Opening Workshop Activities

A great get-to-know activity that dives a bit deeper than regular name repeating games.

Sometimes it can be difficult to keep a meeting on track when people have a hard time staying focused at the right level. People can find themselves “down in the weeds” or operational details when the meeting is supposed to be strategic, or, conversely, they can find themselves being too abstract and strategic when operational detail is exactly what’s needed.

In small groups one person is introduced and their hypeman hypes them up

With a partner find the 3 most unlikely / weird / surprising things you have in common with each other
Each pair chooses one to share with the group

Pass out 2 colors of cards. Everyone answers "what does it look like when X topic is present (positive goal). One color puts down cards and builds out answers in paired yes, and conversations. Then switch roles. 

What wishes do participants have for your training session? Which of these wishes do the most participants share?

Here's an opening activity that helps the participants to generate a list of wishes, discuss them, and identify the highest-priority wishes.

In pairs, partners find 3 unusual things they have in common. Then each pair chooses one to share with the group. 

This is a fun icebreaker or energizer where participants are asked “What's in the bag?” It's a simple way to engage people and have fun getting to know each other, it gets participants to step into the space together. Each team gets points for any items that are called out that they have with them.

On a board there is a Sun, a Sun with a cloud, and a cloud with a thunder. Participants write their name on a postit and put it in the area that matches their current mood.

Various ways to have participants 'map' themselves in response to a facilitator's prompt. See also 'constellations'

The connection between walking and enhanced creativity has a long history. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1889) wrote, “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking”. New research has backed up what many have thought for centuries with data, quantifying the effect of walking on human thought. Researchers at Stanford recently found that walking outside led to almost 3 times as many creative ideas as sitting indoors.