Teamwork Activities and Games

Paper Telephone is a mix of two methods, "Telephone" and "Pictionary". It is a creative game aiming to fasten the get-to-know each other phase of the team while having a good time.

The purpose of reflecting as a team is for members to express thoughts, feelings and opinions about a shared experience, to build openness and trust in the team, and to draw out key learnings and insights to take forward into subsequent experiences. Team members generally sit in a circle, reflecting first as individuals, sharing those reflections with the group, then discussing the insights and potential actions to take out of the session. Use this session one or more times throughout a project or program.

People develop confidence and self esteem as they discover that their achievements and skills are valuable. This is an exercise for team building and for increasing self esteem and mutual trust.

Much of the business of an organisation takes place between pairs of people. These interactions can be positive and developing or frustrating and destructive. You can improve them using simple methods, providing people are willing to listen to each other.

"Team of two" will work between secretaries and managers, managers and directors, consultants and clients or engineers working on a job together. It will even work between life partners.

Creativity is connecting things. If you are looking to give your creative mind a workout with a simple concept mash-up, look no further. The more you do this, the better you’ll get at one of the fundamental skills that lead to new ideas, combining elements. We've found a simple online tool from Dave Birss that helps you to define random objects that can form the basis of your creative combination.

This teamwork activity requires participants to work closely together to build a tower from a set of building blocks. 

The players need to coordinate their actions in order to be able to move the wooden blocks with the crane they have, and this can only be solved by precise planning, good communication and well-organised teamwork.

You may use this exercise to emphasise the following themes and outcomes:

• In Leadership training: identifying interdependencies in systems, leadership communication, dealing with risk, giving feedback
  
• In Team building: communicating effectively, cooperating, being an active listener, maintaining the balance, working with values
  
• In Project management: simulating strategic planning, working under time pressure
  
• In Communication training: meta communication, facilitating, dealing with different perspectives
  

A fun, physical activity designed to help a group work on communication, problem solving, to understand roles of leader and follower within the group.

A major purpose of an opening activity is to help participants get acquainted with each other. Here's an opener that identifies and rewards participants who would make good politicians.

Use Craig Raine's poem A Martian Sends a Postcard Home to spur creative thinking and encourage perspective shifting in a group. After a warm-up, you can then use this martian perspective to describe your product or service and gain new insights and ideas.