Archive for the ‘Team Building’ Category

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Hi there! Just read about this - sounds like a fabulous team building game or ice breaker:

The group is tasked to write using the strings to move a marker pen.

Have them do a variety of building from just drawing a circle- then a shape, then a word or sentence.

More fun ice breaker games and ideas from ice breaker ideas.com

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Just wondering if I can get my action learning set to build a spaghetti tower as a team activity next week - I've never seen it done but I'd like to see it. I'll let you know how we get on! In the mean-time check out our amazing DIY team building activities - great for trainers, schools, youth groups etc or for a bit of fun and for even more fabulous fun and games check out the ice-breaker-ideas web-site

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Just back from an exhausting but exhilarating day full of outdoor activities and team challenges. We were working with a new team who were going to be facing a lot of new challenges in the future and needed to become a really well-knit team as quickly as possible.

An outdoor day is brilliant for team bonding and breaking down barriers fast. People get to see each other in a different light, new skills emerge and levels of trust and support come to the fore when tackling strange and out of the comfort zone challenges.

This particular challenge was a journey that involved 3 stages by canoe, on foot and by mountain bike to reach a set destination by a set time. The journey is physical and the weather could've been better but these guys were a tough team and emerged victorious. They loved the time away from the office in unfamiliar surroundings and the time to see and understand each other in out of office roles.

As well as the physical challenges there were also a whole series of team activities to be completed along the way. Each team activity successfully completed was rewarded with a key to the treasure box. Each leg of the journey contained questions and clues which correctly answered were rewarded with further information regarding the whereabouts of the treasure box.

So lots to do whilst this team building event was taking place both for the organisers and the participants. In the end it was a long, hard day but amply rewarded with the sharing of the contents of the treasure box and a job well done.

Sharon Naylor has been working with teams for nearly 30 years! She is an advocate of team building and experiential learning - learning through doing and reviewing. For more great experiential ideas for team building visit her ice breaker ideas web-site

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Just back from a training and development summit at Stanstead airport!

We had a stand there and met lots of interesting training and development managers. We were very pleased to report great feedback for our experiential team building activities and we even gave away some of  our "Sticky Rope" team building activities for free! These team activities are ones we have used for over 21 years! They are the very best of the small team games we have been using on all our events over the years. Check -out our team building activities now! They are brilliant for:

• adding a participative dimension to training programmes
• energising a sleepy audience
• integrating carefully matched activities into a training programme to produce real learning opportunities that can be reviewed
• making learning fun
• creative problem-solving as a team

Have fun with your training and development programmes. Get more team building and ice breaker ideas here!

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I was trolling through some video stuff the other day and came across this team building activity called Wacky Races we did with some clients a few years ago. It made me laugh because the weather was quite appalling. Nevertheless everyone got on with the planning and design and had fantastic fun with the racing. In fact the weather made it really - it was so ludicrous.

This type of team activity makes a good half/full day team building session and will be a trip down memory lane when kids used to make go-karts and buggies out of all sorts of rubbish and pram wheels. Just make sure you find a good flat surface in which to race your buggies, and the decoration of the team karts is as much of the team identity process as is the building and racing.

Take turns to race the kart and don't forget the winner's podium, chequered flag and magnum of champagne for the winners!

For more novel team building activities and ideas visit the ice breaker ideas web-site, and don't forget to sign-up for tons of team games and exercises too!

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My small business course at Swansea University finally came to an end just recently....great shame because I was really enjoying it! Fantastic to share ideas and working practises with other small businesses. Well at least my parents finally get to have a graduation photo of me on their wall after all this time. I didn't attend my graduation ceremony first time round - instead I worked as a camp counsellor in America and for many years there has been a hole on the wall with 3 sisters in cap and gown and me on a horse!

Getting back to the course, it ended with a really nice training course closer. We were asked to think back over our time on the course and plot it as a journey on paper with colourful crayons and markers. Quite a few people were immediately horrified at the prospect of creating a peice of artwork for public humiliation, especially as quite a few masterpieces from previous groups were shown, supposedly to give us an idea but only served to highlight our inadequacies. So large sheets of paper and pens were handed out and we were given about 20 minutes to get creative. A few people looked dumbfounded but most got on with it.

"Think about your goals; your highs and lows; any significant achievements or milestones and record your journey pictorially" they said.

After time was up each person in turn took it upon themselves to deliver their journeys to the rest of us. It might sound corny but it was a really neat way to share how the program had impacted upon us all and to say goodbye.

This training course closer is an excellent way of ending the program and can be used by many groups and teams whose time together has come to an end. Sharon Naylor is passionate about learning and

development and she has developed a repertoire of ice breaker games and team building activities that can be used for many groups. Check out her ice breaker ideas website for tons of excellent ideas to make your training programs and social gatherings sizzle!

