Team-Building Exercises 2

[DoubleD]

Does anyone have examples of Team-Building exercises? I'm managing a diverse group of individuals with disparate jobs. I'd like to build a more cohesive unit and promote communication and comradery. As well as showing the associates how much we appreciate them. I have the following ideas so far:

Mini-golf
Lunch (on the company)
Serve breakfast to the group
Weekly Trivia (Soda for the winner, once a month winner gets some bigger prize.) Random winner selected from correct entries
Pictionary or Cranium during lunch break
Drinks after work

Ideas can be at work as well as outside work activities.

Pain is stress leaving the body.

DoubleD

 

[ecobb]

Have your team challenge another department/team at your company to paintball!

Then, go to the bar!



Hope This Helps!

Ecobb

"My work is a game, a very serious game." - M.C. Escher

 

[MDXer]

The Bar is a must , even if people don't drink it is a nice way to relax and people will be more at ease outside of a work enviroment. As for activities how about interoffice Unreal Tournement 2004 friday afternoons. Nothing like blowing people up for fun.


Shoot Me! Shoot Me NOW!!!
- Daffy Duck

 

[ecobb]

At my old company, we would actually had "Total Annihilation" games going on the LAN every Wednesday at 5:30. (Of course everyone always ganged up on the boss!) I agree with MDXer, nothing like blowing each other up for fun.



Hope This Helps!

Ecobb

"My work is a game, a very serious game." - M.C. Escher

 

[DoubleD]

I love a good violent game, but as I said, I've got a very disparate group of individuals, and not all are interested in computer games. But keep the ideas coming!

Pain is stress leaving the body.

DoubleD

 

[MDXer]

People who don't like games?? Especially violent one... I say Fire them!!

Shoot Me! Shoot Me NOW!!!
- Daffy Duck

 

[Chopstik]

As mentioned before, after-hours drinks is often one good way (and this from someone who doesn't drink!). Maybe an office putt-putt tournament (just get some of those little mgmt putting things). Recently, we passed around a list of old sayings to everyone on our team and had them choose their faves which we could then compile into a list as our official dept motto (hey, it's goofy, but it worked for us).

I'm sure there's more that temporarily escape me... ;-)

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"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."
--Dou

 

[willir]

Hmmm

Team building... more cohesive unit and promote communication and comradery

What type of budget?

The best activities I have enjoyed that accomplished these goals...
- Two or three day "camp" hosted by a company dedicated to your goals. Groups of you spend time trouble shooting problems (stacking tires on a 20 ft / 6 m pole), communication (production of plays to the group). This was by far the best ever. It cost money, but the objectives were met, and we maintained our "team" for years.

- Hire a sociologist / psychiatrist. Here, as comical relief, the person goes over personality types. This seems to be fun, but the underlying message is that it shows how wach can communicate with other personality types. A lot of fun, and really helped when dealing with people conflicts.

Less expensive things...
- Presentations by each department by various people on what they do. Although this helps people to get to know each other, the emphasis is on being comical. Have a theme. This week, the theme is the "Zoo", and the selected department has to make their presentations per the theme - lion tamer, chimp trainer. Some may be reluctant to "share".

- Visioning and direction planning. Including all allows all to buy in.

- Day-off vouchers for employee of the month, or by random draw. This does obtain your "team building" but money and time off are the two most desired rewards.

- Bowling for time off, or other rewards. You can get goofy - most gutter balls, best flip...


Things to avoid
- Too much alcohol can generate negative rsults espcially if one or some are under a lot of stress and "release" too much. And are you liable if some one gets involved in an accident on the way home? Or inappropriate and unsolicited acitvity between the sexes. It would be counter productive if you got sued, or had to fire somebody during your team building excercises. If you drink, make sure it is safe and controlled.

- Non-family activity planned during family time.

 

[SQLSister]

Instead of time off for the employee of the month - how about time off for the person voted by the team as the best team player?

If you have really disparate personalities, they can have difficulty understanding each other. At one workplace we were all required to take the Meyers-Briggs personality test. Then we had a sesion in an all-hands conference where we had people from different personality types (all volunteers, no one had to reveal their personality type) each deal with the same question. It was utterly fascinating to see how the group of introverts handled the question completely differently than the group of extroverts. Really brought home to everyone how different personality types do process information differently.

The person who did the testing then gave a lecture on the ways different personality types worked which was a real eyeopener for many people. It never occurs to most of us that other people do not process information or behave in the same way we do and that it is not their fault that they do not.

This one two-hour session truly changed the dynamics of how people interacted in the office. Probably the most effective and useful group training session I ever attended.

If you can't afford personality testing, there is a book called Please Understand Me - not sure of the author Kiersey, I think. It goes into detail on the 16 personality types and how they operate and has a self test. It should be required reading for everyone.




