fun team building problem solving activities

14 Best Team Building Problem Solving Group Activities For 2024

The best teams see solutions where others see problems. A great company culture is built around a collaborative spirit and the type of unity it takes to find answers to the big business questions.

So how can you get team members working together?

How can you develop a mentality that will help them overcome obstacles they have yet to encounter?

One of the best ways to improve your teams’ problem solving skills is through team building problem solving activities .

“86% of employees and executives cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures.” — Bit.AI

These activities can simulate true-to-life scenarios they’ll find themselves in, or the scenarios can call on your employees or coworkers to dig deep and get creative in a more general sense.

The truth is, on a day-to-day basis, you have to prepare for the unexpected. It just happens that team building activities help with that, but are so fun that they don’t have to feel like work ( consider how you don’t even feel like you’re working out when you’re playing your favorite sport or doing an exercise you actually enjoy! )

Team Building Problem Solving Group Activities

What are the benefits of group problem-solving activities?

The benefits of group problem-solving activities for team building include:

Better communication
Improved collaboration and teamwork
More flexible thinking
Faster problem-solving
Better proactivity and decision making

Without further ado, check out this list of the 14 best team-building problem-solving group activities for 2024!

Page Contents (Click To Jump)

2. Problem-Solving Templates

Problem-Solving Templates are popular problem-solving activities that involve a group of people working together to solve an issue. The challenge generally involves members of the team utilizing pre-made templates and creating solutions for a given problem with the help of visual aids.

This activity is great for teams that need assistance in getting started on their problem-solving journey.

Why this is a fun problem-solving activity: Problem-Solving Templates offer teams an easy and stress-free way to get the creative juices flowing. The visual aids that come with the templates help team members better understand the issue at hand and easily come up with solutions together.

This activity is great for teams that need assistance in getting started on their problem-solving journey, as it provides an easy and stress-free way to get the creative juices flowing.

Problem Solving Group Activities & Games For Team Building

3. coworker feud, “it’s all fun and games”.

Coworker Feud is a twist on the classic Family Feud game show! This multiple rapid round game keeps the action flowing and the questions going. You can choose from a variety of customizations, including picking the teams yourself, randomized teams, custom themes, and custom rounds.

Best for: Hybrid teams

Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Coworker Feud comes with digital game materials, a digital buzzer, an expert host, and a zoom link to get the participants ready for action! Teams compete with each other to correctly answer the survey questions. At the end of the game, the team with the most competitive answers is declared the winner of the Feud.

How to get started:

Sign up for Coworker Feud
Break into teams of 4 to 10 people
Get the competitive juices flowing and let the games begin!

Learn more here: Coworker Feud

4. Crack The Case

“who’s a bad mamma jamma”.

Crack The Case is a classic WhoDoneIt game that forces employees to depend on their collective wit to stop a deadly murderer dead in his tracks! Remote employees and office commuters can join forces to end this crime spree.

Best for: Remote teams

Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: The Virtual Clue Murder Mystery is an online problem solving activity that uses a proprietary videoconferencing platform to offer the chance for employees and coworkers to study case files, analyze clues, and race to find the motive, the method, and the individual behind the murder of Neil Davidson.

Get a custom quote here
Download the app
Let the mystery-solving collaboration begin!

Learn more here: Crack The Case

5. Catch Meme If You Can

“can’t touch this”.

Purposefully created to enhance leadership skills and team bonding , Catch Meme If You Can is a hybrid between a scavenger hunt and an escape room . Teammates join together to search for clues, solve riddles, and get out — just in time!

Best for: Small teams

Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Catch Meme If You Can is an adventure with a backstory. Each team has to submit their answer to the puzzle in order to continue to the next part of the sequence. May the best team escape!

The teams will be given instructions and the full storyline
Teams will be split into a handful of people each
The moderator will kick off the action!

Learn more here: Catch Meme If You Can

6. Puzzle Games

“just something to puzzle over”.

Puzzle Games is the fresh trivia game to test your employees and blow their minds with puzzles, jokes , and fun facts!

Best for: In-person teams

Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Eight mini brain teaser and trivia style games include word puzzles, name that nonsense, name that tune, and much more. Plus, the points each team earns will go towards planting trees in the precious ecosystems and forests of Uganda

Get a free consultation for your team
Get a custom designed invitation for your members
Use the game link
Dedicated support will help your team enjoy Puzzle Games to the fullest!

Learn more here: Puzzle Games

7. Virtual Code Break

“for virtual teams”.

Virtual Code Break is a virtual team building activity designed for remote participants around the globe. Using a smart video conferencing solution, virtual teams compete against each other to complete challenges, answer trivia questions, and solve brain-busters!

Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Virtual Code Break can be played by groups as small as 4 people all the way up to more than 1,000 people at once. However, every team will improve their communication and problem-solving skills as they race against the clock and depend on each other’s strengths to win!

Reach out for a free consultation to align the needs of your team
An event facilitator will be assigned to handle all of the set-up and logistics
They will also provide you with logins and a play-by-play of what to expect
Sign into the Outback video conferencing platform and join your pre-assigned team
Lastly, let the games begin!

Learn more here: Virtual Code Break

8. Stranded

“survivor: office edition”.

Stranded is the perfect scenario-based problem solving group activity. The doors of the office are locked and obviously your team can’t just knock them down or break the windows.

Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Your team has less than half an hour to choose 10 items around the office that will help them survive. They then rank the items in order of importance. It’s a bit like the classic game of being lost at sea without a lifeboat.

Get everyone together in the office
Lock the doors
Let them start working together to plan their survival

Learn more here: Stranded

9. Letting Go Game

“for conscious healing”.

The Letting Go Game is a game of meditation and mindfulness training for helping teammates thrive under pressure and reduce stress in the process. The tasks of the Letting Go Game boost resiliency, attentiveness, and collaboration.

Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Expert-guided activities and awareness exercises encourage team members to think altruistically and demonstrate acts of kindness. Between yoga, face painting, and fun photography, your employees or coworkers will have more than enough to keep them laughing and growing together with this mindfulness activity!

Reach out for a free consultation
A guide will then help lead the exercises
Let the funny videos, pictures, and playing begin!

Learn more here: Letting Go Game

10. Wild Goose Chase

“city time”.

Wild Goose Chase is the creative problem solving activity that will take teams all around your city and bring them together as a group! This scavenger hunt works for teams as small as 10 up to groups of over 5000 people.

Best for: Large teams

Why this is an effective group problem solving activity: As employees and group members are coming back to the office, there are going to be times that they’re itching to get outside. Wild Goose Chase is the perfect excuse to satisfy the desire to go out-of-office every now and then. Plus, having things to look at and see around the city will get employees talking in ways they never have before.

Download the Outback app to access the Wild Goose Chase
Take photos and videos from around the city
The most successful team at completing challenges on time is the champ!

Learn more here: Wild Goose Chase

11. Human Knot

“for a knotty good time”.

The Human Knot is one of the best icebreaker team building activities! In fact, there’s a decent chance you played it in grade school. It’s fun, silly, and best of all — free!

Why this is an effective group problem solving activity: Participants start in a circle and connect hands with two other people in the group to form a human knot. The team then has to work together and focus on clear communication to unravel the human knot by maneuvering their way out of this hands-on conundrum. But there’s a catch — they can’t let go of each other’s hands in this team building exercise.

Form a circle
Tell each person to grab a random hand until all hands are holding another
They can’t hold anyone’s hand who is directly next to them
Now they have to get to untangling
If the chain breaks before everyone is untangled, they have to start over again

Learn more here: Human Knot

12. What Would You Do?

“because it’s fun to imagine”.

What Would You Do? Is the hypothetical question game that gets your team talking and brainstorming about what they’d do in a variety of fun, intriguing, and sometimes, whacky scenarios.

Best for: Distributed teams

Why this is an effective group problem solving activity: After employees or coworkers start talking about their What Would You Do? responses, they won’t be able to stop. That’s what makes this such an incredible team building activity . For example, you could ask questions like “If you could live forever, what would you do with your time?” or “If you never had to sleep, what would you do?”

In addition to hypothetical questions, you could also give teammates some optional answers to get them started
After that, let them do the talking — then they’ll be laughing and thinking and dreaming, too!

13. Crossing The River

“quite the conundrum”.

Crossing The River is a river-crossing challenge with one correct answer. Your team gets five essential elements — a chicken, a fox, a rowboat, a woman, and a bag of corn. You see, the woman has a bit of a problem, you tell them. She has to get the fox, the bag of corn, and the chicken to the other side of the river as efficiently as possible.

Why this is an effective group problem solving activity: She has a rowboat, but it can only carry her and one other item at a time. She cannot leave the chicken and the fox alone — for obvious reasons. And she can’t leave the chicken with the corn because it will gobble it right up. So the question for your team is how does the woman get all five elements to the other side of the river safely in this fun activity?

Form teams of 2 to 5 people
Each team has to solve the imaginary riddle
Just make sure that each group understands that the rowboat can only carry one animal and one item at a time; the fox and chicken can’t be alone; and the bag of corn and the chicken cannot be left alone
Give the verbal instructions for getting everything over to the other side

14. End-Hunger Games

“philanthropic fun”.

Does anything bond people quite like acts of kindness and compassion? The End-Hunger Games will get your team to rally around solving the serious problem of hunger.

Best for: Medium-sized teams

Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Teams join forces to complete challenges based around non-perishable food items in the End-Hunger Games. Groups can range in size from 25 to more than 2000 people, who will all work together to collect food for the local food bank.

Split into teams and compete to earn boxes and cans of non-perishable food
Each team attempts to build the most impressive food item construction
Donate all of the non-perishable foods to a local food bank

Learn more here: End-Hunger Games

Q: What kind of skills do group problem solving activities & games improve?

A: Group problem solving activities and games improve collaboration, leadership, and communication skills.

Q: What are problem solving based team building activities & games?

A: Problem solving based team building activities and games are activities that challenge teams to work together in order to complete them.

Q: What are some fun free problem solving games for groups?

A: Some fun free problem solving games for groups are kinesthetic puzzles like the human knot game, which you can read more about in this article. You can also use all sorts of random items like whiteboards, straws, building blocks, sticky notes, blindfolds, rubber bands, and legos to invent a game that will get the whole team involved.

Q: How do I choose the most effective problem solving exercise for my team?

A: The most effective problem solving exercise for your team is one that will challenge them to be their best selves and expand their creative thinking.

Q: How do I know if my group problem solving activity was successful?

A: In the short-term, you’ll know if your group problem solving activity was successful because your team will bond over it; however, that should also translate to more productivity in the mid to long-term.

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Team Building Exercises – Problem Solving and Decision Making

Fun ways to turn problems into opportunities.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

Whether there's a complex project looming or your team members just want to get better at dealing with day-to-day issues, your people can achieve much more when they solve problems and make decisions together.

By developing their problem-solving skills, you can improve their ability to get to the bottom of complex situations. And by refining their decision-making skills, you can help them work together maturely, use different thinking styles, and commit collectively to decisions.

In this article, we'll look at three team-building exercises that you can use to improve problem solving and decision making in a new or established team.

Exercises to Build Decision-Making and Problem-Solving Skills

Use the following exercises to help your team members solve problems and make decisions together more effectively.

Exercise 1: Lost at Sea*

In this activity, participants must pretend that they've been shipwrecked and are stranded in a lifeboat. Each team has a box of matches, and a number of items that they've salvaged from the sinking ship. Members must agree which items are most important for their survival.

Download and print our team-building exercises worksheet to help you with this exercise.

This activity builds problem-solving skills as team members analyze information, negotiate and cooperate with one another. It also encourages them to listen and to think about the way they make decisions.

What You'll Need

Up to five people in each group.
A large, private room.
A "lost at sea" ranking chart for each team member. This should comprise six columns. The first simply lists each item (see below). The second is empty so that each team member can rank the items. The third is for group rankings. The fourth is for the "correct" rankings, which are revealed at the end of the exercise. And the fifth and sixth are for the team to enter the difference between their individual and correct score, and the team and correct rankings, respectively.
The items to be ranked are: a mosquito net, a can of petrol, a water container, a shaving mirror, a sextant, emergency rations, a sea chart, a floating seat or cushion, a rope, some chocolate bars, a waterproof sheet, a fishing rod, shark repellent, a bottle of rum, and a VHF radio. These can be listed in the ranking chart or displayed on a whiteboard, or both.
The experience can be made more fun by having some lost-at-sea props in the room.

Flexible, but normally between 25 and 40 minutes.

Instructions

Divide participants into their teams, and provide everyone with a ranking sheet.
Ask team members to take 10 minutes on their own to rank the items in order of importance. They should do this in the second column of their sheet.
Give the teams a further 10 minutes to confer and decide on their group rankings. Once agreed, they should list them in the third column of their sheets.
Ask each group to compare their individual rankings with their collective ones, and consider why any scores differ. Did anyone change their mind about their own rankings during the team discussions? How much were people influenced by the group conversation?
Now read out the "correct" order, collated by the experts at the US Coast Guard (from most to least important): - Shaving mirror. (One of your most powerful tools, because you can use it to signal your location by reflecting the sun.) - Can of petrol. (Again, potentially vital for signaling as petrol floats on water and can be lit by your matches.) - Water container. (Essential for collecting water to restore your lost fluids.) -Emergency rations. (Valuable for basic food intake.) - Plastic sheet. (Could be used for shelter, or to collect rainwater.) -Chocolate bars. (A handy food supply.) - Fishing rod. (Potentially useful, but there is no guarantee that you're able to catch fish. Could also feasibly double as a tent pole.) - Rope. (Handy for tying equipment together, but not necessarily vital for survival.) - Floating seat or cushion. (Useful as a life preserver.) - Shark repellent. (Potentially important when in the water.) - Bottle of rum. (Could be useful as an antiseptic for treating injuries, but will only dehydrate you if you drink it.) - Radio. (Chances are that you're out of range of any signal, anyway.) - Sea chart. (Worthless without navigational equipment.) - Mosquito net. (Assuming that you've been shipwrecked in the Atlantic, where there are no mosquitoes, this is pretty much useless.) - Sextant. (Impractical without relevant tables or a chronometer.)

Advice for the Facilitator

The ideal scenario is for teams to arrive at a consensus decision where everyone's opinion is heard. However, that doesn't always happen naturally: assertive people tend to get the most attention. Less forthright team members can often feel intimidated and don't always speak up, particularly when their ideas are different from the popular view. Where discussions are one-sided, draw quieter people in so that everyone is involved, but explain why you're doing this, so that people learn from it.

You can use the Stepladder Technique when team discussion is unbalanced. Here, ask each team member to think about the problem individually and, one at a time, introduce new ideas to an appointed group leader – without knowing what ideas have already been discussed. After the first two people present their ideas, they discuss them together. Then the leader adds a third person, who presents his or her ideas before hearing the previous input. This cycle of presentation and discussion continues until the whole team has had a chance to voice their opinions.

After everyone has finished the exercise, invite your teams to evaluate the process to draw out their experiences. For example, ask them what the main differences between individual, team and official rankings were, and why. This will provoke discussion about how teams arrive at decisions, which will make people think about the skills they must use in future team scenarios, such as listening , negotiating and decision-making skills, as well as creativity skills for thinking "outside the box."

A common issue that arises in team decision making is groupthink . This can happen when a group places a desire for mutual harmony above a desire to reach the right decision, which prevents people from fully exploring alternative solutions.

If there are frequent unanimous decisions in any of your exercises, groupthink may be an issue. Suggest that teams investigate new ways to encourage members to discuss their views, or to share them anonymously.

Exercise 2: The Great Egg Drop*

In this classic (though sometimes messy!) game, teams must work together to build a container to protect an egg, which is dropped from a height. Before the egg drop, groups must deliver presentations on their solutions, how they arrived at them, and why they believe they will succeed.

This fun game develops problem-solving and decision-making skills. Team members have to choose the best course of action through negotiation and creative thinking.

Ideally at least six people in each team.
Raw eggs – one for each group, plus some reserves in case of accidents!
Materials for creating the packaging, such as cardboard, tape, elastic bands, plastic bottles, plastic bags, straws, and scissors.
Aprons to protect clothes, paper towels for cleaning up, and paper table cloths, if necessary.
Somewhere – ideally outside – that you can drop the eggs from. (If there is nowhere appropriate, you could use a step ladder or equivalent.)
Around 15 to 30 minutes to create the packages.
Approximately 15 minutes to prepare a one-minute presentation.
Enough time for the presentations and feedback (this will depend on the number of teams).
Time to demonstrate the egg "flight."
Put people into teams, and ask each to build a package that can protect an egg dropped from a specified height (say, two-and-a-half meters) with the provided materials.
Each team must agree on a nominated speaker, or speakers, for their presentation.
Once all teams have presented, they must drop their eggs, assess whether the eggs have survived intact, and discuss what they have learned.

When teams are making their decisions, the more good options they consider, the more effective their final decision is likely to be. Encourage your groups to look at the situation from different angles, so that they make the best decision possible. If people are struggling, get them to brainstorm – this is probably the most popular method of generating ideas within a team.

Ask the teams to explore how they arrived at their decisions, to get them thinking about how to improve this process in the future. You can ask them questions such as:

Did the groups take a vote, or were members swayed by one dominant individual?
How did the teams decide to divide up responsibilities? Was it based on people's expertise or experience?
Did everyone do the job they volunteered for?
Was there a person who assumed the role of "leader"?
How did team members create and deliver the presentation, and was this an individual or group effort?

Exercise 3: Create Your Own*

In this exercise, teams must create their own, brand new, problem-solving activity.

This game encourages participants to think about the problem-solving process. It builds skills such as creativity, negotiation and decision making, as well as communication and time management. After the activity, teams should be better equipped to work together, and to think on their feet.

Ideally four or five people in each team.
Paper, pens and flip charts.

Around one hour.

As the participants arrive, you announce that, rather than spending an hour on a problem-solving team-building activity, they must design an original one of their own.
Divide participants into teams and tell them that they have to create a new problem-solving team-building activity that will work well in their organization. The activity must not be one that they have already participated in or heard of.
After an hour, each team must present their new activity to everyone else, and outline its key benefits.