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Last week we were in shock. We had a phone call from someone who used our team building services many moons ago, in fact it was 18 years ago, not long after we had started up as a team building events company.

Nicky is now HR Manager at Royal Tunbridge Wells Borough Council. Thinking about team building she sent us an email saying she remembered the events and were we still around? What a surprise! I visited her yesterday in delightful Tunbridge Wells and she is just the same larger than life character. Hopefully we'll get something going with them!

Nicky showed me her "Ideas Factory" wall. It was really impressive. Invited employees work with a local artist to produce a pictorial representation of how they want to improve life and services in the borough. All ideas are discussed and many are put into workable plans. The murals and pictures are a constant reminder of what they signed up to as well as making a fantastically colourful display and brightening up an old building.

Strikes me that this is something that many organisations could do. Input from employees is invaluable and realising their ideas and hard work makes commitment to the causes so much easier. It makes a great team building session too!

Sharon Naylor has worked with teams for more than 21 years. She is passionate about using experiential activities to motivate and inspire employees. Check out her ice breaker ideas web-site for hundreds of  ice breaker games and team building activities to turn your training programs and meetings into extraordinary events that everyone will want to be part of.

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 Start off your meeting or training session with a fun, experiential team activity and your team will be firing on all cylinders right from the word "go"! Dynamic and participative, we strongly believe in the experiential element of getting teams to have a go together at something fun together. They can be used for:

• Breaking the ice at the start of a session
• Breaking down barriers between individuals
• Creative problem-solving
• Illustrating a training point
• Creating team dynamics
• Providing an opportunity to review the way teams work
• To give feedback on team roles
• Low-cost exercises for when budgets are tight
• Ice breakers for conferences and both small and large events
• Kids love them too!

However you use these fun team activities you will find that they can have a real impact on your event. We have used them on all our team building events for over 20 years. In tough times they are also extrememly economical; you can run these team activites yourself without having to employ expensive outsiders! Check out the ice breaker ideas web-site for more on the sticky rope team activity and for ice breaker and training ideas to sky rocket your events!

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A great little ice breaker game to start a training session or meeting is "How I See  Myself". This ice breaker is particularly good for getting to know each other's strengths and weaknesses and see how others view them.

Ask participants to bring their chairs into a circle and simply hand out a blank postcard to each person. Ask each person to write down 5 adjectives that describe themselves; 3 should be strengths and 2 should be perceived weaknesses. So i might write: enthusiastic, imaginative, creative, impatient and intolerant. Put all the cards into a hat, basket or recepticle and mix up.

Walk around the circle with the hat and get each person to pick a card (hopefully it won't be their own; if it is, they will have to put back and take another). Go around the circle and in turn read out the card - that person then has to guess who the card belongs to.

When the ice breaker game is finished, find out who was easy to guess and who wasn't and why?

A great variation would be to pull names out of a hat and write 5 adjectives for that person, put them back into the hat and repeat the above process. How accurate would the 5 word descriptions. If it was easy to guess you'll know it's a fairly accurate view of how people see you.

Sharon Naylor is passionate about ice breaker games and uses them extensively to kickstart training sessions, group meetings and team building. For more fantastic training ice breakers and ideas to instantly download and transform your events visit the ice breaker ideas web-site.

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I came away from my college course yesterday buzzing! Got me thinking that that's exactly what you want your participants to be doing. If they're not buzzing it's not working! The course and the team building activities have certainly moulded us into a good  little team.

I thought I'd share with you one of the team building activities. It's a very easy construction activity to set up and will cause lots laughs:

The goal for the team (5-7 team members is best) was to build the tallest identifiable free standing giraffe using the materials provided. We had one hour to complete the task before we had to compare with other teams and the giraffes had to be capable of standing unaided for 30 seconds.

Materials you will need per team: a big handful of uncooked spaghetti; a large handful of drinking straws; a bag of marshmallows; roll of sellotape; string; 2 sheets of light card

There was at first a lot of discussion about how we were going to do this, and we spent a good 20 minutes talking. Sadly, it turns out we had  no engineers or practical people in the team! Everyone got busy building individual bits of head, neck, legs and body and gradually our giraffe took on a form of its own. Nearing the time limit I think everyone knew it didn't have a chance in hell of standing up on its own, more like a puppet on a string.

After one hour we came together with the other teams to display our giraffes. Some were very impressive and freestanding. Ours was a miserable flop and no sooner had we let her off the leashed - she collapsed in a heap on the floor to the merriment of everyone in the room!

Still, we enjoyed it and it was a great team activity! And easy to have a go with any team.

Sharon Naylor is passionate about team building and has been running her own team building company for more than 21 years. She believes in the motivation aspect of team building activites that get teams working together  and having fun. For more fantastic team building  and ice breaker ideas to use with your own team and instantly download, visit the ice breaker ideas web-site