4 Responses

1. Team exercises
   Hi Kate

   Have a look at http://www.teampedia.net

   There’s loads of exercises there.

   Regards

   Sue

2. Rope exercise
   Hello, I invested in a 20-metre bit of rope a while ago and I use it for lots of icebreakers and energisers. One that works well for teams is to ask them to form a pentagram using themselves and the rope. They may not all be clear on the objective (what is a pentangle?) It is a 5 pointed star whose lines cross at 5 points creating a pentagon at it’s centre. Often you have to help them be clear on what they are aiming to achieve. Sometimes I let them start, knowing that different people have different ideas in their heads. The clever ones draw a diagram so that they are all aiming at the same end result.

   It is interesting then to see who takes the lead, who waits to be led, who gets frustrated, who switches off etc. They always get there in the end but I have had a group take 20 minutes! (Not great synergy there…..)

   Good luck.

3. Free Teambuilding Games
   We have a good teambuilding exercise called ‘Team Bus’. Basically, you ask the participants to draw a bus and identify which part of the bus they are and why (i.e. I’m the headlights because I light the way). It’s really quite effective.

   Another one to try is Team Totem, where you ask the team to make a totem pole of themselves and explain their roles etc.

   You can find these and many other useful free training exercise and resources on the Trainer Bubble website at http://www.trainerbubble.com

4. The Human Knot
   Hi Kate,

   I use the human knot as it works very effectively as long as you have a full group of able bodied people, preferable with pants on rather than skirts.
   The group gets into a circle, they then put thier right hand in the air and have to hold someone else’s right hand, but NOT the person to thier immediate left or right. They do this again with thier left hand but again cannot use the person to thier left or right OR the person they are holding with thier right hand. Now they are holding 2 different people’s hands and the group is in a knot.
   Thier task is to try and get back into a circle without any knots (or crossed arms).
   If you have an even number of people then this is achievable, if it is an odd number then they can get into a figure 8 so alter as you need.
   They can be facing into or away from the centre of the circle at the end as long as there are no knots or crossing of hands.
   This is a great energizer where they have to communicate and leadership usually emerges along with negotiation (for when they have to climb over people’s arms) flexibility, listening, observing, working as a team etc.
   Get them to tell you what they learnt. You may find there are loads more things that come out and can be different each time you do this.

   Hope it goes well.