There are four basic steps in problem solving : defining the problem, generating solutions, evaluating and selecting solutions, and implementing solutions. Help your team to think creatively at each stage by getting them to consider a wide range of options. If ideas run dry, introduce an alternative brainstorming technique, such as brainwriting . This allows your people to develop one others' ideas, while everyone has an equal chance to contribute.

After the presentations, encourage teams to discuss the different decision-making processes they followed. You might ask them how they communicated and managed their time . Another question could be about how they kept their discussion focused. And to round up, you might ask them whether they would have changed their approach after hearing the other teams' presentations.

Successful decision making and problem solving are at the heart of all effective teams. While teams are ultimately led by their managers, the most effective ones foster these skills at all levels.

The exercises in this article show how you can encourage teams to develop their creative thinking, leadership , and communication skills , while building group cooperation and consensus.

* Original source unknown. Please let us know if you know the original source.

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The importance of problem-solving skills in today’s workplace

According to a 2019 report by McKinsey , soft skills are increasingly important in today's world — and problem-solving is the top area in which skills are lacking. A company or team’s success weighs heavily on the willingness of managers to help employees improve their problem-solving abilities. Team building activities targeting focus areas like communication and collaboration, adaptability, or strengthening decision-making techniques help.

All problem-solving processes start with identifying the problem. Next, the team must assess potential courses of action and choose the best way to tackle the problem. This requires a deep understanding of your team and its core strengths. A problem-solving exercise or game helps identify those strengths and builds problem-solving skills and strategies while having fun with your team.

Problem-solving games aren't for just any team. Participants must have an open mind and accept all ideas and solutions . They must also have an Agile mindset and embrace different structures, planning, and processes. Problems usually arise when we least expect them, so there's no better way to prepare than to encourage agility and flexibility.

Another aspect to keep in mind when engaging in problem-solving games and activities: There are no winners or losers. Sure, some games might end with a single winner, but the true goal of these exercises is to learn how to work together as a team to develop an Agile mindset. The winning team of each game should share their strategies and thought processes at the end of the exercise to help everyone learn.

Here’s a list of fun problem-solving activity examples to try with your team. From blindfolds to raw eggs, these problem-solving, team-building activities will have your team solving problems faster than Scooby and the gang.

Classic team-building, problem-solving activities

1. a shrinking vessel.

Helps with: Adaptability

Why adaptability is important for problem-solving: Adaptability is highly associated with cognitive diversity, which helps teams solve problems faster , according to the Harvard Business Review. Innovation and disruption are happening faster than ever before . People, teams, and organizations that can adapt will come out on top.

What you’ll need:

A rope or string

Instructions:

1. Using the rope, make a shape on the floor everyone can fit into.

2. Slowly shrink the space over 10-15 minutes.

3. Work together to figure out how to keep everyone within the shrinking boundaries.

2. Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower

Helps with: Collaboration

Why collaboration is important for problem-solving: “Collectively, we can be more insightful, more intelligent than we can possibly be individually,” writes Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline . We can solve problems better as a team than we can alone, which means developing your team’s collaboration skills will lead to better problem-solving outcomes.

What you’ll need (per team):

20 sticks of uncooked spaghetti
1 roll of masking tape
1 yard of string
1 marshmallow

1. The goal of this exercise is to see which team can use the materials provided to build the tallest tower within an allotted time period. The tower must be able to stand on its own.

2. To make this exercise more challenging, try adding a marshmallow to the top of the tower. This team problem-solving exercise helps people think on their toes while building camaraderie and leadership.

3. Egg Drop

Helps with: Collaboration, decision-making

Why decision-making is important for problem-solving: Making decisions isn’t easy , but indecision leads to team paralysis, stagnant thinking, and unsolved problems. Decision-making activities help your team practice making quick, effective choices. Train your team’s decision-making muscles and they will become more adept at problem-solving.

A carton of eggs
Basic construction materials such as newspapers, straws, tape, plastic wrap, balloons, rubber bands, popsicle sticks, etc., tarp, or drop cloth
A parking lot, or some other place you don’t mind getting messy!

1. Each team gets an egg and must select from the construction materials.

2. Give everyone 20-30 minutes to construct a carrier for the egg and protect it from breaking.

3. Drop each egg carrier off a ledge (i.e. over a balcony) and see whose carrier protects the egg from breaking.

4. If multiple eggs survive, keep increasing the height until only one egg is left.

4. Stranded

Helps with: Communication, decision-making

Why communication is important for problem-solving: More employees work remotely than ever before. Good communication skills are vital to solving problems across virtual teams . Working on communication skills while your team is together will help them solve problems more effectively when they’re apart.

Here's the setting: Your team has been stranded in the office. The doors are locked, and knocking down the doors or breaking the windows is not an option. Give your team 30 minutes to decide on ten items in the office they need for survival and rank them in order of importance. The goal of the game is to have everyone agree on the ten items and their rankings in 30 minutes.

Creative problem-solving activities

Helps with: Communication

What you'll need:

1. Divide everyone into small teams of two or more.

2. Select an overseer who isn't on a team to build a random structure using Lego building blocks within ten minutes.

3. The other teams must replicate the structure exactly (including size and color) within 15 minutes. However, only one member from each group may look at the original structure. They must figure out how to communicate the size, color, and shape of the original structure to their team.

4. If this is too easy, add a rule that the member who can see the original structure can't touch the new structure.

A lockable room
5-10 puzzles or clues (depending on how much time you want to spend on the game)

1. The goal of this exercise is to solve the clues, find the key, and escape a locked room within the time allotted.

2. Hide the key and a list of clues around the room.

3. Gather the team into the empty room and "lock" the door.

4. Give them 30 minutes to an hour to find the key using the clues hidden around the room.

7. Frostbite

Helps with: Decision-making, adaptability

A blindfold
1 packet of construction materials (such as card stock, toothpicks, rubber bands, and sticky notes) for each team
An electric fan

Instructions: Your employees are Arctic explorers adventuring across an icy tundra! Separate them into teams of four or five and have them select a leader to guide their exploration. Each team must build a shelter from the materials provided before the storm hits in 30 minutes. However, both the team leader’s hands have frostbite, so they can’t physically help construct the shelter, and the rest of the team has snow blindness and is unable to see. When the 30 minutes is up, turn on the fan and see which shelter can withstand the high winds of the storm.

8. Minefield

An empty room or hallway
A collection of common office items

1. Place the items (boxes, chairs, water bottles, bags, etc.) around the room so there's no clear path from one end of the room to the other.

2. Divide your team into pairs and blindfold one person on the team.

3. The other must verbally guide that person from one end of the room to the other, avoiding the "mines."

4. The partner who is not blindfolded can't touch the other.

5. If you want to make the activity more challenging, have all the pairs go simultaneously so teams must find ways to strategically communicate with each other.

9. Blind Formations

1. Have the group put on blindfolds and form a large circle.

2. Tie two ends of a rope together and lay it in a circle in the middle of the group, close enough so each person can reach down and touch it.

3. Instruct the group to communicate to create a shape with the rope — a square, triangle, rectangle, etc.

4. If you have a very large group, divide them into teams and provide a rope for each team. Let them compete to see who forms a particular shape quickest.

Quick and easy problem-solving activities

10. line up blind.

1. Blindfold everyone and whisper a number to each person, beginning with one.

2. Tell them to line up in numerical order without talking.

3. Instead of giving them a number, you could also have them line up numerically by height, age, birthday, etc.

11. Reverse Pyramid

Helps with: Adaptability, collaboration

1. Have everyone stand in a pyramid shape, horizontally.

2. Ask them to flip the base and the apex of the pyramid moving only three people.

3. This quick exercise works best when smaller groups compete to see who can reverse the pyramid the fastest.

12. Move It!

Chalk, rope, tape, or paper (something to mark a space)

1. Divide your group into two teams and line them up front to back, facing each other.

2. Using the chalk, tape, rope, or paper (depending on the playing surface), mark a square space for each person to stand on. Leave one extra empty space between the two facing rows.

3. The goal is for the two facing lines of players to switch places.

4. Place these restrictions on movement:

Only one person may move at a time.
A person may not move around anyone facing the same direction.
No one may not move backward.
A person may not move around more than one person on the other team at a time.

13. Human Knot

1. Have everyone stand in a circle, and ask each person to hold hands with two people who aren’t directly next to them.

2. When everyone is tangled together, ask them to untangle the knot and form a perfect circle — without letting go of anyone's hand.

Our last two problem-solving activities work best when dealing with an actual problem:

14. Dumbest Idea First

Helps with: Instant problem-solving

1. "Dumb" ideas are sometimes the best ideas. Ask everyone to think of the absolute dumbest possible solution to the problem at hand.

2. After you have a long list, look through it and see which ones might not be as dumb as you think.

3. Brainstorm your solutions in Wrike. It's free and everyone can start collaborating instantly!

15. What Would X Do

1. Have everyone pretend they're someone famous.

2. Each person must approach the problem as if they were their chosen famous person. What options would they consider? How would they handle it?

3. This allows everyone to consider solutions they might not have thought of originally.

Looking for more team-building and virtual meeting games? Check out these virtual icebreaker games or our Ultimate Guide to Team Building Activities that Don't Suck.

Additional resources on problem-solving activities

Problem-Solving Model : Looking for a model to provide a problem-solving structure? This detailed guide gives you the tools to quickly solve any problem.
The Simplex Process: Popularized by Min Basadur's book, The Power of Innovation , the Simplex Process provides training and techniques for each problem-solving stage. It helps frame problem-solving as a continuous cycle, rather than a “one and done” process.
Fun Problem-Solving Activities and Games : Looking for more ideas? Check out this list of interesting and creative problem-solving activities for adults and kids!
The Secret to Better Problem-Solving: This article provides tips, use cases, and fresh examples to help you become a whiz at solving the toughest problems.

How to organize problem-solving activities with Wrike

If you want to make problem-solving activities more effective, consider using team collaboration software such as Wrike.

Wrike’s pre-built actionable meeting notes template helps you keep track of meeting discussions, assign action items, and keep everyone in the loop. It’s an effective tool to streamline your problem-solving sessions and turn insights into real projects.

Brianna Hansen

Brianna is a former Content Marketing Manager of Wrike. When she’s not writing about collaboration and team building games, you’ll find her in the kitchen testing out the latest recipes, sharing her favorite wine with friends, or playing with her two cats.

6 Different Team Effectiveness Models to Understand Your Team Better

Understanding these 6 team effectiveness models can help you figure out which model to adopt for your own team. Or it may simply help shed light into what's working in your own group, and how to help improve what's lacking.

5 Unexpected Ways To Improve Team Collaboration

The general trend these days is toward open office plans, where cubicle walls and office doors don’t impede communication. In fact, the International Facility Management Association reports that 70% of offices in the US now have an open floor plan. But tearing down the walls so we can yell across the room at one another doesn’t necessarily improve collaboration. In fact, a study in Finland found that employees on average waste 21.5 minutes a day getting distracted by overheard conversations, the top roadblock to productivity. It takes more than just moving the furniture and hoping it will get people talking—it takes planning, intentional policy changes, and just a little hint of the unexpected. These five unusual strategies for improving team collaboration will get your teams to work together in ways that make people feel comfortable sharing ideas. 1. Put the Walls Back Up Conventional wisdom says that open work spaces and shared offices get people to talk more, but the ambient noise and visual distractions can actually mean a loss of productivity. We cycle through the open-office-closed-door argument every decade or so, probably because the pendulum swings way too far in one direction or the other, leaving employees either isolated or distracted. When employees have a quiet, comfortable place to work distraction-free, they feel more comfortable coming out of their shells when they need to work together. Cubicles, conference rooms, and separate offices help define meeting times and let employees choose when they engage with others, rather than the open office layout that stifles quiet time. 2. Build an Asynchronous Communication Policy Many workplaces have implemented instant messaging apps, crowd-sourced employee documents, and project management tools that increase the opportunity for collaboration. But that’s not enough—you also have to create expectations around how employees use those tools. Communication apps like Skype and Slack, can and should be used with an understanding that communication happens at your discretion. Asynchronous communication models the sort of communication that happens between parts of a computer: information is sent when it’s convenient for one part of the system, and the other part of the system receives and responds at its convenience. This way, the receiver’s current process isn’t interrupted, which helps team members stay focused on important work. Offices that use wikis, email, chat tools, Kanban boards, and project management tools that let users view notifications and changes on their own time show respect for the individual’s flow of work. Users can set "do not disturb" hours so they won’t receive distracting notifications, and use a batching system to take care of all secondary communication outside of their focus times. Asynchronous communication gives employees the freedom to focus without that fear of missing out on important decisions. When companies empower employees to communicate within dedicated time frames, they send the message that they appreciate when employees focus on single tasks, rather than splitting their attention between communication and assignments. 3. Implement: "No Agenda, No Meeting" It’s many people’s worst office nightmare: a meeting with no plan. Requiring that all meetings — no matter how trivial or informal — have at least a bullet point outline puts both planners and attendees at ease. Agendas also keep your teams focused on outcomes. Teams that plan in advance and share agendas stay on track and reduce distractions that can devolve into lost time and unhelpful disagreements. Build policies about tangential discussions and how to deal with disagreements, so your employees know how to handle new and uncomfortable situations. Meeting agendas protect meaningful individual work time, and helps the group stay on task. This reduces friction due to off-topic talking, lets attendees collect their thoughts and ideas before the meeting, and defines the scope of work so all participants understand what’s expected. Collaboration is much easier when everyone knows what’s required. Once the group completes the agenda, release employees to check off the items on their personal to-do lists. You can always schedule follow-up meetings to resolve new issues. 4. Build an Inclusive Remote Work Infrastructure Finding top talent is harder than ever, and ensuring that your employees have a good work-life balance is an HR necessity. The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 24% of employees worked from home at least part of the time in 2015. Working remotely from a home office or co-working space in a different city can increase employee happiness and productivity and limit distractions from office shenanigans (looking at you, Sales Departments). Companies that allow remote work or work from home policies need to build communication and collaboration into the lifestyle of the company. Use video conferencing, chat programs, screensharing & remote desktop access, and project management tools to bring employees together virtually around your goals. Ensure that not only workers but also managers and executives understand how to use the remote technology, and are comfortable engaging with the crew. Use your video calls for 1:1 weekly meetings to check in, and build chat channels where your whole team can hang out. Allow teams to build their own chat channels around shared interests (Trivia, Fantasy Football, great restaurants, etc.) to cultivate a connected culture and engage employees during downtime. These connections remind us that our colleagues are more than their work projects, they are people too. Humanizing remote teammates helps to foster empathy, which in turn smooths out whatever rough patches you'll hit during collaboration. 5. Build Relationships via Tough Conversations Whether collaboration takes place in the office or remotely, in real time or asynchronously, in a conference room or in the middle of an open office, it’s important to build communication policies that promote openness and honesty. Conflict and criticism are inevitable, but collaboration doesn’t have to suffer: the whole team can communicate with emotional intelligence. By planning for the inevitable, you can ensure that tough conversations happen with sensitivity—building relationships among team members, instead of eroding them. Designate mediators for teams, plan regular communication skills workshops (quarterly, not just once a year), and discuss different communication styles. Collaboration is More Than Seating Arrangements Improved team collaboration takes more than sticking everyone in a room and hoping individual genius will compound in a group setting. Real business-oriented collaboration requires careful planning, investment in technology, and breaking down outdated ideas of what teamwork and productivity look like. About the Author: Tamara Scott is an analyst at TechnologyAdvice, a research company that connects buyers and sellers of business technology. She writes about project management, marketing, sales, CRM, and many other technology verticals.

