Team building activities do not necessarily be outdoor, many indoor team building activities are as effective. (Image Credit: Flickr//Teambuilding Gallery)
Team building has been largely emphasized within many organizations in recent years due to its impact on productivity and efficiency. If done in a well-organized manner, team building can improve a team’s capability largely. There has been a lot of team building solutions company that provides their services to help people organize team building activities. However, it does cost quite a sum of money to hire these professionals. Some of these team building activities do not need professionals to be conducted. In truth, most of them can be conducted easily by anyone but experts may have a better understanding of what a certain activity is trying to convey to its participants. In fact, team building activities are not only suitable for companies or organizations but can also be done by a group of friends or families. Generally, there are two types of team building activities which is outdoor and indoor team building activities and can be further breakdown to other categories. Some of the categories are team building problem-solving activities, communication activities and many more. So, here are some simple and fun team building activity ideas that have been done frequently.
1. Scavenger Hunt
Divide the participants into a few equal-sized groups. Send them to locate and bring back a list of items. Locations can be decided by the party who organized the activity. The goal is to get back first with the most items. A time limit should be set so that the groups are back in a specific time for the activity to end whether if they had found all items or not. This activity can be themed or have a few variations such as clues in order to find out what item is needed, some handicaps for the whole team or some house rules. This activity is very flexible to many modifications or variations, do try to make it interesting for your participants. The scavenger hunt forces people to work together and sparks their creativity to obtain the items. This is one of the team building activities for youth.
2. Minefield
Divide the participants into a grouping of pairs, one of them will be blindfolded. Create an obstacle course in a room or hallway. If in the office, boxes or chairs can be used. These obstacles will be your mine. The person who is not blindfolded will need to guide his or her partner to the end of the course without setting off any mines. The guiding person cannot enter into the course but need to use verbal instructions to get their partner through the course. This activity can also be played outdoors and making it even more fun. It can be modified to add in traps that punish both the partners and the guide if they made a wrong move. A harder course will need the partnering pair to work harder on listening to each other and communicate more to avoid punishments.
3.Truths and Lie
This activity can help to let team members know more about each other and is often used as an icebreaking team building activities for college students. The game will let everyone sit in a circle. The activity will need a room for communication so the circle should not be too big. Bigger groups can be split into a few circles. This is a very simple yet effective team building activity. Each person in the circle will take turns to say 4 facts about themselves where 3 of them are true and 1 is a lie. The lie should not be something too absurd but should be realistic and almost believable. Once the facts are told, the other people will take turns to identify which is the lie from the statements. The lie will be revealed after everyone has done the guessing. Team members will get know each other more through this simple activity which can bring surprises to participants.
4. The Human Knot
This is a short yet fun and exciting team building that requires communication and creativity from participants. The participant will need to stand in a circle with shoulders to shoulders and facing the inside of the circle. Each of the participants will need to grab the hand of someone standing across the circle with their left and right arms. There are 2 instructions to follow in this process which is everyone should hold hands of two different people and no one should hold the hand of someone who is standing directly next to them. The main objective of the activity is to untangle everyone to form the human knot without breaking the circle in the process. If the chain breaks in the middle of the process, the group has to repeat from the start. It sounds easy but is actually quite challenging and requires clear communications between the participants in order to succeed.
5. Egg Drop
This is a very classic team building game that needs team collaboration and creative problem-solving. It is fairly simple to conduct where only a few materials are needed. The main concept of the activity is to make a package that can keep a whole uncooked egg intact by surviving a 2-4 storey drop. You will need to prepare the materials to build the egg package which includes straws, tapes, newspaper, balloons, plastic, rubber band and plastics. The teams will be given a specific amount of time to make the egg package and then go on to make the egg drop and see whose egg is still intact after the drop. In case of a tie, increasing the height for the egg drop will serve as a tiebreaker.
6. Flip It
This activity will really give a test on a team’s teamwork and is one of the more preferred team building activities for youth. Each group should have approximately 6 to 8 participants. All the participants in a group will need to stand on a blanket/towel/tarp and leave a quarter of the portion empty. Then, the group will need to flip over the tarp or blanket under their feet and stand on the other side of the sheet. This need to be done without getting off the blanket or touching the ground outside of the sheet. This activity will trigger the team to think of creative solutions to achieve their goal. Teamwork is essential for the team to be able to flip over the sheet.
7. Game of Possibilities
Team building activities can also be short and fun, not all of them takes a whole chunk of time. This activity just takes around 5 minutes or so each round. Participants will be given a random object each. Each person in the group will take turns to go up in front and demonstrate a use for the object that was given. The rest of the team will need to guess what is the object that the person is demonstrating. The person who is demonstrating cannot speak and can only act out. This activity empowers participants to use their creativity in order to demonstrate the object given to them. It will be fun if those who demonstrate does it funny. This is one the best 5-minute team building activities.
8. Cook-off Challenge
This is a very fun and unique team building activity. Divide the participants into smaller different teams, then pick a food category or specific ingredient. Teams will need to cook up something delicious in order to win the game. Some of the participants might not do well in cooking or maybe even have not tried it even once at al. This means that teamwork is needed within the team so that they can produce their dish. Set a time limit for the activity so that it does not take a super long time which can force the team to efficiently plan their cooking.
9. The Perfect Square
This activity focuses strongly on communication and leadership skills. A long rope tied on both its end and blindfolds are needed. The participants will hold on the rope and form a circle, then all the participants will need to put on their blindfold. After putting down the rope on the floor, all the participants will walk away from the circle formed by the rope. Then, all the participants will need to come back to the circle and try to form a square with the rope without removing their blindfolds. If you want to make the activity more challenging, set a time limit or instruct some of the team members to stay silent during the activity. You can also modify the activity by asking the participants to form a different shape like a triangle or hexagon.
Fun team building can let employee get a short break from their hectic job and a change of pace in working. (Image Credit: Flickr//Teambuilding Gallery)
For More Ideas on Team Building:
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