Posts Tagged ‘team building exercise’

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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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 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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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