Making Mistakes at Work: What to Do if You're in the Wrong

All of us have felt the fear of admitting when we’ve made a mistake at work. We may be terrified to tell our manager, or nervous about the impact our mistake could have on the business. But mistakes are completely normal and should be viewed as an opportunity to grow. This article aims to provide a deeper insight into why this fear of making mistakes at work exists and how to overcome it. We’ll also provide advice to managers on how to react and problem solve collaboratively as a team. Why is there a fear of making mistakes at work? Making mistakes at work can be scary. This is especially true if you’re the sole breadwinner of your household or rely on your position for everyday expenses like rent. When the stakes are high, it’s normal to worry about what-if scenarios when something goes wrong. In rare cases, extreme perfectionism is diagnosed as atelophobia which is the extreme fear of making mistakes. While these are all valid reactions, making mistakes at work can actually improve your relationship with management and provide opportunities for self-improvement. But first things first, you have to adjust your mindset and overcome those fear-based feelings that are keeping you paralyzed. Overcoming the anxiety of making mistakes at work If you’re like most people, you probably feel a knot in your stomach when something goes wrong at work. It could have been a minor mishap that no one noticed or a major mistake that cost your company a huge sum of money. Regardless of what happened, overcoming the anxiety of making mistakes at work is the first step to finding a solution. If you skip this part of the process, you may find yourself covering up issues that could have been fixed, making things worse long-term, or even getting found out by your boss. Follow these steps to overcoming work-related stress and bounce back stronger than before after you’ve messed up: Step 1: Process your emotions It’s natural to feel frustrated and embarrassed when something goes wrong at work. But, after a few seconds, the feeling should pass and you can begin to think logically. If it doesn’t happen quickly, take some time to process these emotions. Talk it out with a trusted friend, voice journal about it in your car, or take a walk outside to get some fresh air before starting fresh. It can be hard to maintain a sense of balance when you’re upset. Try to make sure that your emotional response is proportional to the mistake you made. Step 2: Keep perspective If you make an error at work, it’s likely not a life-or-death situation. Most of the time, it can be corrected or resolved quickly. If you don’t find the right perspective, your mind may get too focused on the negative consequences of your mistake, which can trigger more errors in the future. Step 3: Acknowledge the mistake If you need to apologize for an error, do it quickly and politely. If it’s a small issue, a sentence or two via email or chat messenger is enough to make amends. If it’s a larger issue, consider holding a meeting or giving your manager a quick phone call. Also, make sure to tell your boss about how you intend to prevent this mistake in the future. Step 4: Review your response It’s so easy to get distracted by all your other goals and projects that you can forget about anything else that went wrong before you got to this point. Taking the time to review your response to the mistake helps you improve in case it ever happens again. Ask yourself questions. Do you make the same mistake over and over again? If so, what changes can you make to prevent this from happening? Step 5: Practice self-care Getting back into a healthy routine can help you release pent-up energy and prevent making mistakes at work in the future. To some, the concept of self-care may seem like a trend or luxury. But making sure you’re feeling your best is critical for improving your confidence and your performance at work. Issues such as sleep deprivation, poor nutrition, and dehydration can lead to mistakes you otherwise wouldn’t have made if you had been taking better care of yourself. Step 6: Evaluate your own performance The easiest way to earn people's trust is to consistently deliver stellar work. Even though you may have failed in the past, there's still time to move on and create a successful and rich working life. Remember, a mistake or two over the course of an otherwise successful period will not make or break your career. How should managers react to mistakes at work? Managers are responsible for reacting to and assisting employees with mistakes at work. Even in the most high-pressure situations, doing so with care is not only good for morale but will prevent similar mistakes in the future. How a manager reacts to mistakes at work can make all the difference between transformational leadership and losing otherwise great employees. Great managers understand that we can all learn from our mistakes. Mistakes help us develop as individuals and as a team. Great managers can also recognize when they themselves have made mistakes. Before you approach a team member, take a close look at yourself to see if you're really worried about their work. If so, what do you think about their performance? Who is responsible for their work so far? You may find that you’ve contributed to the environment, the process, or the miscommunication that made the mistake possible. Reflecting on this ahead of time will relieve everyone of playing the blame game and instead solve the problem from a fair and level-headed place. Additionally, managers should make sure that each mistake is a teaching moment. It may be hard but don't try to fix the problem. Instead, frame it as an opportunity to improve and develop. When approaching an employee who has made a mistake, start by being curious about it. Ask questions about what happened and what their perspective is on the situation. Use active listening skills when speaking to team members, as it will let them know that you are paying attention. They may fess up immediately. If they take the blame for something that wasn’t their fault, which is pretty common, address that. If they don’t admit to making a mistake, approach the situation with care and focus on the issue, not placing blame. Give the team members the autonomy to figure it out on their own. Then, provide your feedback in a fair and balanced manner. Afterward, encourage them to learn from it and avoid repeating the same mistake. When communicating with an employee who has made a mistake, in-person meetings are often best. However, many teams are now made up of contractors, gig workers, and freelancers who work remotely so a physical location is not always accessible. If that’s the case, lean on digital tools to illustrate the issue. For example, reports and individual task assignment lists from project management tools. These can also be used to prevent future mistakes, as managers can easily use them to communicate the actions and behaviors expected of team members and improve the overall work management process. There may be times when mistakes happen over and over again. If that’s the case, the employee may be engaging in a pattern of behavior that keeps them from performing at their best. Managers can step in and provide ideas for healthy habits that will prevent the same type of mistake from cropping up again. For example, you can ask a marketing team member to overcome a common marketing mistake of missing a content publishing deadline by writing a to-do list every day. This will help them stay on top of their tasks while also motivating them to finish their work at the same time. In a nutshell, it’s important to understand that punishment for infrequent mistakes is unfair and ineffective. These mistakes offer opportunities to improve, which both managers and employees can embrace. How to admit a mistake in a professional environment You may end up in a situation in a professional environment where an apology is needed. And when it comes to making mistakes at work, honesty is the best policy. Certain actions can break trust, but an apology can help rebuild it. In your explanation, it's important to detail why you acted the way you did. It shows that you care about how those around you are affected by your actions. It's important to address the person you're apologizing to by name, regardless of their status. Having an open conversation can help both of you understand the other person better, and it can prevent an insincere apology from happening. If the mistake you made affected someone personally, it's important to validate the feelings of the other person. Having the courage to admit that you're sorry can make a huge difference in how people treat you. Take responsibility for your actions and have a plan in place for how to make amends before you approach the appropriate person or people. Having a plan in place shows that you're thinking about how to make things right. You may even want to read about examples of taking responsibility at work and model your behavior on whichever feels appropriate for the situation. However, don’t get carried away and make promises you can’t keep. It's important to set goals that are realistic so that you can avoid repeating the mistake. If your apology is accepted, you can then try negotiating a solution by asking the other person to reflect on the situation and consider their feelings. After you apologize, make a greater effort to keep your promises and not repeat the same mistake. Doing so can help improve the situation and make the other person feel more comfortable. How to learn from mistakes at work It's important to come clean and admit your mistake, but it's also important to move forward with a positive mindset. You'll most likely feel a bit down about your mistake right after it happens. But by learning from it, you can improve and become more resilient in the long run. Start by creating a plan for improvement. If you made a minor mistake, then creating personal goals and action plans will help you put those lessons into action. You can learn a universal lesson from nearly any situation, no matter how unique it is. For example, if you learned that a mistake was made because of your forgetfulness, implementing organizational strategies to improve your memory could help. Next, keep track of progress over time in a notebook or virtual document. Be sure to note the highlights along with the lowlights. Look for patterns. As they come up, add them to your action plan or personal goals list. Monitor whether or not these changes have led to better, more consistent outcomes. If not, adjust and keep going. Lastly, don't be afraid to ask for help if you're unsure which strategy or tool will work best for you. Managers are there to support your performance. If you approach them with honesty and vulnerability, they’ll likely be flattered you thought to ask. They may even offer advice or make changes that will improve productivity for you and the rest of the team. In conclusion The pressure to perform at a high level can often result in mistakes and inefficient habits. Learn from your mistakes and take ownership of them. Communicate in an open and honest manner. Ask for or provide help when needed and remember that every new mistake is also an opportunity for better performance. How Wrike can help you avoid unnecessary mistakes at work With so many files, folders, updates, and chat threads to keep track of, mistakes are easily made when you try to get through your day without a work management platform. Wrike offers a variety of features to help you stay on top of your workload easily, and avoid unnecessary confusion that can lead to mistakes at work. Full project visibility, including real-time updates and approvals, means that you can ensure every stakeholder is informed of what you're working on, with your tasks going to the correct approver every time. One shared space with over 400 app integrations means communication has never been easier, no matter where you or your team are based. And Wrike's Automation Engine allows you to streamline your processes and automate the time-consuming admin tasks that, when tackled manually, can easily be done incorrectly. Try it out for yourself with a free two-week trial.

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15 Team Building Problem Solving Activities

In this article you will find:

15 problem-solving activities for your team to master
Frequently asked questions about team building

Here are 15 problem-solving activities for your team to master:

15 Problem-Solving Activities

1. a shrinking vessel.

Why adaptability is important for problem-solving:

Adaptability is highly associated with cognitive diversity, which helps teams solve problems faster, according to the Harvard Business Review. Innovation and disruption are happening faster than ever before. People, teams, and organizations that can adapt will come out on top.

What You'll Need:

A rope or string

Instructions:

1. Using the rope, make a shape on the floor everyone can fit into.

2. Slowly shrink the space over a time period of 10-15 minutes.

3. Work together to figure out how to keep everyone within the shrinking boundaries.

2. Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower

Helps with: Collaboration Why collaboration is important for problem-solving: “Collectively, we can be more insightful, more intelligent than we can possibly be individual,” writes Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline. We can solve problems better as a team than we can alone, which means developing your team's collaboration skills will lead to better problem-solving outcomes.

What You'll Need (per team):

20 sticks of uncooked spaghetti

1 roll of masking tape

1 yard of string

1 marshmallow

1. The goal of this exercise is to see which team can use the materials provided to build the tallest tower within an allotted time period. The tower must be able to stand on its own.

2. To make this exercise more challenging, try adding a marshmallow to the top of the tower. This team problem-solving exercise helps teams think on their toes while building camaraderie and leadership.

3. Egg Drop

Why decision-making is important for problem-solving:

Making decisions isn't easy, but indecision leads to team paralysis, stagnant thinking, and unsolved problems. Decision-making activities help your team practice making quick, effective choices. Train your team's decision-making muscle and they will become more adept at problem-solving.

A carton of eggs

Basic construction materials such as newspapers, straws, tape, plastic wrap, balloons, rubber bands, popsicle sticks, etc., tarp, or drop cloth

A parking lot, or some other place you don't mind getting messy!

1. Each team gets an egg and must select from the construction materials.

2. Give everyone 20-30 minutes to construct a carrier for the egg and protect it from breaking.

3. Drop each egg carrier off a ledge (i.e. over a balcony) and see whose carrier protects the egg from breaking.

4. If multiple eggs survive, keep increasing the height until only one egg is left.

4. Stranded

Helps with: Communication and Decision-Making Why communication is important for problem-solving:

More employees work remotely than ever before. Good communication skills are vital to solving problems across increasingly virtual teams. Working on communication skills while your team is together will help them better solve problems when they're apart.

Your team has been stranded in the office. The doors are locked, and knocking down the doors or breaking the windows is not an option. Give your team 30 minutes to decide on 10 items in the office they need for survival and rank them in order of importance. The goal of the game is to have everyone agree on the 10 items and their ranking in 30 minutes.

1. Divide everyone into small teams of two or more.

2. Select an overseer who isn't on a team to build a random structure using Lego building blocks within 10 minutes.

4. If this is too easy, add a rule that the member who can see the original structure can't touch the new structure.

Collaboration

A lockable room

5-10 puzzles or clues (depending on how much time you want to spend on the game)

The goal of this exercise is to solve the clues, find the key, and escape a locked room within the time allotted.

Hide the key and a list of clues around the room.

Gather the team into the empty room and "lock" the door.

Give them either 30 minutes or 1 hour to find the key using the clues hidden around the room.

7. Frostbite

Decision Making, Adaptability What You'll Need:

A blindfold

1 packet of construction materials (such as card stock, toothpicks, rubber bands, and sticky notes) for each team

An electric fan

Picture this... Your employees are Arctic explorers adventuring across an icy tundra! Separate them into teams of 4-5 and have them select a leader to guide their exploration. Each team must build a shelter from the materials provided before the storm hits in 30 minutes. However, both the team leader's hands have frostbite, so they can't physically help construct the shelter, and the rest of the team has snow blindness and is unable to see. When the 30 minutes is up, turn on the fan and see which shelter can withstand the high winds of the storm.

8. Minefield

An empty room or hallway

A collection of common office items

1. Place the items (boxes, chairs, water bottles, bags, etc.) around the room so there's no clear path from one end of the room to the other.

2. Divide your team into pairs and blindfold one person on the team.

3. The other must verbally guide that person from one end of the room to the other, avoiding the "mines." 4. The partner who is not blindfolded can't touch the other.

5. If you want to make the activity more challenging, have all the pairs go simultaneously so teams must find ways to strategically communicate with each other.

9. Blind Formations

1. Have the group put on blindfolds and form a large circle.

2. Tie two ends of a rope together and lay it in a circle in the middle of the group, close enough so each person can reach down and touch it.

3. Instruct the group to communicate to create a shape with the rope a square, triangle, rectangle, etc.

4. If you have a very large group, divide them into teams and provide a rope for each team. Let them compete to see who forms a particular shape quickest.

10. Line up Blind

1. Blindfold everyone and whisper a number to each person, beginning with one.

2. Tell them to line up in numerical order without talking.

3. Instead of giving them a number, you could also have them line up numerically by height, age, birthday, etc.

11. Reverse Pyramid

1. Have everyone stand in a pyramid shape, horizontally.

2. Ask them to flip the base and the apex of the pyramid moving only three people.

3. This quick exercise works best when smaller groups compete to see who can reverse the pyramid the fastest.

12. Move It!

Chalk, rope, tape, or paper (something to mark a space)

1. Divide your group into two teams and line them up front to back, facing each other.

2. Using chalk, tape, rope, or paper (depending on the playing surface), mark a square space for each person to stand on. Leave one extra empty space between the two facing rows.

3. The goal is for the two-facing lines of players to switch places.

Place these restrictions on movement:

Only one person may move at a time.

A person may not move around anyone facing the same direction.

No one may not move backward.

A person may not move around more than one person on the other team at a time.

13. Human Knot

1. Have everyone stand in a circle, and ask each person to hold hands with two people who aren't directly next to them.

2. When everyone is tangled together, ask them to untangle the knot and form a perfect circle without letting anyone's hand.

Our last two problem-solving activities work best when dealing with an actual problem:

14. Dumbest Idea First

Instant Problem Solving What You'll Need:

1. "Dumb" ideas are sometimes the best ideas. Ask everyone to think of the absolute dumbest possible solution to the problem at hand.

2. After you have a long list, look through it and see which ones might not be as dumb as you think.

3. Brainstorm your solutions in Wrike. It's free and everyone can start collaborating instantly!

15. What Would X Do

1. Have everyone pretend they're someone famous.

2. Each person must approach the problem as if they were a famous person. What options would they consider? How would they handle it?

3. This allows everyone to consider solutions they might not have thought of originally.

Looking for more team building games? Check out these virtual icebreaker games Ultimate Guide to Team Building Activities that Don't Suck.

What is the team building process?

This process of learning to work together effectively is known as team development. Bruce Tuckman, an educational psychologist, identified a five-stage development process that most teams follow to become high performing. He called the stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.

What is team building?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines team building as: “The action or process of causing a group of people to work together effectively as a team, especially by means of activities and events designed to increase motivation and promote cooperation.”

How often should you schedule team-building activities?

One of the most important aspects of team building is that it is an ongoing process. One team-building session can be effective, but your team could benefit more from multiple sessions. In fact, it may be beneficial to make it a part of your regular program. For team building to be effective, you should repeat it as often as you feel it is useful. This largely depends on the activity you choose. You can do quick activities on a more regular basis since they don't interfere with the regular work schedule. You will probably conduct longer, more elaborate activities less frequently so the team can get work done.

What you should do now

11 Offsite Team Building Activities to Unite Teams

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45 team building games to improve commu ...

45 team building games to improve communication and camaraderie

Team building games bring everyone together without the added pressure of work. Here, we’ve listed 45 of the top team building activities broken down by icebreaker, problem solving, indoor, and outdoor games.

As Ashley Frabasilio, Employee Engagement Manager at Asana puts it, “Creating a shared experience for teams to build relationships is one of the best ways to increase trust and encourage collaboration."

Whether you’re looking for indoor or outdoor activities, quick icebreaker games, or activities to bond with your remote team members, we compiled a list of over 45 team building games that you’ll actually enjoy.

How to make team building inclusive

Teams with an inclusive culture tend to be more transparent, supportive, and happy because everyone feels accepted. It’s essential to make any team activity feel productive and enjoyable for the entire group, regardless of personalities or skill sets. Whether you’re working on building an inclusive remote culture or want in-person teams to feel more comfortable together, consider the following for an inclusive team building experience:

Inclusive team building means including everyone. Depending on the type of team building activity, you may benefit from hiring an outside expert to facilitate a team building event that everyone can participate in. Plus, the activity may feel more authentic because a professional is guiding you.

If you have introverts on the team, they may not be as excited about an exercise that involves lots of social interaction and do better in small groups.

Teammates with speech, sight, or hearing impairments may feel left out during a game that involves blindfolding players and communicating without looking at each other.

Physically active games could exclude physically impaired teammates.

Before choosing one of the team building games from this list, take stock of everyone's abilities. Find an activity that everyone on your team can participate in. Maybe even send out an anonymous poll to see what kinds of activities your team would be willing to partake in. Ultimately, the best team building activity will be the one that everyone can enjoy.

Team icebreaker games

Icebreaker questions and activities are the perfect “getting to know you” games but they’re also fun to play with teammates you’ve known for a long time. You can play them to get everyone up to speed for a meeting (especially on those 8am calls) or use them to introduce new team members.

1. Two truths, one lie

Team size : 3+ people

Time : 2–3 minutes per person

How to play : Ask everyone in the group to come up with two facts about themselves and one lie. The more memorable the facts (e.g., I went skydiving in Costa Rica) and the more believable the lies (e.g., I have two dogs), the more fun the game will be! Then, ask each team member to present their three statements and have the group vote on which one they think is the lie.

Why this exercise is great : This game is perfect for groups who don’t know each other well yet. The details you share can be used as building blocks for late conversations (“What else did you do in Costa Rica?”) to give you a better idea of who you’re working with.

2. Penny for your thoughts

Team size : 5+ people

How to play : You’ll need a box full of pennies (or other coins) with years only as old as your youngest team member (not the time to brag about your 1937 collector’s penny). Ask every team member to draw a coin from the box and share a story, memory, or otherwise significant thing that happened to them that year. This can be anything from learning how to ride a bike to landing your first job.

Why this exercise is great : This is a fun twist on a stress-free and simple icebreaker that gives everyone the chance to share a personal story with their team. You can play multiple rounds if the stories are on the shorter side or let team members elaborate on their stories to gain deeper insight into their lives.

3. Mood pictures

How to play : Prepare a variety of images before you play. You can collect newspaper clippings, magazine cutouts, postcards, and posters or print out different images from the internet (Pinterest is a great spot). The images should show landscapes, cities, people, shapes, or animals in a variety of colors and perspectives.

Lay all the images out and ask team members to each pick one that resonates with their current mood. Once everyone has picked an image, ask them to share what they resonated with, how it makes them feel, and why they picked it.

Why this exercise is great : This exercise is a great way to get a meeting or a workshop started because it allows you to get a feel of the room in a creative and unexpected way. You don’t always have to ask your team to pick an image that reflects their mood—it can also be their expectations for a workshop, their feelings about a current project, or how they hope to feel at the end of the day. As they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words, so this exercise makes talking about feelings easier for a lot of people.

4. One word exercise

Time : 5–10 minutes

How to play : Pick a phrase related to the meeting topic and ask everyone to write down one word that comes to mind on a post-it. Then, gather these words on a whiteboard or put them in a presentation. For example, if you’re hosting a meeting about your annual holiday event. Everyone would take a moment to respond with the first word that comes in their head. If the team is responding with words like stress or exhaustion, you might want to rethink your process.