Questions about posting. See faq183-874

 

[kcongdon]

On the very first day of my current job, our group went bowling. Make sure to ask for bumpers for the gutters. The bumpers roll the ball back onto the lane for bowlers who can't get the ball down the lane and hit the gutters along the edges.

Scavenger hunt - a) Find items around the building or b) find items from the building and any nearby locations

Charades - Ask each person to perform a charade of a) favorite hobby or activity or b) whatever they wanted to be when they grew up or c) if a person could be anyone or anything else what would he or she be

Any combination of activity + company-provided meal would do nicely. The meal's in case not everyone participates fully in the activity. If the activity + meal is scheduled during business hours, this would demonstrate that the company values team building.

 

[chiph]

When we shipped a new release of our product, we went out to a local place that had 50 or more video game machines. The company bought a pile of tokens for everyone.

We've also done laser-tag.

Chip H.


____________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please read FAQ222-2244 first

 

[DoubleD]

Thanks for all the great ideas so far. Please keep them coming as I'm always looking for fresh stuff to try out.

Pain is stress leaving the body.

DoubleD

 

[johnpoole]

i worked at a place in atlanta where the owner took all 93 people in his dept to a braves game in the middle of the week. that was a day people talked about for a while. send everyone home on a wed afternoon for no reason, buy everyone a small gift cert. have a meal catered.. have a ice cream buffet set up for no reason, all the thing we don't do were i work. the bar thing seemed like a good ideal until the cops arrived..

john poole
bellsouth business
columbia,sc

 

[BJCooperIT]

I provide Friday morning "breakfast" for my team. Sometimes coffee & pastry or juice & granola bars or something similar. Doesn't seem to matter to them what it is, just matters that I care enough to do it.

[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Systems Project Analyst/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle/Windows

 

[rosieb]

I'm very wary of anything that could be perceived as "a team building exercise", some of my people would run a mile!

I do spontaneous food: doughnuts, Womens' Institute cakes from the local market and home-made brownies (on the rare occasions that I bake).

We also have a monthly "Friday after pay-day" visit to the pub, for IT and anyone else who wants to join us - low-key, usually a couple of hours, to mix up IT with users, no heavy drinking as a lot of us have to drive.

Last summer we had some ferociously contested putting / crazy golf competitions in the lunch-hour.

I really want to do some of the psychometric/personality tests, but I'd present it as a "know your users" exercise.

So, team-building by stealth?



Rosie
"Never express yourself more clearly than you think" (Niels Bohr)

 

[suchasynic]

What I started within our office was "Pizza Friday's" I order pizza & pop (sometimes even chicken wings!) for everyone in the department for lunch (company pays)

We all gather and eat together and chat about what's bugging us, what drives us nuts, what we could do to make things better, what would be great to see happen, current events, upcoming holidays, etc... It's very un-official and just opens up people to talking and being verbal about what they see and hear. It also makes you feel like somebody is actually listening. Everybody is well behaved, and the focus is mostly on the system & procedures verus the people behind them. Alot of great ideas has come from it. There is no schedule to it. Pizza day is at my descretion and it's booked about a week in adavance by sending out an email when I think the team needs it!

I don't expect anybody to go back to work either-- lunch is a long lunch, and we usually go home early that day (hence why it's done on a Friday) After 3 to 4 pieces of pizza, who could work?

 

[guptakaps]

One of the things that has really worked in last few months in our company is that we have recently formed a Squash League. Staff from difference departments joined in and played against each other.

It has been really great and a real ice breaker.

 

[MDXer]

Movie day is a good one. At our office when a big blockbuster is being released we go to the movie in the afternoon. Everyone comes in early as not to interrupt productivity and then we take the afternoon to see the movie. Last one was Spiderman II.

Shoot Me! Shoot Me NOW!!!
- Daffy Duck

 

[OhioBill]

I've played paintball and seen paintball team building events, most of which were questionable successes. The few things I know about building a team won't crowd the head of a pin, however:

People who eat together (lunch) tend to work well together. If you can't get everyone together, generally speaking, make it mandatory for a while. You may have to post a "no food fighting" sign.

At the end of a meeting have each person say something nice about another person at the meeting.

Find a project that everyone on the team can contribute to. Try to make the contributions interdependent.

Last, eliminate employee of the week, etc. The reasoning here is that you are trying to achieve a team effort, not a super-star effort. If you can't reward the team as a whole, forget the reward.

 

[Stat1c]

Team Building events such as paintballing, go karting, pub quizzes/crawls, wine tasting etc do work. But the best thing I've seen by far had to be a breakout room given to the staff, filled with comfy sofa's, vending machines, tv and games machines. After the first month or so of everyone using the electrical devices, they soon died out and people talked.


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