Top 10 team building exercises
A good team building exercise will encourage employees to communicate, work and laugh with each other, developing skills that are key to a successful workforce. Here are our 10 favourite ideas for brilliant bond-forming activities.
1. Human knot
For this simple game, ask everyone to stand in a circle, close their eyes, and put their hands into the middle of the circle, taking hold of someone else's hands at random. When everyone opens their eyes, their aim is to untangle themselves into a normal circle without anyone letting go of their colleagues' hands.
2. Orienteering
An oldie, but a goodie. Orienteering is great for communication and having fun. It doesn’t have to be an all-day event either, since urban orienteering in the area just near the office is more than possible.
3. Five facts
In teams, each member writes down five facts about themselves on a piece of paper. The other team has to guess which facts relate to which person on the opposite team. If they guess after one fact, they get five points, after two facts, they receive four points, and so on.
4. Egg drop
For this, colleagues split into teams to make the strongest possible package to support an egg being dropped from height, and the choice of materials given is up to you. Give the teams an hour to make their packages and then test them. Whichever package survives the biggest drop is crowned the winner.
5. Lego
The aim is to reproduce a Lego model in an adjacent room by building a replica from the same bricks. One person is allowed to see the original, and reports to an intermediate person about how the original looks. That person goes back to their teammates, and they build the replica.
6. If…?
Write 20 on slips of paper, put them in the middle, and have people take them out at random to answer them. Questions like, ‘if you won the lottery today, what would be your first purchase?’ might open up common ground between colleagues that you never thought would exist.
7. Spaghetti towers
Split the group into teams, and give them equal quantities of marshmallows and dry spaghetti. The team who can build the highest free-standing tower within the time limit will be crowned the winners.
8. Minesweeper
With people in small teams, place chairs randomly across a large room. Blindfold one team member, and ask their team to give them verbal instructions on how to cross the room quickly and safely, avoiding the chairs.
9. Origami
Each player is given a piece of paper and asked to close their eyes. Then, the orchestrator gives a series of instructions, such as ‘fold the paper’, ‘rip a hole in the right corner’ and ‘turn the paper upside down’. This exercise demonstrates how differently people may follow the same instructions.
10. Metropoly
Lastly, the idea behind this adventurous activity is to buy each employee a day ticket that allows them unlimited use of local transport. They are split into teams, and all the teams are given a list of sights and locations around the region. The aim is for the teams to have their photo taken at as many of these locations as possible within a given timeframe.
For this simple game, ask everyone to stand in a circle, close their eyes, and put their hands into the middle of the circle, taking hold of someone else's hands at random. When everyone opens their eyes, their aim is to untangle themselves into a normal circle without anyone letting go of their colleagues' hands.
2. Orienteering
An oldie, but a goodie. Orienteering is great for communication and having fun. It doesn’t have to be an all-day event either, since urban orienteering in the area just near the office is more than possible.
3. Five facts
In teams, each member writes down five facts about themselves on a piece of paper. The other team has to guess which facts relate to which person on the opposite team. If they guess after one fact, they get five points, after two facts, they receive four points, and so on.
4. Egg drop
For this, colleagues split into teams to make the strongest possible package to support an egg being dropped from height, and the choice of materials given is up to you. Give the teams an hour to make their packages and then test them. Whichever package survives the biggest drop is crowned the winner.
5. Lego
The aim is to reproduce a Lego model in an adjacent room by building a replica from the same bricks. One person is allowed to see the original, and reports to an intermediate person about how the original looks. That person goes back to their teammates, and they build the replica.
6. If…?
Write 20 on slips of paper, put them in the middle, and have people take them out at random to answer them. Questions like, ‘if you won the lottery today, what would be your first purchase?’ might open up common ground between colleagues that you never thought would exist.
7. Spaghetti towers
Split the group into teams, and give them equal quantities of marshmallows and dry spaghetti. The team who can build the highest free-standing tower within the time limit will be crowned the winners.
8. Minesweeper
With people in small teams, place chairs randomly across a large room. Blindfold one team member, and ask their team to give them verbal instructions on how to cross the room quickly and safely, avoiding the chairs.
9. Origami
Each player is given a piece of paper and asked to close their eyes. Then, the orchestrator gives a series of instructions, such as ‘fold the paper’, ‘rip a hole in the right corner’ and ‘turn the paper upside down’. This exercise demonstrates how differently people may follow the same instructions.
10. Metropoly
Lastly, the idea behind this adventurous activity is to buy each employee a day ticket that allows them unlimited use of local transport. They are split into teams, and all the teams are given a list of sights and locations around the region. The aim is for the teams to have their photo taken at as many of these locations as possible within a given timeframe.