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30 Fun and Effective Team Building Activities for Your Workplace

Spike Team
By Spike Team, March 08, 2023, 9 min read
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team building activities

Team building activities are an essential part of creating a positive and productive work environment. They help build trust and improve communication among team members, ultimately leading to better collaboration and increased productivity. But team building doesn’t have to be boring or tedious! In fact, there are plenty of fun and effective team building activities that can help your team bond and achieve their goals. In this article, we will explore 30 different team building activities that are not only enjoyable but also help develop important skills such as problem-solving, creativity, and teamwork.

Icebreaker Games

  1. Two Truths and a Lie

    • Number of participants: 5-15 people
    • Duration: 10-15 minutes
    • Goal: To learn more about each other and build connections.
    • How to play: Each team member shares three statements about themselves, two of which are true and one that is false. The rest of the team must guess which statement is the lie.

  2. Human Knot

    • Number of Participants: 8 to 20
    • Duration: 15 to 30 minutes
    • Goal: To promote problem-solving, communication, and teamwork
    • How to Play: Have the team stand in a circle, shoulder to shoulder. Everyone reaches out and grabs the hand of someone across the circle (but not directly next to them). The group must then untangle themselves, without letting go of each other’s hands, until they form a circle again.

  3. Group Juggle

    • Number of participants: 5 or more
    • Duration: 10-15 minutes
    • Goal: Improve teamwork, communication, and coordination
    • How to play: Participants form a circle and one person starts by tossing a ball to another person in the circle. The person who catches the ball must toss it to someone else in the circle, and so on. The goal is to keep the ball moving among the group without dropping it. Once the group has successfully completed one round, another ball is added, and the group must juggle both balls. The game continues with more balls added each round until the group is unable to keep all the balls in the air.

  4. Would You Rather

    • Number of participants: 5 or more
    • Duration: 10-15 minutes
    • Goal: Encourage communication, collaboration, and understanding among team members
    • How to play: Participants are divided into small groups of 3-5 people. Each group is given a set of “Would You Rather” questions, such as “Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible?” One person in the group starts by asking the question and each person takes a turn answering. The group can then discuss their answers and why they made their choice. The game continues with each person taking turns asking a “Would You Rather” question.

  5. Name Game

    • Number of participants: Any
    • Duration: 10-15 minutes
    • Goal: To learn each other’s names
    • How to play: Everyone introduces themselves and comes up with a word that describes them that starts with the same letter as their name.

  6. Charades

    • Number of participants: 4 or more
    • Duration: 15-20 minutes
    • Goal: To encourage creativity and teamwork
    • How to play: Divide the group into teams and have each team act out a movie or TV show while the other team guesses what it is.

  7. Bingo Icebreaker

    • Number of participants: Any
    • Duration: 20-30 minutes
    • Goal: To find people who share common interests and get to know each other
    • How to play: Create a bingo card with a different fact in each box (e.g. “plays an instrument,” “speaks more than one language,” “has a pet”). People walk around and ask each other if they meet any of the criteria, and if they do, they sign that person’s card.

     

Collaboration games

  1. Lego Tower Challenge

    • Number of participants: 2 or more
    • Duration: 30-45 minutes
    • Goal: Foster teamwork, problem-solving, and creativity
    • How to play: Participants are divided into teams and given a set of Lego blocks. Each team is tasked with building the tallest tower possible using only the Legos provided. The catch is that each team member can only touch the Lego blocks for a limited amount of time before they must pass them to the next team member. The team that builds the tallest tower within the time limit is the winner.

  2. Minefield

    • Number of participants: 2 or more
    • Duration: 15-30 minutes
    • Goal: Enhance communication and trust
    • How to play: Set up an obstacle course using chairs, cones, or other objects to create a “minefield.” Participants are divided into pairs, with one person in each pair being blindfolded. The other person must guide their blindfolded partner through the minefield using only verbal instructions. The goal is for the blindfolded person to make it through the minefield without touching any of the “mines”. Teams take turns guiding and navigating through the minefield until all members have completed the course.

  3. The Marshmallow Challenge

    • Number of participants: 2-10
    • Duration: 18 minutes
    • Goal: To build teamwork and creativity
    • How to play: Teams have 18 minutes to build the tallest freestanding structure they can out of spaghetti, tape, string, and a marshmallow.

  4. Pipeline

    • Number of participants: 6-10
    • Duration: 20-30 minutes
    • Goal: To promote communication and cooperation
    • How to play: The group is divided into teams and each team has to use PVC pipes to transport a marble from one end of the room to the other, without the marble falling off.

  5. Group Juggle

    • Number of participants: 5 or more
    • Duration: 10-15 minutes
    • Goal: To build teamwork and coordination
    • How to play: The group stands in a circle and starts with one ball. As they get better at passing the ball around, they add more balls to increase the difficulty.

     

Problem-Solving Games

  1. Escape Room

    • Number of participants: 4 or more
    • Duration: 60-90 minutes
    • Goal: Encourage teamwork, problem-solving, and communication
    • How to play: Participants are locked in a room and given a series of puzzles, riddles, and clues to solve in order to escape the room. Participants must work together to find and solve each clue, which will lead them to the next puzzle and eventually to the key that will unlock the room. The room is designed to be challenging, with multiple levels of puzzles and clues that must be solved in a specific order. Teams have a set time limit to escape the room before the game ends.