Why this exercise is great : This is a way to collect opinions, thoughts, or feelings about a meeting that’s well within most people’s comfort zone. You’ll have the chance to read the room before diving into the topic and may uncover some concerns or questions to focus on, which will make the meeting more beneficial to everyone.

5. Back-to-back drawing

Team siz e: 4+ people

Time : 5–10 minutes

How to play : Split your team into groups of two and make them sit back to back. Hand one person a pen and piece of paper and show the other person a picture of something that’s fairly simple to draw (e.g., a car, a flower, a house). This person now has to describe the picture to their teammate without actually saying what the item is so they can draw it. They’re allowed to describe shapes, sizes, and textures but can’t say, “Draw a lily.” Once the blind drawing is finished, compare it with the original to see how well you communicated.

Why this exercise is great : This activity is a fun way to polish your communication skills, especially your listening skills. It also gives your team a chance to get creative and innovative by thinking outside the box to describe the image to their teammate.

6. Birthday line up

Team size : 8+ people

Time : 10–15 minutes

How to play : Ask your entire team to form a line in order of their birthdays without talking to each other. You can encourage other forms of communication like sign language, gestures, or nudges. If you want to add a little bit of pressure and excitement to the exercise, add a time limit!

Why this exercise is great : Besides learning everyone’s birthday (which can always come in handy as a conversation starter later on), this exercise encourages your team to learn to communicate towards a common goal without using words. Although this can be a challenge and get frustrating, this exercise promotes problem framing skills, cooperation, and non-verbal communication skills.

7. Charades

Team size : 8–10 people

Time : 10–25 minutes

How to play : Divide your team into groups of four or five people. The person who goes first is given or shown a random object (e.g., printer, stapler, keyboard) in private. They then have to demonstrate how to use the object without actually showing it in front of their team. Their team gets 30 seconds on the clock to shout out the correct word (you can adjust the time depending on the difficulty of the objects).

Then it’s the other team’s turn. You’ll keep playing until every team member has had the chance to demonstrate an object to their team.

Why this exercise is great : This classic game is a nice way to break up a mentally taxing day and get your team to do a creative exercise that isn’t work-related.

8. Swift swap

Team size : 10–20 people

How to play : Split your team into two groups and line them up facing each other. Team A gets a quick observation period (15–30 seconds) in which group members have to memorize as many things about the people in front of them as possible. Then team A turns around while team B changes as many things about their appearance as possible.

Anything from changing the line up order to swapping shoes with someone or changing your hairdo is fair game. After about 45 seconds, team A turns back around and gets 5–10 minutes to find out what’s changed. You can adjust the time depending on the size of your group.

Why this exercise is great : This game is a great way to break up a long day and take everyone’s minds off work for a little while. Your team also gets to practice time-sensitive non-verbal communication during the swapping phase.

9. Code of conduct

Time : 20–30 minutes

How to play : This game is a great way to tune into a new project or workshop. Write the two categories “meaningful” and “enjoyable” on a whiteboard and ask the group to share what they believe is needed to accomplish these two things for your project or workshop. This can be anything from “regular breaks'' to “transparency and honesty,” which could fall under either category.

Everyone will choose ideas that they agree are both meaningful and enjoyable . Record these values in a shared tool to establish the code of conduct for your upcoming project or workshop. This list will function as a reminder for the team to uphold these values.

Why this exercise is great : Whether it’s the first day of a workshop, the beginning of a new project, or simply a Monday morning, this exercise is great to get everyone on your team on the same page. By establishing group norms and values early on and holding everyone accountable with a written code of conduct, you can create a sense of cohesiveness. If you’d like to do this exercise virtually, use our team brainstorming template to collect everyone’s thoughts.

10. Common thread

Team size : 10+ people

Time : 30 minutes

How to play : Divide your team into groups of three to five people. Then ask your team to find things everyone in their group has in common. This can be a favorite TV show, an ice cream flavor nobody likes, or a common hobby. Encourage your teammates to find common threads that aren’t too superficial or obvious. The more things they can find that everyone in the group has in common, the better! If you have the time, bring everyone together afterward and ask the teams to share their experiences.

Why this exercise is great : This fun game allows your team to find commonalities that they may not get a chance to discover otherwise. It’s also a great way to reunite teams that feel a bit divided. Talking about shared likes and dislikes can be helpful to reconnect you with teammates.

Remote or virtual team building games

Bonding with your teammates can be more difficult when you’re working remotely. Remote or virtual team building games can improve remote collaboration , motivate teams , and create a sense of community even though you’re physically apart. You can use Zoom to connect with your teammates or do quick team building exercises via your remote work software during the day.

If your team is located across multiple time zones, you may have to get creative with scheduling. Ashley Frabasilio, Employee Engagement Manager at Asana encourages leaders to schedule these activities during normal work hours. Ensure that the activity is appropriate for all participants in all time zones so no one feels excluded. Using work hours for these exercises can also increase the participation rate because you’re not interfering with personal time.

11. Show and tell

How to play : Ask everyone in your team to bring something they’re proud of or that brings them joy to your next meeting. This can be anything from a pet to a plant, a painting they did, or a certificate they received. Everyone gets two to three minutes to show off their item and answer questions from the team if they have any.

Why this exercise is great : Show and tell isn’t just fun for kids, it’s also a great way to connect with your team. You’re probably going to learn something new about your teammates and may get a couple of conversation starters for your next meeting from this game.

12. Photo caption contest

How to play : Collect a few funny photos—for example a few memes that have recently been circling the internet. Send these to your team before the meeting and ask everyone to submit their best photo caption for each image. You can put these together in a quick presentation and present them to your team during the call. You can have a good laugh together and even vote for the best captions.

Why this exercise is great : This exercise is a fun way to get creative as a team and have a good laugh together.

13. Morning coffee

Time : 15–30 minutes

How to play : Schedule regular coffee calls for your remote team to give everyone a chance to get to know each other like they would in an office setting. You can schedule team calls with four to five people or randomly assign two people to each other that switch every time. You can offer these casual calls once a week, bi-weekly, or once a month, depending on your team size and the interest in this opportunity.

Why this exercise is great : Remote teams don’t often get a chance to just chit-chat and get to know each other without talking about work or feeling like they’re wasting meeting time. By designating 15–30 minutes on a regular basis to a casual call, your team members will have a chance to bond with people they might not typically interact with.

14. Lunch and learn

How to play : Hold a weekly or monthly “lunch and learn” where one team member presents a topic to the whole team during their lunch break. This presentation can be on a tool everyone uses at work, on a lesson learned from a recent project, or even on a book they read that everyone can learn from.

Why this exercise is great : These events are a great opportunity for your team to connect in a more casual yet educational setting. If your team budget allows, send restaurant gift cards to your team members so they can order lunch for the call.

15. Online group game

Time : 30–60 minutes

How to play : Invite your team to play a game online together. This can be an actual video game if everyone happens to use the same console at home or you can download an interactive game (like Jackbox ) which you can screen share with the rest of the group.

Why this exercise is great : Playing a video game or an interactive game that has nothing to do with work can be a fun way to switch things up, create a more casual work environment, and get to know each other better. It will also give people with great sportsmanship a chance to shine!

16. Trivia games

Team size : 6–20 people

Time : 30–90 minutes

How to play : Start a meeting with a quick game of trivia or host a regular virtual trivia night at the end of the work day. You can play a game of office trivia (e.g., facts about the company) or pick random other themes like TV shows, music, or national parks. To mix things up, ask other team members to host trivia night.

Why this exercise is great : Whether you’re making the trivia game office-themed or creating a regular team activity that takes everyone’s minds off of work, you’ll get to spend time with your team playing a competitive, educational, and entertaining game that gives everyone a chance to bond.

17. Quarterly challenge

Time : One month

How to play : Create an optional challenge for your team to participate in. The challenge can be centered around healthy eating, meditation, journaling, or reading. Create a chat or thread where your teammates can exchange their experiences, wins, and questions to keep each other motivated and accountable throughout the month.

Make sure your team knows that participation is optional. It never hurts to ask for feedback to spark future team challenge ideas.

Why this exercise is great : Creating a challenge like this for your team shows them that you care about their work-life balance. By offering a quarterly challenge, you provide your team with the opportunity to share an experience together. Plus, it’s always easier to complete a challenge when you have a team who supports you and an incentive to work toward.

18. Personality test

How to play : Send a personality test to your team and ask everyone to share their results in a chat or during your next team meeting. This can be a formal test like the Enneagram or StrengthsFinder . For something more lighthearted, you can send a fun quiz like the Sorting Hat to find out which Hogwarts house you belong in or a Buzzfeed quiz (e.g., “ What Kitchen Appliance Are You? ”).

Why this exercise is great : Depending on the type of quiz your team takes, this can become a funny icebreaker before you start a meeting or turn into a discussion on your team’s combined strengths and challenges.

Problem solving games

Playing problem solving games with your team helps them level up their teamwork skills, resolve issues, achieve goals, and excel together. Whether you’re using new brainstorming techniques or going out for a team adventure, these fun team building activities are the perfect way to improve your team's problem solving skills.

19. Your first idea

Team size : 5–12 people

Time : 10–20 minutes

How to play : Ask everyone in your team to write down the first idea that pops into their head when they’re presented with the problem. Compile the list and review it as a team.

A fun twist on this game is to ask everyone to write down their worst idea. After reviewing with the team, you may realize that some ideas aren’t that bad after all. You can play this game with a real-life problem, a fictional one, or when you’re brainstorming new ideas to pitch.

Why this exercise is great : We often get too much into our heads about problems and solutions. By writing down the first solution that comes to mind, we can uncover new perspectives and fixes.

20. Back of the napkin

Team size : 6–24 people

Time : 15–20 minutes

How to play : Divide your team into groups of two to four and present them with a variety of open-ended problems. These can be work-related, imaginary, or even environmental problems. Every team gets a napkin and pen that they have to sketch or write their solution on after they’ve discussed the issue as a group. These will then be presented to the rest of the team.

Why this exercise is great : Some of the best ideas have allegedly been recorded on napkins (hey, when creativity strikes you’ll write on anything). This game imitates this scenario while challenging your team to collaborate on solving a creative problem.

21. Create your own

How to play : Each team member will create an original problem-solving activity on their own and present it to the group. Whether this entails a physical, mental, or creative challenge is up to your team. If you have the time, play some of the games afterward!

Why this exercise is great : Coming up with your own games is fun and a real creative challenge. It also allows your team members to showcase their strengths by creating challenges they’ll be prepared to tackle.

22. Spectrum mapping

Team size : 5–15 people

How to play : Present your team with a few topics that you’d like their opinions and insight on. Write them down on a whiteboard and give everyone sticky notes and pens. Ask them to write down their thoughts and pin them on the whiteboard underneath the respective topic.

Now arrange the sticky notes as a team. Try to group similar ideas together to the left of the topic and post outliers toward the right side. This will create a spectrum of popular thoughts and opinions on the left and more extreme ideas on the right.

Why this exercise is great : This game will help you map out the diversity of perspectives your team has on different topics. Remember that unpopular opinions don’t have to be wrong. Embracing this diversity can help you uncover new perspectives and innovative ideas to solve problems you’re facing as a team.

23. What would “X” do?

Team size : 5–10 people

Time : 45–60 minutes

How to play : Present your team with a problem and ask everyone to come up with a famous person or leader they admire. This can be a celebrity, a business person, or a relative. Challenge your teammates to approach the problem as if they were that person and present their solution (extra points for playing in character).

Why this exercise is great : Getting stuck in your own head can often keep you from solving a problem efficiently and effectively. By stepping into the shoes of someone else, you may uncover new solutions. Plus, it’s fun pretending to be someone else for a little while!

24. Team pursuit

Time : 1–3 hours

How to play : Form groups of two to six people that will compete against one another in a series of challenges. You can buy a team pursuit package online or create your own game, which will take a good amount of prep time.

You’ll want to create a set of challenges for your team: cerebral challenges that test logic and intelligence, skill challenges like aptitude tests, and mystery challenges which usually ask for creativity and out-of-the-box thinking (e.g., come up with a unique handshake, take a fun picture, etc.).

Why this exercise is great : A solid game of team pursuit will create a fun challenge that gives everyone a chance to shine and show off their talents. Whether you’re a good runner, a quick thinker, or a creative mind, everyone will be able to contribute to the success of the team. This game will bring your team closer together and show them new sides of their teammates that they may not have been aware of.

25. Code break

Team size : 8–24 people

How to play : This brain teaser is a fun activity that you can play indoors or outdoors to challenge your team. Outback Team Building offers self-hosted, remote-hosted, and on-site hosted events that include several codes your teammates have to find and break to make it through the course.

Why this exercise is great : This challenge requires creative thinking, creates a competitive environment, and works with large groups because you can break off into smaller groups.

26. Escape room

Time : 2–3 hours

How to play : Visiting an escape room is always a unique experience and a great way to spend an afternoon with your team. If you have multiple escape rooms nearby, ask your team if they have a general idea of what theme they’d like to explore (e.g., history, horror, sci-fi) and try to pick something you’ll think everyone will enjoy.

If you’re super creative and have the time and resources, you can put together an escape room on your own!

Why this exercise is great : Solving the mysteries of an escape room with your team will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your teammates, foster communication and collaboration, build trust, and become a shared memory that connects you together.

Indoor team building games

Most of these indoor games can be played in an office, conference room, or a hallway with a small team, but you may need a bit more space if you’re inviting a larger group to join in.

27. Perfect square

Team size : 4–12 people

How to play : Divide your team into groups of four to six and ask them to stand in a tight circle with their group. Ask everyone to blindfold themselves or close their eyes and give one person a rope. Without looking at what they're doing, the teams now have to pass the rope around so everyone holds a piece of it and then form a perfect square. Once the team is sure their square is perfect, they can lay the rope down on the floor, take off their blindfolds (or open their eyes) and see how well they did.

Why this exercise is great : This game is about more than perfect geometric shapes, it’s an amazing listening and communication exercise. Because no one can see what they're doing, your team members have to communicate clearly while figuring out how to create a square out of a rope. Besides, it’s often really funny to see how imperfect the squares come out.

28. Memory wall

How to play : You’ll need a whiteboard and sticky notes for this game. Write different work-related themes on the whiteboard such as “first day at work,” “team celebration,” and “work travel.” Hand each teammate a few sticky notes and ask them to write down their favorite memories or accomplishments associated with one or more of these themes. Invite everyone to share these with the team to take a walk down memory lane and post the notes on the whiteboard as you go.

Why this exercise is great : This is a nice way to end a week, long day, or workshop because you’ll share positive experiences with one another that will leave your teammates smiling. If you’re finishing up a work trip or multi-day workshop, you can also do a slimmed-down version of this by asking everyone to share their favorite memory or biggest accomplishment of the last few days.

29. Turn back time

How to play : This team building exercise works best in a quiet atmosphere with everyone sitting in a circle. Ask your team to silently think of a unique memory in their lives. You can give them a few minutes to collect their thoughts. Then, ask everyone to share the one memory they’d like to relive if they could turn back time.

Not everyone may be comfortable opening up at first, so be sure to lead with vulnerability and make everyone in the room feel safe about sharing their moment.

Why this exercise is great : This exercise is a great way to help your team members remember their priorities and bond on a deeper level. In a team that’s facing disconnection or stress, sharing personal highlights that aren’t work-related can help create a sense of togetherness. Although the exercise doesn’t take too long, it’s best to do it toward the end of the day so your team has a chance to reflect on what’s been said.

30. Paper plane

Team size : 6–12 people

How to play : Split your team into groups of two to four and hand out card stock. Give each team 10–15 minutes to come up with the best long-distance paper plane design (they’re allowed to do research on their phones or computers) and a name for their airline.

When the paper planes are done, have a competition in a long hallway or outside to see which plane flies the farthest.

Why this exercise is great : This exercise requires team members to collaborate on a project with a tight timeline. It is a great activity to practice communication skills, delegation, and time management.

31. Build a tower

Team size : 8–16 people

How to play : Divide your team into groups of four or five and provide them with 20 sticks of uncooked spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. Challenge each team to build the tallest tower possible using only the supplies you gave them. When finished, the tower has to support the marshmallow sitting on top. Set the timer for 20 minutes and ask everyone to step away from their masterpiece when it runs out so you can crown a winner.

Why this exercise is great : This challenge is a great way to improve problem solving skills and communication within your team. Your team members will have to prototype, build, and present the tower in a short amount of time, which can be stressful. The better they work together, the more likely they are to succeed.

32. Flip it over

Team size : 6–8 people

How to play : Lay a towel, blanket, or sheet on the floor and ask your teammates to stand on it. The goal is to flip the piece over without ever stepping off of it or touching the ground outside of the fabric. You can make the challenge more difficult by adding more people to the team or using a smaller sheet.

Why this exercise is great : This exercise requires clear communication, cooperation, and a good sense of humor. It’s a great way to find out how well your teammates cooperate when presented with an oddly difficult task.

33. Sneak a peek

Team size : 4–20 people

How to play : Create a structure out of Lego pieces and hide it in a separate room. Divide your team into groups of two to four people and give them enough Legos to replicate the structure in 30 minutes or less.

One player per team is allowed to sneak a peek at the original structure for 15 seconds, then run back and describe it to their team. The person who gets to sneak a peek rotates so everyone gets to see the original at some point during the game. The team that first completes the structure as close to the original wins!

Why this exercise is great : During this game your team gets to focus on teamwork and communication. Since only one person at a time is allowed to look at the original, team members may see and describe different things. The more complex the structure is, the harder this game will be.

34. Pyramids

How to play : Pick a large open area for this game like a hallway, a meeting room, or the cafeteria. Divide your team into groups of four to six and give each team 10 paper cups. Ask the teams to stand in a line with about 8–10 feet between the team members. Now it’s a race against time!

The first person in each line has to build a pyramid with four cups at the base. Once they’re done, the second player has to help them carry the pyramid to their station (this can be on the floor or at a table). They can slide it on the floor or carry it together but if the pyramid falls apart, the players have to reassemble it on the spot before continuing their journey. At the next station, the second player has to topple the pyramid and rebuild it before the third player gets to help them carry it to the next station. This continues until the pyramid reaches the last station. The team that finishes first wins the game

Why this exercise is great : This game is fun to play during a mid-day break, fosters communication skills, and promotes teamwork.

