple

   Hi Paul –

   I wouldn’t necessarily go with "don’t bother" as whoever came up with the suggestion for the session probably has some objective in mind – even if it is just to get those 40 people in one room together to remember we are people and not just email addresses?

   I do agree that in the early stages of designing any team session, there should be more questions than answers: What needs are you addressing? What do you want the team members to take away from the session? How will the learning be transferred back to the workplace? Who will be responsible for that? etc etc

   One and a half hours is a very short time – and depending on what you want to achieve, I would recommend that at least half that time is spent on debriefing. With 40 people in one room, facilitating a discussion where everyone, or almost everyone, feels they can contribute to is going to be tricky. And if there are any actions to be taken as a result of the session, these will need to be clear and have buy-in.

   So more questions than answers (again) but feel free to contact me offline if you want an outside eye.

   Best,

   Pilar Orti

    

5. Teams
   Hi Pilar

   Sorry but I disagree. Even the most experienced Team Building proffesional couldn’t achieve it and I am guessing the person posting on here isn’t too hot on the subject or they wouldn’t be posting on here!

   As I said earlier you can do more more harm than good when you don’t do something right so in this case it is better to leave well alone or maybe hire someone in who knows what they are doing.

   Otherwise you have 40 people wondering why they have just been doing innapropriate things for an hour and reluctant to attend any more waste of time Training!

   Regards

   Steve