  2. Tower of Hanoi

    • Number of participants: 1 or more
    • Duration: 20-30 minutes
    • Goal: To solve a logic puzzle
    • How to play: There are three rods and several disks of different sizes that can slide onto any rod. The puzzle starts with the disks in a neat stack in ascending order of size on one rod, the smallest at the top. The objective is to move the entire stack to another rod, obeying the following simple rules: Only one disk can be moved at a time, and it must be the top disk on one of the rods. No disk may be placed on top of a smaller disk.

  3. The Great Egg Drop

    • Number of participants: 2 or more
    • Duration: 30-45 minutes
    • Goal: Encourage teamwork, problem-solving, and creativity
    • How to play: Divide participants into teams and provide them with a variety of materials such as straws, tape, paper cups, balloons, and popsicle sticks. Each team must design and build a container that will protect an egg from breaking when dropped from a certain height. Once the containers are built, the teams must test them by dropping them from the specified height. The team whose egg survives the drop without breaking is the winner.

  4. The Perfect Square

    • Number of participants: 4-6
    • Duration: 30-45 minutes
    • Goal: To work together to create a perfect square
    • How to play: The group is given a set of wooden blocks of various shapes and sizes, and has to work together to create a perfect square without leaving any gaps.

     

Outdoor Activities

  1. Scavenger Hunt

    • Number of participants: Any number
    • Duration: 1-2 hours
    • Goal: Encourage teamwork and problem-solving
    • How to play: Participants are divided into teams and given a list of items to find or tasks to complete. The items or tasks can be related to the workplace or can be more general in nature. Teams must work together to find or complete all the items on the list within a set time limit. The team that finds or completes the most items on the list within the time limit is the winner.

  2. Obstacle Course

    • Number of participants: 4 or more
    • Duration: 15-30 minutes
    • Goal: To build teamwork and physical coordination
    • How to play: Set up a series of obstacles such as cones, ropes, and hurdles and have the group work together to navigate through them.

  3. Tug of War

    • Number of participants: 8 or more
    • Duration: 5-10 minutes
    • Goal: To build teamwork and physical strength
    • How to play: Divide the group into two teams and have them compete in a classic game of tug of war.

  4. Capture the Flag

    • Number of participants: 6 or more
    • Duration: 30-45 minutes
    • Goal: To work together to capture the other team’s flag
    • How to play: Divide the group into two teams and have them try to capture the other team’s flag without getting caught.

  5. Human Knot Relay

    • Number of participants: 10 or more
    • Duration: 15-20 minutes
    • Goal: To build teamwork and communication
    • How to play: The group is divided into two teams and each team stands in a circle, holding hands. The teams then have to race to untangle themselves without letting go.

     

During a Meeting Activities

  1. Zoom Scavenger Hunt

    • Number of participants: Any
    • Duration: 20-30 minutes
    • Goal: To have fun, break the ice, and promote teamwork.
    • How to play: The facilitator will give a list of things to find around their workspace. The first person to find the item on the list, hold it up, and shout “Got it!” gets a point. The participant with the most points at the end of the game wins.

  2. Blind Drawing

    • Number of participants: 2-4
    • Duration: 15-20 minutes
    • Goal: To build communication and listening skills
    • How to play: One person describes a picture to their partner, who then draws what they hear. The goal is to create an accurate representation of the picture without seeing it.

  3. Team Movie Pitch

    • Number of participants: Any
    • Duration: 30-40 minutes
    • Goal: To promote creativity, teamwork, and presentation skills.
    • How to play: Participants will be divided into small teams and given a topic or theme to make a movie. They will have to come up with a plot, characters, setting, and dialogue. The team will then have to pitch their movie idea to the group.

  4. Pictionary

    • Number of participants: Any
    • Duration: 20-30 minutes
    • Goal: To promote creativity, communication, and teamwork.
    • How to play: Participants will be divided into teams. One person from each team will be given a word or phrase to draw, and their team members will have to guess what it is. The team with the most correct guesses at the end of the game wins.

  5. Hot Potato

    • Number of participants: Any
    • Duration: 10-15 minutes
    • Goal: To have fun, break the ice, and promote teamwork.
    • How to play: Participants will pass around a ball or other small object while music plays. When the music stops, whoever is holding the ball has to answer a question or complete a task given by the facilitator.

  6. Jigsaw Puzzle Race

    • Number of participants: Any
    • Duration: 20-30 minutes
    • Goal: To promote teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills.
    • How to play: Participants will be divided into teams and given a jigsaw puzzle to complete. The team that finishes the puzzle first wins.

  7. Improv Game

    • Number of participants: Any
    • Duration: 20-30 minutes
    • Goal: To promote creativity, communication, and teamwork.
    • How to play: Participants will be divided into small teams and given a scenario or situation to act out. The catch is that they have to improvise their lines and actions without any preparation.

  8. Word Jumble Challenge

    • Number of participants: teams of 3-6 people
    • Duration: 30-45 minutes
    • Goal: The goal of the Word Jumble Challenge is to help team members improve their communication and problem-solving skills, as well as promote teamwork and collaboration.
    • How to play: Choose a list of words that are relevant to your team’s goals or current projects. Jumble the letters of each word to create a puzzle. Provide each team with a copy of the puzzle and a set amount of time (around 10-15 minutes) to solve as many words as they can. Once the time is up, each team will take turns presenting their answers to the group. The team with the most correct answers wins the game. After the game, discuss how the teams worked together to solve the puzzle, and encourage feedback and communication on ways to improve teamwork in the future.
Spike Team
Spike Team The Spike team posts about productivity, time management, and the future of email, messaging and collaboration.

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