35. Shipwrecked

Team size : 8–25 people

How to play : The premise of the game is that you’re stranded on a deserted island and only have 25 minutes to secure survival items off the sinking ship. Place items like water bottles, matches, food, etc., in the “shipwreck area.” You can also print pictures on index cards to make things a bit easier. The quantity of each item should be limited, with some items having more than others (e.g., more water than food, fewer tarps than teams, more knives than ropes, etc.).

Divide your team into groups of two (or more if it’s a large team). Once the clock starts, they have to gather as many items as they deem worthy from the shipwreck and rank them in order of importance. Since the items are limited (some more than others), the teams will not only have to prioritize the items within their own group of people but also negotiate, trade, and exchange items with other teams.

Why this exercise is great : This game will challenge problem-solving abilities, encourage collaboration, and enable your team to flex their leadership skills. Typically, teams with strong leadership qualities will have the most success in making these quick decisions.

36. Team flag

Time : 30–45 minutes

How to play : Divide your team into groups of two to four people and provide them with paper and pens. Each group now has to come up with an emblem or flag that represents their team. Once everyone has completed their masterpiece, they have to present it to the rest of the teams, explaining how they came up with the design. This exercise is also a great opportunity to discuss how each group identified their common values and created alignment during the design process.

Why this exercise is great : This is a great way to get the creative juices flowing. Your team will not only have to come up with a unique design that represents their collective identity but they’ll also have to collaborate on putting pen to paper and presenting their flag or emblem at the end of the game.

37. Salt and pepper

How to play : You’ll need a list of things that go well together like salt and pepper, left sock and right sock, day and night, peanut butter and jelly, or yin and yang. Write these words on individual pieces of paper and tape one sheet of paper on every team member's back.

Ask your team to mingle and find out what’s written on their back by asking questions that can only be answered with yes or no (e.g., “Am I sweet? Do you wear me? Am I cold?”). Once the participants find out who they are, they have to find their match!

Why this exercise is great : Your team can use this game to bond with one another and improve their communication skills. If you have a large team, this exercise also gives them a chance to interact with people they may not usually get to talk to.

38. Sell it

Time : 45–90 minutes

How to play : Ask your teammates to each bring a random object to the meeting. Everyone then has to come up with a logo, slogan, and marketing plan to sell this object. After 30 minutes, each team member has to present their new product to the rest of the team. If you have a larger team, divide them into groups of 2–4 people and ask them to collaborate on their product pitch.

Why this exercise is great : This game is great to switch things up if you don’t already work in marketing or sales. It’s also fun to play with others as it allows your team to get creative and have fun with everyday objects.

39. The barter puzzle

Time : 1–2 hours

How to play : Divide your team into groups of three or four people and give each a different jigsaw puzzle of the same difficulty level. Ask them to complete the puzzle as a team. The twist: each puzzle is missing a few pieces that are mixed in with an opposing team’s puzzle. The teams have to figure out ways to get the pieces they need from the other teams by negotiating, trading pieces, or even exchanging teammates. Every decision has to be made as a team. The first team to complete their puzzle wins.

Why this exercise is great : Every decision made will have to be a group decision which challenges your team to improve their problem solving skills.

Outdoor team building exercises

If you want to get a larger group together for a team building exercise, why not take things outside? Outdoor team building is also a great way to get your teammates to interact without the distractions of screens or smartphones. Whether you want to catch a breath of fresh air or get some sunshine together, these exercises will help you bond with your teammates outside of the office.

40. The minefield

Team size : 4–10 people

How to play : Create a minefield in a parking lot or another large, open space by sporadically placing objects like papers, balls, cones, and bottles. Split your team into groups of two and ask one person to put on a blindfold. The other person now has to guide the blindfolded teammate through the minefield only using their words. The blindfolded person is not allowed to talk and will be eliminated if they stop walking or step on anything in the minefield.

The objective of the game is to make it to the other side of the minefield. The teams can then switch so another person will be blindfolded and guided through the field on their way back. You can also distribute pieces the blindfolded person has to pick up on their way through the field to add another difficulty level.

Why this exercise is great : This game is not just a trust exercise for your teammates but also a fun way to practice active listening skills and clear communication.

41. Earth-ball

Team size : 5–20 people

Time : 15–45 minutes

How to play : You’ll need a balloon, beach ball, or volleyball for this activity. Ask your team to stand in a circle and keep the balloon or ball in the air for as long as possible. To make it a real challenge, no one can touch the ball twice in a row. The bigger your team, the more fun this game will be!

Why this exercise is great : This fun challenge is a great way to get your team moving. If you’re struggling to keep the ball up for longer, try to come up with a strategy to improve your time.

42. Scavenger hunt

How to play : Put together a scavenger hunt for your team. This can be in the form of a list of photographs they have to take (e.g., something red, all teammates in front of the company logo, the CEO’s car, etc.), items they have to collect (e.g., company brochure, yellow sticky note with manager’s signature on it, ketchup packet from the cafeteria, etc.), or other activities they have to complete on a designated route.

Why this exercise is great : The more people that tag along, the more fun this game will be. You can group people together who don’t know each other very well to allow them time to bond during this exercise. Try to come up with company-specific quests for your team so they learn a few fun facts along the way. You can offer prizes for the most creative team or the first to finish the challenge to boost motivation.

43. Egg drop

Time : 60–90 minutes

How to play : Divide your team into groups of two or three people and give each team a raw egg (keep some extras in case they break before the grand finale). Then put out supplies like tape, straws, rubber bands, newspapers, and balloons so the teams can build a structure for the raw egg that will protect it from a fall out of a second or third story window.

Each team has 60 minutes to complete their structure. When the time is up, ask your teams to gather their eggs and egg cages to drop them out of the window. This grand finale will reveal which team engineered and built the best cage.

Why this exercise is great : Collaborating on a design and building a cage will challenge your team’s problem solving and collaboration skills.

44. Team outing

Team size : Any

How to play : Plan an outing for your team. You could attend a cooking class or go to a museum together. If you want to have something your teammates can work toward, plan to run a 5K together or host a ping pong tournament. You can also do something more casual like inviting your team to hangout at a bowling alley after work where you can play a few games in a casual and fun setting.

Why this exercise is great : Taking your team somewhere new will help break down some of the walls we often build in a professional setting. While you’re still at a company function, you’re more inclined to connect through casual conversation at a restaurant or park than you would at the office.

45. Volunteer as a team

How to play : Organize a team event during your regularly scheduled workday. This can be a charity event, yard sale, or fundraiser for a cause your team cares about. Even though these are enjoyable, scheduling them during work hours makes this feel like more of a perk than an obligation.

If your team members have a few causes they’re truly passionate about, consider making this a monthly or quarterly event. You can also rotate the charities that you’re helping out to accommodate your team’s different interests.

Why this exercise is great : Experiencing helper’s high can improve your personal health and mental state. Sharing this rush that doing good can give you will help your team bond on a deeper level.

Benefits of team building

Team building is more than a fun break from your everyday routine at work. It also:

Improves communication, trust, and collaboration skills

Promotes a collaborative culture by bringing teammates together

Fosters agile decision making and problem solving skills

Boosts team productivity and morale

Uses creativity and outside-of-the-box thinking

Ashley Frabasilio believes that:

A common goal is to create a memorable and meaningful experience for folks to connect. Some questions to consider when planning an impactful team-building activity include: What do I hope folks walk away with? I.e., a new skill, a deeper connection to one another, personal development, a moment of delight, etc.”

Ask yourself these questions before proposing a team building activity so you can reap the full benefits of the exercise.

Bring your team together, creatively

As you can see, there are plenty of ways to build your team’s confidence, connection, and teamwork skills. While team building is fun, it’s also important to connect with your team on an everyday basis. To build one of those connections in your day-to-day work, the right collaboration software is key.

Looking for the right collaboration tool? See how Asana keeps your team connected, no matter where you’re working.

Related resources

Fix these common onboarding challenges to boost productivity

30-60-90 day plan: How to onboard new hires with ease

15 types of employee performance reviews

What is self-management? (7 skills to improve it)

Back to Blog

17 team building problem-solving activities that actually work

Wouldn’t it be great to go to work every day and everything just … works? While that’s a lovely daydream, in reality, we face challenges from time to time.

And when it comes to challenges, one thing remains true: Having a team you can rely on makes whatever it is way easier to deal with.

It’s time to support your team in their personal growth and work on those problem-solving skills. The best way to do that is through some targeted team building activities .

We’ve compiled a list of the best problem-solving activities, sorted by duration and your team’s needs. Bonus point: A lot of them are free !

Effective team building problem-solving activities

One of the most daunting aspects of team building is looking up ideas for things to do, not knowing whether they work. So we did the hard part for you and hand-picked the best team building activities to overcome obstacles.

1. Improve collaboration with Work Buddy

Price: 14-day free trial, afterwards 7€ per user

Time : 15-20 minutes

Best for: Improving collaboration through understanding other team members' work preferences

Work Buddy is an innovative way to get teams on the same page! It's a fun and interactive quiz that helps team members understand each other better, leading towards improved collaboration. Through this session, you'll gain insights into your colleagues' working style - hours they prefer communicating during, their long-term goals, and more - which can help create stronger relationships within the workplace for more effective achievement of shared objectives. Work Buddy is free to try .

Boost team performance with Gomada's activity 'Work Buddy'

2. Practice to become a Communication Master

Best for: Exploring and understanding communication biases in the team

You're not alone if you've noticed misunderstandings or inefficient communication in your team. According to a recent study, 86% of knowledge workers report experiencing communication issues at work . Shortcomings in communication are estimated to lead to losses in profit of more than one trillion $ each year in the US alone.

Communication Master is an activity that helps your team practice explaining ideas in a clear and efficient way. It's challenging and fun, and you can try it for free .

Improve communication within the team with Gomada's Communication Master activity.

3. Follow the GROW process

Price: Free

Time : 2-3 hours

Best for: Taking a tried and tested approach to problem-solving

Arguably the best way to tackle organizational problems is by applying a model already tried and tested in business coaching. The GROW model is precisely that. GROW is an acronym in which each letter represents a step in the problem-solving process.

How it works:

G - Goal: Align on the goal(s) you want to achieve. Be as precise as possible and include numbers, time frames, etc.
R - Reality: Observe where you are on the journey to achieve your goal. What still lies ahead of you?
O - Obstacles & Options: Which obstacles does your team currently face, and which challenges do you anticipate in the future? Consider various approaches to overcoming the (possible) roadblocks.
W - Way forward: Write down concrete action steps that you will take moving forward, including responsibilities and timelines.

Watch this role play video to see how you can put GROW into action.

4. Assess personality types

Price: Free Time: 60-90 minutes

Best for: Increasing empathy and enhancing teamwork

If your teammates constantly clash with each other, chances are they have different personality types. Understanding differences within your team is critical for good collaboration and teamwork, the pillars of successful problem-solving. To get going, take a personality test together and learn about each other's strengths and weaknesses. Have a follow-up discussion to talk about how you can collaborate better in the future.

Question starters for your discussion:

Were you surprised by your results?
Where does your personality benefit your work?
How can you balance out each other's weaknesses?
How can you build on each other's strengths?
Have you found a new appreciation for your teammates?

5. Have a well-being talk

Price: Free Time: 60 minutes ‍

Best for: Making sure your team is mentally prepared to tackle problems

If you feel like your team is lacking motivation and not on the top of their game, it may be time for a well-being check-in. Have an open conversation about mental health and your employees' feelings. Identify triggers for stress in the workplace; these typically include:

Content of the job
Role within the organization
Professional development
Work relationships
Company culture
Working conditions
Personal reasons

Once you have identified the most prominent issues, create an action plan to improve your team’s mental well-being. If you need help facilitating this, Confetti offers a Mental Health Workshop led by a professional expert.

6. Online hackathon

Price: Free

Time: 24-48 hours

Best for: Boosting teamwork and innovation; Solving a specific problem in your organization

A hackathon is an event in which people of different disciplines come together to solve a common, real-world problem. It is the perfect activity for quickly innovating processes within your organization. Hosting a hackathon online allows you to invite team members from all around the world.

There are already great resources about organizing virtual hackathons available. To get you going, here’s a quick rundown on the most important steps:

Settle on the problem that your team should tackle, develop the deliverables, and invite industry experts to serve as a jury
Choose a video conferencing platform so the participants can stay in touch throughout the hackathon
Divide your team into smaller action teams. This works best if you involve different departments to mix and match different strengths and skillsets
When the day of the hackathon arrives, hold a kick-off meeting to explain the process of the event
Have fun and get excited about great results

Leah Buchholz

Remote Expert & Jr. Content Marketer

Large groups

Prep required

Share fun facts and bond with a team quiz

Have your participants choose from a list of questions they’d like their coworkers to answer about them, before watching as they guess the right answer.

share-fun-facts-and-bond-with-a-team-quiz

Run a guided recognition activity

run-a-guided-recognition-activity

Organize a virtual cooking class

Hire a professional chef to help your team cook a delicious lunch or dinner. May be difficult for co-workers with families. To find providers and get tips, read our blog about virtual cooking classes.

organize-a-virtual-cooking-class

Hire a stand-up comedian

hire-a-stand-up-comedian

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Table of contents

Discover virtual team building with Gomada

Gomada auto-generates the optimal activity sequence for your team. All you need to do is schedule the activity.

Virtual team building problem-solving activities

If your team is working in a remote or hybrid setting and you’re looking for some fun games that strengthen problem-solving skills, the following activities are a match.

Related : The best team building software tools & apps.

7. Yes, and …

Time: 5-15 minutes

Best for: A quick game to foster creativity and flexibility

One of the best ways to strengthen your team’s ability to think quickly and adapt to unknown scenarios is through improv games. This one is perfect for beginners as it doesn’t require any acting, and your team can participate from the comfort of their home office chairs.

To play the game, one person begins to tell a story, and the rest of the team has to build on it by replying with "yes, and". One after the other, everyone contributes one or two sentences, but people have to react quickly to keep the flow of the story going.

You can determine the order in advance, for example, by first name or age, or keep it open to increase the difficulty level.

8. Flash of genius

Time: 15- 20 minutes

Best for: Quick thinking, boosting creativity, healthy competition

Have you ever had a flash of inspiration at a random moment? The one that prompts you to jot down your brilliant idea on a piece of paper or a napkin? That’s what this game is all about.

Before the game starts, you have to prepare several problem statements. These can be real, like ‘A team from another department constantly messes up your work. What do you do?’ or imaginative, such as ‘Aliens have landed on planet earth and kidnapped humans. What do you do?’. During the session, the participants then need to develop solutions to these problems.

Split the team into small groups and ask everyone to write down their approaches on a digital collaboration board
After two minutes of brainstorming, every team gets one more minute to decide on their number one solution
For the finale, everyone presents their approach to the rest of the group

9. Codenames

Time: 15-30 minutes

Best for: Thinking outside the box, risk evaluation, communication

Codenames was initially released as a card game but is now also available as an online version. In this game, two teams must try to identify agents hiding behind codenames.

The playing field consists of 25 cards labeled with codenames (random words)
Both teams assign one spymaster who gets to see under which cards the agents for their team are hiding. The spymasters take turns giving their team members clues to find the right cards, but with one big restriction – they can only say one word.
The goal is to find all the right words before the other team finishes.

To be the fastest team, it is useful to give clues that connect different terms, but players have to be careful not to guess the cards that belong to the other group. Thus, the participants must find the right balance between risk-taking and passing on an opportunity to score.

10. Domino effect

Price: 0- 29€/person

Best for: Collaborating asynchronously and working together on one goal

The idea behind this activity is simple; you knock over one object that sets a second in motion, which is followed by a whole chain of reactions. What makes it difficult is that the team has to create this domino effect without being in the same place. Therefore, each team member has to create one part of the process and film it.

This is what it looks like:

Person 1 begins the series by knocking over a random object and making a video of it; let’s say they choose a ball that knocks down a book
They inform person 2, who creates a video of a book falling onto a bottle.
Then, person 3 has to start their video with a bottle falling on the object of their choice and so on.
In the end, all videos are cut together.

The activity requires strategic thinking and good communication to have a consistent string of domino effects and is perfect for teams who work across different time zones. You can either set it up yourself or get a professional agency to support you.

11. Escape room

Price: 0-30€/person

Time: 15-90 min.

Best for: Refining attention to detail and logical thinking with a gamified experience

If you’re not already familiar with the concept of escape rooms, you’re missing out! In short, your team has to solve various puzzles and riddles while following a mystery tale. Only if they find the hidden clues will they reach the solution and escape the room.

This makes escape rooms an excellent problem-solving team building activity for adults. Participants have to practice their patience and logical thinking. Virtual escape games usually take place over a video conferencing tool so participants can discuss their ideas as the game proceeds. One of our favorite escape room experiences is this Sherlock-inspired detective story.

12. Panel of Experts

Time: 15-30 min.

Best for: Helping team members to step out of their comfort zone through improvisation

Panel of Experts is another improv game that is great for fostering creativity and spontaneity as your team will have to create dialogues without any prior preparation and script.

How it works:

You determine one show host and two to four ‘experts’; the rest of the team will act as an audience.
Everybody in the audience can call in a topic they would like the group to discuss for two minutes. Collect all ideas and agree on a topic to start with.
The actors now have to engage in a conversation in their respective roles.
After each round, assign the roles to new team members.

Your team will have collaboratively put up some entertaining scenes, and who knows, maybe you will discover some actual special-interest knowledge.

13. Sort the group

Time: 10-15 minutes

Best for: Improving communication; Getting to know your team

Sort the group exercises are exactly what they sound to be: As a team, you have to get in order following different attributes like height, age, duration at the company; you name it. The difficulty lies within the fact that you aren’t allowed to talk or write. Team members have to develop other ways to communicate and get in order.

Pro tip: You can open a shared document, write down the names of the participants and rearrange them until everyone agrees on the final result.

Trust Activity

Ups & Downs

Core dimension

What cheers us up and tears us down can be very different. Get to know your team’s motivators and demotivators.

