Teamwork Activities and Games

Even with established teams, it’s important to get people into the holiday mood and encourage creativity and collaboration.

Assign people into pairs or triads and each pair/triad needs to write one pair of rhyme for the music of a popular song. In this holiday-themed version, we'll ask participants to create a version of Jingle bells.

Whatever the occasion or song, it's a nice twist if they incorporate something in the lyrics that is related to your own company and culture.

This is an active team building game and requires participants to move about a lot and so can be also used as an energiser.

Playful learning with your group: from standard process (establishing best practice) into chaotic situation.

This fun activity could be used as an icebreaker for people who have just met but it can be framed as a method that shows and fosters team communication, collaboration and strategic thinking as well.

This method gives goal setting or vision sharing into a more creative, associative frame, making participants move out of their comfort zones.

Have your group stand up in a close circle (10 to 16 people is best). They close their eyes put their hands into the circle and find two hands and hold on. Then they open their eyes and the group has to try to get back into a circle without letting go, though they can change their grip, of course.

n a reflective teamwork activity (RTA), the process and the content merge with each other. Participants work through an activity and use the outcomes to evaluate the process they used. Here's an RTA that explores challenges associated with losing and gaining team members in the midst of a project.

A drawing exercise that shows us how we can have different perspectives on various subjects and/or objects - demonstrating cultural diversities. It can help us unlock some of our unconscious assumptions and biases. The task is fairly simple to execute and doesn’t require more than 6 A4 pages/or post-its and a pen for each participant, or a Miro/Mural or virtual whiteboard.

Constructive feedback is feedback regarding an individual’s performance that can be used to build (construct) connection, successful habits and behaviors. The constructive (building) component is key because with this mindset and approach, seemingly negative feedback doesn’t become discouraging. Rather, a launch pad for creating opportunities for learning and development.

You can use Whispers as a follow-up activity to any interesting experience among a group of friends. It's my favorite game to informally debrief my colleagues at the airport or during the drive back after a conference.