What is going on inside a group? Have we paid attention to all voices, both the quiet and the loud? Is everyone on board or are some lost at sea?
Temperature Check gives an instant visual overview of the thoughts and feelings of every group member around a specific topic, and from here, creates an opening for deeper conversation and understanding. At best, a non-threatening way of addressing the elephant in the room.
One person shares a goal, other players offer obstacles. Main player delightfully overcomes those obstacles.
The Stinky Fish Canvas is a visual way to address the problems teams carry around: the longer we void the conversation, the stinkier our issues get.
Speedboat is a short and sweet way to identify what your employees or clients don’t like about your product/service or what’s standing in the way of a desired goal.
Overview: Two groups plan a company party. The first time they must start each sentence with the words, "Yes, but..." The second time they must start their sentences with the words, "Yes, and..."
A light way to encourage punctuality in any group event or meeting in which there are breaks
In gallery view we say something that is true of you (e.g. I have a dog). Everyone that this is true for keeps their camera on; everyone that this is not true for covers their camera. Repeat with a new true statement from someone else in the group.
A Reflective Teamwork Activity (RTA) involves participants creating a checklist and then evaluating their performance by using the same checklist they created.
Here's an outline of this activity: Participants are organized into groups of five. Members of each group are randomly assigned to the roles of a manager, an assistant manager, and three employees. Each participant prepares a list related to a different management topic. The manager has the lengthy task and additional supervisory responsibilities. Other group members have simpler tasks. After the list preparation activity is completed, a debriefing discussion relates the manager's behavior to the items in her list.
A simple exercise in which each participant prepares a personal presentation of him/herself sharing several important experiences, events, people or stories that contributed to shaping him or her as an individual. The purpose of personal presentations is to support each participant in getting to know each other as individuals and to build trust and openness in a group by enlarging the social arena.
This activity begins with reflection, proceeds through nonverbal communication, and ends in a discussion. You can use ARTFUL CLOSER to debrief participants after an experiential activity. You may also use it as the final activity at the end of a workshop. You may even use it as an opening ice-breaker by asking participants to think about common personal experiences. For example, I began a recent session on presentation skills by asking participants to process their experiences with the most inspiring speech they had ever heard.
Use of Active Listening to slow down a discussion, or manage dominant participants
Blind Drawing is an icebreaker game where one person describes an object the other person must then draw with only verbal instructions as a guide.