Offline problem-solving activities for team building

If you’re pumped to do some team building in person , we’ve picked the right activities for you.

14. The minefield

Price: 0-10€

Best for: Practicing communication and listening skills and advancing trust between team members

This classic team building activity works very well to build trust in your team without the awkwardness of trust falls or entangling human knots. You’ll have to prepare a playing field beforehand, consisting of a starting and finishing line, and put some obstacles (e.g., bottles) in between.

Divide the team into several small groups. Each team lines up at the edge of the playing field.
Each participant is given a blindfold to put on when it is their turn. You can use face masks or anything else to cover the eyes.
After giving the go, the groups must try to guide their 'blind' teammates through the minefield using verbal instructions alone. If a person touches an object, they have to start over. If they make it through the minefield, the next person can start.
The fastest team wins.

Pro tip: To make the game more difficult, you can rule that players cannot give directions (front, side, back) but must think of a code to guide their teammates.

15. Picking up trash

Time: 30 minutes - 3 hours

Best for: Teams looking to make a real impact beyond simple games

What better way to connect with your team than simultaneously doing something great for the environment? Have your team walk around the area around your office and pick up trash together. Afterward, you come together and brainstorm ideas on how to tackle the garbage problem. Maybe your neighborhood could profit from some more trash cans? Higher fines for littering? A better deposit system? Get creative!

You can also turn it into a challenge. To do so, divide your crew into smaller groups and assign each one the task of collecting as much rubbish as they can. After some time, you evaluate who had the most original approaches and picked up the most trash.

Either way, you train your problem-solving skills on a real-world issue and do some good for nature.

16. Speed-dating

Time: 10-20 minutes

Best for: Fostering 1:1 conversations around work issues

While speed dating is best known for finding new romantic partners, it can also be applied to the working environment.

Here is how it works:

Divide the team into two groups, one of which positions itself in an inner and the other in an outer circle. There should always be two people facing each other. If you’re an uneven number, create one pair that always moves together.
A game leader asks a question for which both partners have one minute to answer.
Then the inner circle moves so that two new team members are facing each other.
The game ends when everyone has returned to their original partner.

Some questions to inspire your own:

If you could change one thing in your workday, what would it be?
Would you rather have more time or more money? Why?
What would you do if your laptop suddenly just stopped working?

17. Scavenger hunt

Price: Varies

Time: 2-3 hours

Best for: Fostering cross-team collaboration and boosting team morale

Another classic team-building activity that is great for promoting problem-solving. You have to work together as a team to find clues that will ultimately lead you to a goal.

As far as preparation goes, you will have to decide between setting up the activity yourself or a professional provider. Depending on which option you choose, you will have to invest more money or time (yes, we are referring to the last game here). Either way, your joint search will have your team think outside the box and socialize with others.

What are the benefits of problem-solving team building activities for businesses?

Problem-solving is an essential skill for every team. In particular, strengthening your team member’s decision-making and adaptability skills will ensure that your daily operations run a bit smoother; say a new process isn’t going as planned, or an essential co-worker falls sick, your team will be able to handle it. You also set out your organization for success when facing more drastic challenges, such as, uh, a global pandemic or changes in the company’s strategy.

Some of the skills your team will improve on when regularly engaging in problem-solving team building activities are:

Out-of-the-box thinking
Communication
Creativity
Flexibility
Collaboration

Using team building problem-solving games

Investing time into team building activities that support problem-solving is the best way to empower your team in their abilities to overcome work challenges. Whether you’re an experienced leadership team looking to boost your decision-making and critical thinking skills or a young team working on collaboration and communication , these activities set you up for success.

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17 Team Building Problem Solving Activities & Exercises

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Whether you work in an office or online, it is important to establish a strong foundation as a team. Good communication and collaboration skills are essential for any successful team, but problem-solving skills are what will help you through the tough times.

Life is unpredictable, which is why problem solving skills are critical to learn , starting at a young age. They help us deal with the curveballs that will inevitably be thrown our way from time to time… without spiraling off course into a panic .

Table of Contents

What Are Problem Solving Skills?

Problem-solving skills are the ability to identify and solve problems creatively and effectively . They involve analyzing a situation, coming up with a plan of action, and then following through with that plan. These types of skills are important in both personal and professional life.

In your personal life, you will no longer have the same constant helping hand or be able to make excuses as you could in childhood . When something happens, you will need to be able to figure out a way to fix it yourself. In your professional life, being able to solve problems quickly and efficiently will make you an invaluable asset to any team.

Why Problem Solving Activities Are Important In the Workplace

There are many benefits to having strong problem solving skills in the workplace. For one, it can help improve morale among team members. When everyone is working together to solve a problem, it can create a sense of camaraderie and teamwork .

It can also help hold team members accountable for their actions. If a problem arises, everyone will need to work together to solve it instead of placing the blame on one person. This will help create a more cohesive team that is better able to handle difficult situations.

Finally, problem solving skills can help improve productivity in the workplace. When problems are solved quickly and efficiently, it allows the team to move on to other tasks more quickly.

17 Problem Solving Activities

Activity #1. brainstorming.

This is a great activity for getting the creative juices flowing. Get your team together and have them come up with as many ideas as possible for solving the problem at hand. The more ideas, the better!

One way to start may be to ask everyone to write down their ideas individually, then have each person share their idea with the group. Once all the ideas are on the table, you can start to narrow down which ones are the most feasible.

Activity #2. Role-Playing

If you are ready to get the team members to think outside the box, have them take on different roles and come up with solutions from those perspectives. The roles can be anything from a customer to a company CEO.

Write down roles on a piece of paper and put them in a hat or bowl. Have each team member draw a role and then have them work on coming up with solutions from that perspective.

Activity #3. Logic Puzzles

These types of puzzles are great for testing your team’s critical thinking skills. There are a variety of different logic puzzles available online or in puzzle books .

problem solving activities for teens | creative problem solving activities for adults | virtual problem solving activities for students

Logic puzzles can be a great team-building activity as they require everyone to work together to find the solution.

Activity #4. Word Association

This is a simple but effective way to get ideas flowing. Write down a list of words or phrases related to the problem and then have your team come up with solutions based on those words.

Let's take the word “online safety” for example. Some potential solutions could be creating strong passwords, using two-factor authentication, or avoiding phishing scams or unnecessary social media use at work .

Activity #5. Debate

This activity will help get the team thinking about the issue from different angles . Have each team member take a side of the debate and then have them argue their points.

After everyone has had a chance to speak, have the team come to a consensus on the best solution.

Activity #6. Process Mapping

This activity is great for visual learners. Get a whiteboard or large piece of paper and map out the steps that need to be taken to solve the problem. This will help the team see the issue as a whole and spot any potential roadblocks.

Activity #7. Mind Mapping

This is similar to process mapping but is more focused on coming up with ideas. Write down the main issue in the center of the paper and then have team members come up with ideas that branch off from that.

Activity #8. Fishbone Diagram

If you are looking for another visual activity that can help a team see the different factors that contribute to a problem, try the fishbone diagram. Draw a large fish skeleton on a whiteboard or piece of paper and then have team members add in the different factors that contribute to the problem.

Activity #9. 5 Whys

Have the team start with the main issue and then each person takes turns asking “why” until you get to the root cause of the problem. Five times is usually sufficient to solve most problems. This is very effective for uncovering hidden problems.

One example may involve sales:

The problem is that our sales are down:

Why? Because we’re not getting enough foot traffic in the store.
Why? We’re not advertising enough.
Why? We don’t have the budget for it.
Why? There is too much inventory loss/theft.
Why? High employee turnover.

Activity #10. Scenario Planning

Think ahead and prepare for potential problems in the future. Have the team come up with different scenarios that could happen and then brainstorm solutions for each one. A perfect example may be different ways to escape the building in the event of an emergency.

One approach can involve escape routes, another can focus on the steps needed to shelter in place, and the last can highlight who is responsible for what during an evacuation.

Activity #11. SWOT Analysis

Before coming up with solutions, it is important to understand the different factors that could impact them.

The SWOT analysis activity will help the team identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats associated with the problem. This will help them come up with more informed solutions and deeper thinking.

Activity #12. Reverse Brainstorming

To prevent boredom, do what you can to get the team to think outside the box. Instead of brainstorming ways to solve the problem, have them come up with ways to make it worse. It may sound counter-productive but it can help the team see the issue from a different perspective and come up with more creative solutions.

problem solving exercises with answers | problem solving activities for students | problem solving team building activities virtual

Reverse brainstorming works by having the team come up with as many bad ideas as possible. Once they have exhausted all the ways to make the problem worse, they can then start thinking of ways to fix it.

Activity #13. Problem Solving Workshop

This is a more structured way of approaching problem solving as a team. It involves breaking the team into small groups and having each group come up with solutions to various specific problems.

Once all the groups have had a chance to share their ideas, the team can then vote on the best solution. You may want to start with a problem not directly related to the job and have the teams solve it. Next, ask them how the same approach can be used at the job. An example of this may include the team solving a Rubik’s Cube and then asking them how they can apply that same level of critical thinking to their work.

Now let's think about how to do team building and problem solving for the increasing number of people working remotely. Team building remotely may have its unique challenges but it is not impossible.

Remote Problem Solving Activities

Activity #14. coffee chat.

This is a great way to get everyone on the team introduced to each other, especially if you have new members coming on board. Set up a time for everyone to jump on a video call and chat over coffee (or tea!). This can be done weekly or monthly, depending on the size of the team. It is a great way to informally chat about issues and concerns and can get the ball rolling on real solutions.

During the early days of the pandemic, my writing group set aside the writing topic for a session and decided to do an online happy hour with great success. We got to chat about other issues not directly related to writing and we all got useful insights.

Activity #15. Show and Tell

Who says team building problem solving activities can't be fun? This is a nice way for everyone to get to know each other on a personal level. Have each team member choose an item from their home that has special meaning to them and do a “show and tell”. Ask if each person can find an object related to helping them do their job or something completely unrelated. This is a great way to build rapport, get to know each other on a personal level, and of course – solve certain problems.

For example, someone may demonstrate hand exercises or stretching techniques to help with issues that stem from sitting at a desk or typing all day.

Maybe people in the group struggle to use a certain design program or add attachments to emails. Someone can use screen share to show an easier way to do something that has stumbled their colleagues.

Activity #16. Virtual Office Tour

Another way to get everyone acquainted with each other and the idea of working from home is to do a virtual office tour. This can be done by having each team member give a quick tour of their home office (or workspace). This is also a great way to get everyone comfortable with using video conferencing if they are not already. The reality is, everyone is not accustomed to working from home yet and a virtual tour from someone more experienced may help ease anxiety and provide peer-to-peer teaching. I

Activity #17. Scavenger Hunt

A scavenger hunt can either be done in person or online. If you are doing it remotely, you can use a program like Zoom to break everyone into small groups. Give each group a list of items they need to find and set a time limit. The first team to find all the items (or the team with the most items) wins.

You can make the scavenger hunt related to work or you can make it more general. If you want to make it work-related, you can have teams find things like “a picture of someone wearing a hard hat” or “an item that starts with the letter E”. If you want to make it more general, you can have teams find items like “a picture of a pet” or “an item that is green”.

Final Thoughts about Problem Solving Activities

There are many benefits in the workplace to executing problem solving activities, whether in person or remotely. You can even conduct team building activities outdoors for a nice change of pace.

Team building exercises like these can help build rapport, provide peer-to-peer teaching opportunities, and help with critical thinking skills .

The most important thing is to find something that works for your team and that everyone is comfortable with. And with a little creativity, you can find ways to build your team no matter where they are located. You don’t need to be in close proximity to grow closer .

If you have children, you may want to check out 11 Fun Problem Solving Activities for Kids and 21 Fun Team Building Activities for Kids , as it’s never too young to teach this valuable skill.

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11 Problem Solving Activities That Will Blow Your Mind!

Written by Lisa Lawrence

Team building events | team collaboration | team communication, november 14, 2023.

Problem solving activities is a vital skill in the professional world, but many new graduates lack this skill.

Team building problem-solving activities offer a fun and interactive way to develop problem-solving skills while creating a stronger team.

Whether in-person or virtual, these activities provide an opportunity for teams to enhance their problem-solving skills and collaboration.

List of In-Person / Virtual Problem Solving Activities

Key takeaways.

Problem-solving activities for team building are essential in developing problem-solving skills and creating a stronger team.
Both in-person and virtual options are available for team building problem-solving activities.
In-person activities include the Cardboard Boat Building Challenge, Egg Drop, Clue Murder Mystery, Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower, Corporate Escape Room , Wild Goose Chase, Face-2-Face Feud, Reverse Pyramid, Move it.
Virtual activities include Virtual Escape Room: Mummy’s Curse, Virtual Clue Murder Mystery, Jewel Heist, and Virtual Trivia Time Machine.
Each activity offers a unique challenge that requires teamwork and problem-solving skills.

In-Person Team Building Activities to Solve Problems

In-person team building problem-solving activities are a great way to strengthen your work group while developing crucial problem-solving skills.

These activities offer a hands-on and interactive approach to team building .

They allow participants to work together towards a common goal. Below are 11 engaging in-person activities that will challenge your team’s problem-solving abilities:

In-person team building problem-solving activities offer a fantastic opportunity to enhance problem-solving skills and foster collaboration among team members.

Here are 8 exciting activities that will challenge and engage your work group:

Cardboard Boat Building Challenge: Teams will design and construct a functional boat using only cardboard and tape. The objective is to create a boat that can float and navigate through water without sinking.
Egg Drop: Participants will create a protective casing for an egg using limited materials like newspapers, straws, tape, and balloons. The challenge is to prevent the egg from breaking when dropped from a height.
Clue Murder Mystery: Teams will work together to solve a murder mystery by deciphering clues and identifying the culprit, motive, and means. This activity tests participants’ problem-solving, critical thinking, and communication skills.
Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower: The goal is to build the tallest freestanding tower using marshmallows, uncooked spaghetti, tape, and string. This activity promotes teamwork, creativity, and problem-solving.
Corporate Escape Room: Participants must collaborate to solve puzzles and uncover clues that will help them escape a locked room. This activity encourages teamwork, problem-solving, and quick thinking under pressure.
Wild Goose Chase: Teams will embark on a smartphone-based scavenger hunt, completing challenges and riddles in the city. This activity fosters problem-solving, communication, and teamwork.
Team Pursuit: Teams compete in a series of challenges that require problem-solving, teamwork, and communication. The objective is to accumulate points by successfully completing each challenge.
Family Feud: Teams face off in a wild, yet friendly and funny game of revealing top surveys. Questions can be customized specifically to your group. This activity requires problem-solving, communication, and coordination.

1. Cardboard Boat Building Challenge

Teams are tasked with designing and constructing a functional boat using only cardboard and tape.

The challenge lies in creating a boat that can sail across water without sinking.

This activity requires creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving skills to engineer a sturdy and seaworthy vessel.

This activity not only fosters collaboration and teamwork but also encourages participants to think outside the box and come up with innovative solutions.

It requires teams to analyze the principles of buoyancy, weight distribution, and structural integrity to design a boat that can support their team members.

Throughout the process, participants will face challenges and setbacks, but these obstacles provide valuable learning experiences and opportunities for growth.

The Importance of the Cardboard Boat Building Challenge

The Cardboard Boat Building Challenge offers several benefits for teams in the workplace.

Firstly, it promotes effective communication and collaboration as team members brainstorm ideas, delegate tasks, and work together towards a common goal.

Also, this activity enhances problem-solving skills as participants encounter unexpected obstacles and devise creative solutions.

By engaging in the Cardboard Boat Building Challenge, teams also develop resilience and adaptability.

They learn to embrace failure as a stepping stone towards success and understand the importance of persistence and continuous improvement.

This activity fosters a positive team culture, encouraging individuals to support and motivate each other throughout the challenge.

Overall, the Cardboard Boat Building Challenge is a fun and interactive team-building activity that not only strengthens bonds among team members but also cultivates essential problem-solving and communication skills.

It provides a memorable and engaging experience that can be applied in a professional setting, helping teams become more effective, innovative, and collaborative.

2. Egg Drop

The Egg Drop activity is a challenging and engaging team-building exercise that tests creativity, problem-solving skills, and collaboration.

Teams are given the task of designing a contraption that can protect an egg from a fall using limited materials.

With only items such as newspapers, straws, tape, and balloons at their disposal, teams must think quickly and strategically to build a casing that can withstand a drop without breaking the egg.

This activity not only promotes critical thinking and innovation but also encourages effective communication and teamwork.

Teams must work together to brainstorm ideas, share their knowledge and expertise, and come up with the best possible solution.

It requires a combination of individual creativity and collective effort to design and construct a successful contraption.

By participating in the Egg Drop activity, teams learn valuable lessons about problem-solving under pressure, thinking outside the box, and the importance of collaboration.

It provides a fun and interactive way for team members to bond and develop their problem-solving skills while facing a common challenge.

The Egg Drop is an exciting team-building activity that will leave participants feeling accomplished and motivated to overcome future obstacles together.

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs

3. Clue Murder Mystery

Teams become detectives in a thrilling murder mystery scenario.

By gathering clues, analyzing evidence, and working together, participants must solve the mystery by identifying the culprit, motive, and means.

This activity requires critical thinking, problem-solving, and effective communication to crack the case.

the Clue Murder Mystery is a popular choice. In this interactive and engaging activity, teams must put their problem-solving skills to the test as they work together to solve a murder.

By gathering clues, analyzing evidence, and collaborating effectively, teams can uncover the truth and identify the culprit, motive, and means.

This activity not only fosters critical thinking and problem-solving abilities but also promotes teamwork and communication.

Participants must work together to share information, brainstorm ideas, and piece together the puzzle.

The Clue Murder Mystery is a thrilling and challenging experience that will keep teams engaged and motivated while honing their problem-solving skills.

“The Clue Murder Mystery activity requires teams to think critically and collaborate effectively to solve the mystery and uncover the truth.”

5 Benefits of the Clue Murder Mystery Activity

Promotes critical thinking and problem-solving skills
Fosters teamwork and collaboration
Enhances communication and information sharing
Provides a thrilling and engaging experience
Promotes creativity and analytical thinking

Overall, the Clue Murder Mystery activity is an excellent choice for in-person team building problem-solving activities.

It challenges teams to think critically, work together, and communicate effectively while having fun and solving a thrilling mystery.

By participating in this activity, teams can develop and enhance their problem-solving skills, which are essential for success in the professional world.

4. Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower

The Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower is a popular team-building activity that encourages collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving skills.

In this activity, teams are tasked with building the tallest freestanding tower using only marshmallows, uncooked spaghetti, tape, and string.

The challenge lies in constructing a stable structure within a given timeframe.

This interactive exercise promotes teamwork as team members must work together to brainstorm ideas, share perspectives, and delegate tasks.

It requires critical thinking skills as participants analyze the strengths and weaknesses of different tower designs.

Additionally, the activity encourages creativity as teams experiment with different techniques to construct a sturdy tower.

The Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower activity is not only a fun and engaging team-building exercise but also serves as a metaphor for problem-solving in the workplace.

It highlights the importance of strong communication, adaptability, and resourcefulness when facing challenges.

By participating in this activity, teams can develop their problem-solving skills while strengthening their bonds and fostering a collaborative environment.

Example of a Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower:

In the example above, Team C built the tallest tower, standing at 32 inches.

This showcases the competitive nature of the activity and the determination of each team to excel.

The Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower activity not only fosters healthy competition but also reinforces the importance of teamwork and problem-solving skills in achieving success.

5. Wild Goose Chase

The Wild Goose Chase is an exciting and interactive team-building activity that combines the thrill of a scavenger hunt with the power of problem-solving and teamwork.

In this smartphone-based adventure, teams explore the city and complete challenges by taking photos and videos.

It’s a thrilling race against time as teams navigate their way through a series of clues, collecting points along the way.

Engaging in the Wild Goose Chase activity not only promotes problem-solving skills but also enhances communication and collaboration within teams.

The challenges require teams to think creatively and work together to come up with innovative solutions.

It’s a fantastic opportunity for team members to showcase their individual strengths and contribute to the collective success of the team.

The Wild Goose Chase is a versatile activity that can be customized to fit different team sizes and goals.

Whether it’s a small team bonding exercise or a large-scale company-wide event, this interactive game is sure to leave a lasting impression.

So gear up, grab your smartphones, and get ready for a thrilling adventure that will take your team to new heights!

“The Wild Goose Chase activity was both challenging and fun. It brought our team closer together and forced us to think outside the box. We had a great time exploring the city and completing the various challenges. Highly recommended!” – Participant from ABC Company

Get ready to embark on an adventure like no other with the Wild Goose Chase!

This team-building activity will not only strengthen your problem-solving skills but also foster collaboration and camaraderie within your team.

So, put on your thinking caps, keep your eyes peeled, and prepare for an unforgettable experience that will leave you with memories to cherish.

Benefits of the Wild Goose Chase:

Promotes problem-solving skills
Enhances communication and collaboration
Encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking
Builds camaraderie and teamwork

So why wait? Plan your Wild Goose Chase adventure today and watch your team bond, laugh, and conquer challenges together!

6. Reverse Pyramid

The Reverse Pyramid activity is a fun and challenging team-building exercise that requires problem-solving and communication skills.

In this activity, teams are tasked with rearranging themselves from a pyramid shape horizontally, by flipping the base and the apex using only three movements.

It may sound simple, but it requires strategic planning, coordination, and effective communication among team members.

By participating in the Reverse Pyramid activity, teams can strengthen their problem-solving abilities and learn to work together more efficiently.

This exercise encourages creative thinking as teams explore different strategies to achieve their goal.

It also fosters collaboration and trust, as team members rely on each other’s input and support to successfully complete the task.

Through the Reverse Pyramid activity, participants develop their communication skills by effectively conveying ideas, coordinating movements, and adapting to changes in the team’s plan.

It promotes a sense of unity and camaraderie as teams celebrate their accomplishments together.

This activity can be adapted for various group sizes and is suitable for in-person team building events.

Benefits of the Reverse Pyramid Activity:

Encourages creative thinking
Fosters collaboration and teamwork
Develops effective communication
Builds trust and unity within the team

Overall, the Reverse Pyramid activity is an engaging and effective way to enhance problem-solving abilities and strengthen team dynamics.

It provides an opportunity for team members to work together towards a common goal, while also having fun and building stronger connections with one another.

Incorporating this activity into a team building event can lead to improved problem-solving skills and a more cohesive and productive team.

7. Move It!

As a team-building activity, Move It! requires two teams to navigate specific movement restrictions and switch places.

This dynamic challenge promotes teamwork, decision-making, and adaptability.

The objective is to communicate, strategize, and problem-solve effectively to achieve a successful switch.

The activity tests the team’s ability to think on their feet and work together seamlessly.

Move It! encourages teams to work collaboratively and find innovative solutions to overcome the restrictions imposed.

By embracing open communication and actively seeking out strategies, teams can optimize their chances of a successful switch.

This exercise fosters a sense of unity and camaraderie, as team members learn to rely on each other’s strengths and support one another.

With its emphasis on teamwork, decision-making, and adaptability, Move It! cultivates essential skills that are vital in the professional world.

By participating in this activity, teams can enhance their problem-solving abilities, learn to make quick and effective decisions, and develop their capacity to adapt to changing circumstances.

Ultimately, Move It! provides a fun and engaging experience that strengthens team dynamics and encourages growth.

8. Face to Face Feud

Looking for a fun and interactive office game idea for team building? Consider adapting the classic game show Family Feud !

This game encourages communication, collaboration, and friendly competition among team members.

How to Set up Family Feud Style Game for the Office

To set up Feud for the office, you’ll need to:

Divide your team into two groups
Hire a facilitator to read the questions and keep track of points
Create a list of questions related to your workplace or industry
Create a survey to gather responses for each question from your team members
Display the game board and prepare buzzers for each team

Once the game is set up, it’s time to play!

Teams take turns answering survey questions and earning points for the right answers.

The team with the most points at the end of the rounds wins the grand prize.

3 Main Benefits of Face-2-Face Feud

Face-2-Face Feud is a great game for team building because it:

Encourages communication and collaboration among team members
Promotes friendly competition and team bonding
Allows team members to share their knowledge and insights with each other
Builds team momentum and boosts morale

Basically, playing this game played in the office is just a fun and engaging way to build stronger teams and enhance team morale.

Virtual Team Building Problem Solving Activities | Top 3

Virtual team building problem solving activities are an effective way to enhance collaboration and problem-solving skills for remote teams.

These activities provide an opportunity for team members to work together and tackle challenges in a virtual environment.

Here are five engaging virtual problem-solving activities that can transform your work group:

1. Virtual Escape Room: Mummy’s Curse

In this virtual escape room, team members must solve puzzles and unravel the mystery of the Mummy’s Curse to successfully escape.

It requires critical thinking, problem-solving, and effective communication to work together and solve the challenges within a given time limit.

Team members will need to utilize their creativity and collaborate effectively to crack codes, decipher clues, and escape the room.

This activity fosters teamwork and encourages participants to think outside the box.

2. Virtual Escape Room: Jewel Heist

In this virtual escape room scenario, teams are tasked with planning and executing a daring jewel heist.

Participants must work together to solve puzzles, decipher codes, and navigate through a virtual environment to successfully complete the mission.

This activity encourages problem-solving, teamwork, and effective communication as team members collaborate to achieve their common goal.

It’s an immersive and engaging way to enhance problem-solving skills in a virtual setting.

3. Virtual Trivia Time Machine

The virtual trivia time machine is an interactive activity that combines problem-solving and general knowledge.

Teams travel through time, answering trivia questions and solving puzzles from different historical periods.

By working together, participants can pool their knowledge, brainstorm solutions, and strategize to win the game.

This activity fosters collaboration, critical thinking, and effective communication while having fun in a virtual team environment.

Frequently Asked Questions – Problem Solving Activities

frequently asked questions

What are some problem-solving activities for team building?

Some problem-solving activities for team building include the Cardboard Boat Building Challenge, Egg Drop, Clue Murder Mystery, Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower,

Corporate Escape Room, Wild Goose Chase, Reverse Pyramid, CI: The Crime Investigators, and Team Pursuit.

Are there virtual problem-solving activities for remote teams?

Yes, there are virtual problem-solving activities for remote teams. Some examples include Virtual Escape Room: Mummy’s Curse,

Virtual Clue Murder Mystery, Virtual Escape Room: Jewel Heist, Virtual Code Break, and Virtual Trivia Time Machine.

What is the Cardboard Boat Building Challenge?

The Cardboard Boat Building Challenge is an in-person team building activity where teams create a functional boat using only cardboard and tape.

Teams must work together to engineer a boat that can float and sail across water without sinking.

How does the Egg Drop activity work?

The Egg Drop activity challenges teams to design a contraption that can protect an egg from a fall using limited materials.

Teams must think quickly and creatively to build a casing for the egg using items such as newspapers, straws, tape, and balloons.

What is the Clue Murder Mystery activity?

In the Clue Murder Mystery activity, teams must solve a murder by identifying the culprit, motive, and means.

This activity requires problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and collaboration.

How does the Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower activity work?

The Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower activity promotes collaboration and problem-solving skills.

Teams must work together to build the tallest tower possible using only marshmallows, uncooked spaghetti, tape, and string.

What is the Corporate Escape Room activity?

The Corporate Escape Room activity immerses teams in a scenario where they must solve puzzles and decipher clues to escape a locked room.

Participants must collaborate, think critically, and use problem-solving skills to work through challenges and find the key to their escape.

How does the Wild Goose Chase activity work?

The Wild Goose Chase is a smartphone-based scavenger hunt activity where teams complete challenges by taking photos and videos in the city.

This activity requires problem-solving, communication, and teamwork as teams work together to complete fun challenges.

What is the Lost at Sea activity?

Lost at Sea is an in-person activity that simulates being stranded in a lifeboat with limited supplies.

Teams must work together to rank survival items in order of importance, making decisions under pressure.

This activity tests problem-solving skills and the ability to collaborate and make tough choices in a high-stakes situation.

How does the Reverse Pyramid activity work?

The Reverse Pyramid activity challenges teams to rearrange themselves from a pyramid shape horizontally.

The goal is to flip the base and the apex of the pyramid using only three movements.

This quick and fun team-building activity promotes problem-solving and communication skills.

How does the Move It! activity work?

Move It! is a team-building activity where two teams must switch places while following specific movement restrictions.

Teams must communicate, strategize, and problem-solve to successfully switch places. This activity promotes teamwork, decision-making, and adaptability.

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Fun Team-Building Problem-Solving Activities

Teamwork is what allows organizations to overcome their biggest obstacles and thrive in a crowded global marketplace. As Andrew Carnegie said generations ago, teamwork is what enables “people to attain uncommon results.” When teams work together effectively, they can give their employers a competitive edge and increase their individual and collective levels of success. Even teams that sometimes seem like they’ll work seamlessly on paper fail to meet, let alone exceed, the mark, whatever that goal might be. As a manager, it’s your job to help the team you oversee succeed. One way you can do that is by engaging your team in some fun team-building problem-solving activities.

It’s important to note that the point of those activities isn’t to ensure everyone likes one another. While it would be great if your entire team consisted of friends, the odds are better than not that some team members may simply not like others—and that’s okay! A team doesn’t have to consist of BFFs to be effective and goal-oriented. In fact, the differences that exist between the members of your team will give everyone a chance to learn, gain alternative points of view, and achieve greater effectiveness.

Creative Problem-Solving Activities from Let’s Roam

The experts at Let’s Roam have carefully constructed a series of team-building activities that will help you to build stronger connections, increase productivity, and improve morale. These exercises can be used in the office, or virtually for remote teams, and focus on problem-solving, communication, collaboration, and more. Our planners will work with you to ensure that your next event is a worthwhile endeavor for your staff, so don’t hesitate. Get started today!

The Two Cs: Communication and Collaboration

For the members of a team to work well together, they must know how to communicate and collaborate. Those two critical skills will be the basis for your team’s ultimate success. Luckily, some team-building activities are designed to enhance employee communication and collaboration abilities.

The Best Team-Building Problem-Solving Activities

Can you tell what i changed.

“Can You Tell What I Changed?” is a communication activity that doesn’t take too long. To get started, divide your team into two groups and have each one form a line that faces the other. Give the members in each line the opportunity to observe the individual standing across from them for a minute or two.

Instruct one line to turn around and have the members of the other make five changes to their appearance. Those changes can be as simple as letting their hair out of a ponytail, removing a pair of glasses, and/or taking off a tie. After the members of the second line are done making changes, have the people in the first line turn back around. Ask the members of the first line to identify the changes they recognize.

This activity is a great icebreaker for teams that were only recently put together. It’s also an innovative way to enhance people’s observation skills and to get them to pay attention to things they may overlook otherwise.

Let’s Create a Story for the Ages

Creativity is an important skill that’s often necessary for problem-solving. “Let’s Create a Story for the Ages” is an effective team-building exercise that will enhance your team’s ability to communicate and think creatively.

To prepare for this activity, gather a series of sequential pictures that are big enough for everyone to see. Hang those pictures in the front of the room and have your team sit down where they can see them.

Ask one team member to start a story by coming up with one line about the first picture. Once that person shares the story’s opening line, have another person repeat what was just said and come up with the next sentence. Continue in this manner until your team has told a complete tale that covers all the pictures on display.

A variant of the activity just described is to divide your group into small teams, each consisting of four or five people. Give each of the new teams a piece of paper, pen, and 15–20 minutes to write its own story about the pictures. When the time limit expires, have each team present its story to the rest of the group. After each team has read its tale, allow your whole team to discuss the different interpretations of the pictures.

We Stand Together

“We Stand Together” is a fun, at times guffaw-inducing activity that requires employees to communicate and collaborate to succeed. Divide your team into pairs and have each pair sit back-to-back with their arms linked. The goal of each pair is to then stand up as one without unlinking their arms. Once a duo accomplishes this task, you can assign another pair to the first so that all four can attempt to achieve the same goal together.

Whether they’re working in a pair or foursome, participants will have to communicate and collaborate to stand as one. If anyone is ticklish, be prepared for your whole team to enjoy a few moments of shared laughter, which can truly go a long way in uniting your team.

Activities to Improve Team-Building and Problem-Solving Skills

When you’re confident your team has developed the collaboration and communication skills to succeed as one, it’s time to move on to activities that will help them develop the team-building and problem-solving abilities they’ll need to succeed as a unit. Be sure to pick activities that will help everyone develop the critical talents they’ll need to succeed.

For example, problem-solving requires team members to brainstorm, flex their logical and lateral thinking muscles, actively listen, engage their creativity, and adopt a “what if” mentality. Whereas communication and collaboration are the basis for successful team-building and problem-solving, these other abilities are what your team needs to build on top of that foundation, so to speak.

Build a Campsite

While taking your team on an outdoor retreat may help members develop some team-building and problem-solving skills, that’s not what’s being suggested here. Instead, you can move the furniture in a conference to the side and gather the following items: a small tent, some tennis balls or softballs, and enough chairs and blindfolds for every member of your team.

Divide your team into groups of five or six. Pick one group to kick things off, instructing them to bring their chairs closer to the tent and balls while having the others move their chairs back. The chosen group members should then put on their blindfolds and attempt to make a campsite.

The goal is for them to put up the tent, construct a ring for a campfire using the balls, and position their chairs around the fire ring all while blindfolded. To accomplish this feat, the group will have to work together and solve problems along the way. This activity is fantastic for developing adaptability to challenging conditions.

The Lego Challenge

If you have young kids, then you know that stepping on a Lego without a shoe on isn’t a fun experience. Now, you have reason to go around, collect all those pain-inducing building blocks, and put them to use without feeling guilty. Just be sure you collect enough Legos!

Divide your team into groups under ten. Give each group a set of Lego blocks. Instruct each group to build a structure using their playthings, but only share scant details about what the final structures should look like or what their purpose should be. Give the groups an hour or more to finish their projects depending on how many Legos they have to work with. When the designated amount of time expires, let each group show off its creation and explain what it is. Then, allow your whole team to discuss the various structures, the motivations behind each one, and how improvements might be made.

The goals of this team-building activity are to refine problem-solving techniques improve communication between team members.

Untying the Knot

“Untying the Knot” is a really fun activity to engage your team with. Depending on the size of your team, the whole team can do this as one, or you may have to parcel out members into several groups of ten or less. Assuming your team is small enough to do this together, have everyone stand shoulder-to-shoulder in a circle facing each other. Each person should extend their right hand and take ahold of someone else’s.

Everyone should then do the same with their left hands, making sure they don’t grab the two hands of the same individual who’s across from them. The result will be a hand-holding human knot, which your team members must work together to untangle without letting go of anyone’s hands.

Although this activity may seem simple enough, it will challenge your employees to engage in teamwork before they’re “free.” It will also require some creative thinking and innovative problem solving for the activity to come to an end.

Red Rover Variant

You might remember dashing across the street while trying to avoid being tagged as a kid when you played “Red Rover,” but this variant of the childhood game is comparatively tame and less physically tiring. At least, it’s meant to be tamer and less physically taxing.

Your entire team can do this activity together, or you can break the large group into smaller teams. If you’re dividing your staff into groups, have each one pick a person who’ll act as the “farmer.” The remaining members of each group will assume the role of villagers.

The farmer in each group is responsible for transporting three things to the other side of a figurative river using a boat. A dog, some rice, and a chicken are the things the farmer must get to the other bank. The farmer’s dilemma is as follows:

The farmer can only transport one thing on the boat
Leaving the chicken and the dog on the same shore without supervision isn’t feasible because the dog might eat the chicken
Similarly, the chicken can’t be left unsupervised with the rice because the animal may consume the grain

How will the farmers and their respective villagers complete the task of getting all three items to the other shore with those constraints? After the game, allow some time to come together to assess their approaches and discuss the different outcomes.

If you want to enhance your team’s problem-solving skills with “Egg Drop,” it’s best to warn your employees to dress down a few days in advance of this team-building activity, as things have the potential to get messy. As you may have inferred from the name of this game, you’ll also need to get some eggs to play, as well as a few other supplies.

You’ll divide your team into two or more groups. Each group will be charged with creating some sort of protective packaging for its eggs. The goal is for each group to fashion packaging that will protect the eggs from breaking when they’re dropped from a pre-determined height.

To incentivize your team, designate a reward that the winning group will get to enjoy and tell everyone what the prize is before the competition begins. The team that designs the packaging that keeps the most eggs wins.

If you’re on a tight budget, don’t worry! You can still come up with a prize that won’t cost much, or perhaps won’t cost anything at all. For example, you can let each member of the winning team park in your parking spot for a day. Alternatively, you can let the winning group enjoy an extra day of causal dress the following week.

What Would You Do

While there will be some instances when your team will have a lot of time to solve a problem, it’s likely your employees will have to make decisions fast at other times. To give your team members the chance to practice their quick decision-making abilities, you may want to set aside time for them to engage in an activity called “What Would You Do.”

In this activity, each team member will be given the opportunity to pretend to be the famous person of their choice. Once in that role, the famous individual will be presented with a problem. First, the person must decide if the problem is even worth solving. If it is, the individual must come up with potential solutions in a set period of time. After those solutions are divulged, the team can discuss them and look for possible improvements to each suggested resolution.

Puzzling (AKA “The Barter Puzzle”)

Your employees might find themselves puzzled when they play “Puzzling.” For this activity, you will need to divide your team into smaller groups and come prepared with a different jigsaw puzzle for each group. Before giving each its puzzle, mix a few pieces into the boxes that will be given to other groups.

As each group labors to be the first team to finish its puzzle, its members will eventually realize some key pieces are missing. When the other groups come to the same realization, they’ll need to identify which group or groups have the pieces they need and figure out a way to get them.

The ensuing inter-group bartering may include things like loaning a member to another group. It may also include bribes like buying lunch. Whatever tactics are used, your employees are sure to have a good, collective laugh as they engage their powers of persuasion, teamwork, and problem solving—and there’s nothing puzzling about that, is there?

Escape Room

In recent years, escape rooms have become pretty common and readily accessible in many locations. Even if one isn’t located close to your business, you can create one in your building with just a bit of effort.

The point of an escape room is to challenge the people in the room to work together to find the key and get out of the locked space. Themed escape rooms give you the chance to challenge your team in different ways that are in keeping with various subjects.

For your team to get out of the room, your employees will have to uncover and decipher a series of clues. Every clue will point them in the direction of another hint they’ll need to act upon until they find the final clue that will identify the key’s hiding spot.

Scavenger Hunt

You can involve your team in an indoor or outdoor company scavenger hunt , but this type of activity is even more engaging when you plan it across multiple locations. The goal of a scavenger hunt is for your employees to find sundry items that are either widely accessible or hidden in different places. With each successive discovery, your employees will find a clue that indicates where the next item on their list of things to recover is located.

You can add an element of competition to a scavenger hunt by dividing your team into small groups that will compete to see which group will find all the things on their list first. Heightening that spirit of competition is easy. All you have to do is announce an enticing prize that will be given to the winning group before the hunt begins.

Can You Build It

“Can You Build It” is a game that requires participants to make careful observations, communicate clearly, solve problems, and work as a team. For this game, you’ll need to break out the Legos once again or pick up different materials that can be used to create a structure that you’ll build in advance of your employees engaging in this activity.

To start, hide the structure you built so that no one can see it. Give your team the materials they’ll need to recreate what you made. Allow one person to see your structure. That individual will then describe the structure to the rest of the team and the team will work together to try to recreate it.

If your team fails to make a facsimile of your structure, let someone else take a peek at your creation. Your team will then try to recreate the structure again. The activity will continue in a similar manner until your team successfully and accurately replicates your structure.

This activity engages many of the talents that are necessary for effective team building and problem solving. It requires teammates to trust each other and brainstorm, for example. Communication, observing, and coming up with clever solutions are also required in “Can You Build It.”

That’s One Way to Hula

All you need for “That’s One Way to Hula” is a hula-hoop and some good-spirited employees. For this activity, have your team stand in a circle holding hands. Break the circle by separating two of those joined hands and slip a hula-hoop onto the arm of one of the participants before rejoining their hands. The challenge then becomes for each participant to pass the hula-hoop to a coworker without letting go of the hands the person is holding.

If your team is large, consider separating it into groups. By doing this, you can create a competition to see which group can get the hula-hoop around the entire ring of participants the fastest.

Plan a Fundraiser

While encouraging your team to volunteer is certainly laudable, the problem with doing so is that your team’s success isn’t in the capable hands of its members. If, for example, your team volunteers at an animal rescue, your employees will be told what to do and how and when to do their assigned tasks.

Although volunteering is undeniably worthwhile, rewarding, and necessary for many non-profits, having your team plan a fundraiser may be a better way to give back to others. By planning a fundraiser, your team will have to work together to choose the type of event you’ll host. Your employees will then need to develop a plan to achieve their common objective.

From picking a venue to choosing how to market the fundraiser, deciding who’ll be invited to the event, identifying a realistic fundraising goal, and much more—your team will have plenty to decide and a lot of tasks to execute to pull off a successful event. As is the case with a lot of functions, even ones for great causes, obstacles will probably arise, which your employees will need to come together to overcome.

Social responsibility is one of the key drivers behind employee engagement across industries. Engaging your team with a fundraiser is a great way to improve their team-working and problem-solving abilities while helping them feel more satisfied with their jobs.

As a bonus, putting together a fundraiser can help your business generate some goodwill and increase customer loyalty. Increasingly, consumers are seeking out businesses that share their values. By having your team plan a fundraiser, you can demonstrate that your organization cares about the same things that your ideal customers do.

Team-building and problem-solving activities are a win-win for your team, your business, and your target audience. In addition to facilitating the development of professional skills, these exercises can help you to come away with a clear indication of which team members have the greatest potential to evolve into future team leaders.

Have you utilized team bonding activities? Use the comment section below to let us know which problem-solving activities you have tried and whether or not you experienced positive results.

If you want to start team-building with your employees, don’t hesitate to contact Let’s Roam to help you to plan and customize company events . Whether your group is in an office, remote, or a combination of stationary and virtual teams , our professional guides will help you every step of the way!

Frequently Asked Questions

The expert event guides at Let’s Roam have documented several effective problem-solving exercises . They also offer team-building activities including scavenger hunts , custom trivia , and more.

In addition to facilitating the development of skills such as communication, collaboration, and adaptability, problem-solving exercises can help business managers to identify future team leaders.

You can help your team with a series of problem-solving activities . Plan team-building events that will challenge employees’ collaborative skills, problem-solving techniques, and leadership abilities.

Need help planning a team-building event?

Schedule a quick, complimentary 15 minute chat with an event planner to book your next team building event with breeze., featured products & activities.

66 team building activities to bring your team together (and have fun!)

Team building activities can make all the difference when it comes to job satisfaction , employee engagement and organizational success . But even with the best intentions, it’s not sufficient to simply bring a group of people together. Effective team building activities can help your group feel more connected and able to collaborate more effectively .

But how do you choose the right activity, and where do you get started when trying to encourage team bonding or alignement? We're here to help with this collection of simple and effective team building activities!

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What are team building activities?

Team building is an activity or process designed to help build connections between members of a team, create lasting bonds, and enable better teamwork and working practices.

Team building activities might include running team games and activities, holding group discussions, hosting away days, or simply doing things together as a team. They key is that the exercise is designed to bring your team together in a fun and engaging way.

What is the main purpose of a team building activity?

The main purpose of any team-building activity is on improving some aspects of how a team works together while bringing everyone together in a shared experience .

This might include working on communication, collaboration, alignment, team values, motivation, and anything else that can enable a group to work together more effectively. It might also include resolving conflicts, sharing skills, or simply bringing your group together in a shared experience.

Broadly speaking, any team building effort should be designed to help bring team members closer or find ways to first define and then move towards your shared goals as a group .

As Forbes notes , team building is “most important investment you can make for your people.” On this point, it’s worth noting that team building doesn’t just happen during the activity and so being purposeful your choice of exercise is important.

The best team building activities hold space for building connections in a way that spills over into day-to-day work and creates lasting bonds. It’s not enough to throw your team into an escape room or scavenger hunt without first thinking about why or how this will benefit your team!

After you’ve chosen some engaging team building activities, it’s time to design a complete process that will engage your team while achieving your desired outcomes.

SessionLab makes it easy to build a complete team building agenda in minutes . Start by dragging and dropping blocks, add activity timings and adjust your session flow to create an effective session.

What are the main types of team building activities?

Team building activities are games and exercises that help a group collaborate on a shared goal, discuss important issues constructively, share in a fun experience or find better ways of working together.

These activities can take forms – from quick and funny games you use in your regular meeting, or the may be part of a larger process or team development workshop.

Being purposeful and knowing the objective of your session means you can choose an activity accordingly. Sometimes, your team will come together because they have problems to solve, or you might just want to have fun and celebrate your wins. Pick the right activity for the right time to ensure your team is onboard and ready to engage!

Here are the main categories of team building activity that you might want to use with your team. We’ve made it easy to get started with the right activity for your team by including the length of each game, how many participants can play and how hard it is to run alongside clear instructions.

Team building activities for work

Starting the team building process can be difficult, especially if you’re working with a new team who don’t yet know each other well. The activities in this section are focused on helping teams and employees get to know each other better and start to develop bonds and trust.

Even if your team has been around a while, learning more about one another and building deeper bonds is useful for both team cohesion and group happiness. These are also great activities to use when trying to improve employee engagement and company culture – any organization is only as strong as the bonds between its people!

Try these team building games for work to encourage conversation and break the ice – especially if you’re working with a remote team who might not be in the office together.

3 Question Mingle

Conversation is often the best starting point when it comes to team building, but without structure, it can be difficult for groups to get moving. In 3 Question Mingle, each team member writes three questions on sticky notes and then has a one minute meeting with another person. They each ask another one question and then trade those post-its. Invite the group to move around the room asking questions in pairs and swapping questions afterwards.

Not only does this team building activity help an entire team get to know each other, but it also invites the group to ask the questions they want to ask. By combining structure with self direction, you can get your team building workshop off to the right start! Bonus points for adding those sticky notes to a memory wall for later reflection!

3 Question Mingle #hyperisland #team #get-to-know An activity to support a group to get to know each other through a set of questions that they create themselves. The activity gets participants moving around and meeting each other one-on-one. It’s useful in the early stages of team development and/or for groups to reconnect with each other after a period of time apart.

9 Dimensions Team Building Activity

Building better team relationships and improving group dynamics often means sharing something about ourselves and finding space to discuss and be honest. In this team building exercise, give each team member a set of red, green, yellow and blue dots alongside the 9 dimensions you’ll be looking at. Each participant puts a dot on each dimension based on whether they believe they’re crushing it or need to do more work.

By sharing some of their 9 dimensions, your team gets to surface things they’re proud of, as well as those that need work. You’ll explore what your group is aligned on in the debriefing section and then move forward together as a team.

9 Dimensions Team Building Activity #icebreaker #teambuilding #team #remote-friendly 9 Dimensions is a powerful activity designed to build relationships and trust among team members. There are 2 variations of this icebreaker. The first version is for teams who want to get to know each other better. The second version is for teams who want to explore how they are working together as a team.

Awareness Circle

Getting to know people is easier for some members of a group than it is for others. While extroverts can start chatting to new team members with ease, introverts may find it more difficult to bond with their team and create meaningful team bonds.

In this activity, you’ll encourage a group to get to know each other without speaking and show that everyone in a team has a connection. Another great takeaway from this activity is to take note of the diversity (or lack thereof) in the room and consider this as a point for future team development.

Awareness Circle #teampedia #team #icebreaker #opening This activity helps participants to get-to-know each other without saying a word.

Break the Ice with The Four Quadrants Activity

Sometimes pictures are better than words when it comes to helping a team get to know one another. Creative games like this one can also be especially effective at helping introverts or distanced teams share with the group.

Start by handing out sheets of paper and inviting each participant to draw a 2×2 grid and pose four questions to the group. Each team member draws their answer in one of the grid squares and once the time limit is up, invite the group to share. If you’re looking for a fun game that encourages creative thinking while being visual and memorable, look no further!

Break the Ice with The Four Quadrants Activity #team #icebreaker #get-to-know #teambuilding The Four Quadrants is a tried and true team building activity to break the ice with a group or team. It is EASY to prep for and set up. It can be MODIFIED to work with any group and/or topic (just change the questions). It is FUN, COLORFUL and works every time!

Just One Lie

Not all team building games need to reinvent the wheel. Particularly with new teams or groups that aren’t used to team building, keeping it simple with a tried and tested method can be your best bet.

Just One Lie is adapted from the well-known icebreaker two truths and a lie, though encourages participants to mingle and share lots of facts about themselves with one another – great for breaking the ice and getting to know one another too!

Just One Lie #icebreaker #energiser #team #get-to-know This method is adapted from the well-known icebreaker ‘Two Truths And A Lie’ to create an activity that you could return to throughout a meeting.

Both groups and individuals go through many twists, turns and changes throughout their life. At its best, team building not only helps create better teams but allows time for reflection and deeper sharing between participants.

With Life Map, encourage your group to draw or create a collage of their life story they can then share with the team. This kind of deeper getting to know your exercise can really help bring a team together and allow for meaningful self-reflection too!

Life map #team #teampedia #icebreaker #get-to-know With this activity the participants get to know each other on a deeper level.

Personal Presentation

Team building is all about building trust and openness between teammates. Sharing personal experiences and enlarging the social aspects of the group with presentations not only allows everyone to get to know each other but also encourages team development skills too.

For this team building method, ask each participant to prepare a presentation including three things that have shaped who they are as a person. Encourage creative thinking by asking teams to use simple drawings and words to visualize their presentation too.

Personal Presentations #hyperisland #team 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.

Passions Tic Tac Toe

Helping employees get to know each other more deeply and connect beyond the scope of their job roles is a great space to explore with a team building exercise. In this activity, your entire team fills in a 3×3 grid with a passion or core value in each of the boxes. Then, ask your group to mingle and compare passions.

When someone finds a match, they each sign for the other person in that square of the grid. Declare your first winner as the person who gets three passions in a row. This team building exercise works well for remote workers and is a great way for your entire team to get to know each other a little better.

Passions Tic Tac Toe #get-to-know #values #icebreaker #thiagi This simple game that explores the concepts from these two quotations: “Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you”. —Oprah Winfrey. “Getting to know someone else involves curiosity about where they have come from, who they are.” —Penelope Lively, novelist

Quick team building activities

Team building doesn’t have to take all day. While running dedicated team workshops like a team canvas workshop can have a profound effect on team dynamics, you can also run team building exercises in as little as 5-10 minutes.

In this section, we’ll share some effective yet quick team building activities you might use to warm-up your group or inject some team building into the start of a meeting or event. If you’re looking for 5-minute team building activities to easily slot into your meetings and events, this is a great place to start!

Best and Worst

Teambuilding activities are often at their most effective when you ignite the passions of everyone in a group and bring up talking points that enable people to share something of themselves with the team.

Best and Worst asks each participant to ask one question about the best and worst thing they want to learn from the group. For example, “What’s the best recipe you know?” or “What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?” After putting all the questions in a hat and choosing a random pair, invite the group to share their answers and related stories.

Best and Worst #teampedia #get-to-know #opening #icebreaker #team This activity could easily break the ice at the beginning of a workshop, enabling participants to get to know each other in a fast process.

Group Order

Supporting the get-to-know process at the start of a session or with a new team can be as simple as asking participants to group themselves together based on what they know about each other and inviting them to find out what they don’t.

This activity requires nothing more than getting your group together in a room and asking them to line themselves up in an order based on a criterion such as distance from home to the workplace, birth date in the calendar year or number of different countries visited. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to get people talking and sharing when in pursuit of a common goal.

Group Order #get-to-know #energiser #icebreaker #thiagi #team This is an energizing activity that helps members of a group get to know each other, network, and recognize what they have in common.

Happiness Exercise

Good teams know how to appreciate one another and share joyful, happy experiences. When a new team is getting to know each other, using an exercise that encourages the sharing of positive stories and experiences not only allows people to connect but also builds a positive atmosphere in the room.

You might also use this team building activity at work or with a more established team. If your team has been going through a challenging period, it can be transformational to share things that make everyone happy and defuse stress or tension as a team.

Happiness exercise #teambuilding #icebreaker #warm up #remote-friendly This exercise is a simple application of the principles of Appreciative Inquiry.

Name Juggling

Working with new teams means having new names to learn. Team building starts with getting to know everyone, but how can we make this more fun and dynamic than simple introductions?

In this get to know you game, start by having everyone stand in a circle and introduce themselves by name. Introduce a ball and have people state someone’s name before throwing the ball to that person. That person thanks the person who passed the ball by name before then passing the ball on to someone else. Once people get comfortable, spice things up by introducing more balls and trying to keep them in the air!

Name Juggling #teampedia #icebreaker #energiser #get-to-know #team Name Juggling is another variation of a try-to-learn-everyone’s-name but the game guarantees high energy level as well as some strategic thinking.

Finding you have things in common with other team members is one of the cornerstones of effective teamwork and communication. While conversation games or other team building activities might ask for an in-depth approach, Open Fist helps teams bond with a simple, effective activity.

Sharing little known facts about ourselves can help teams be more cohesive and by limiting the number of shared facts to the amount of fingers on a hand, this quick team building activity can fit into an agenda with ease.

Open Fist #get-to-know #icebreaker #thiagi #team Teams work better when they find things in common. Stronger teams reduce turnover, increase pleasant interactions, and improve productivity.

Cross the Circle

Finding common ground and shared experiences across a diverse group is what team building is all about. In this playful team building activity, participants are encouraged to cross the circle in response to questions posed by a person in the middle.

For example, “Cross through the circle if you have worked here more than 5 years.” or “Cross through the circle if you can play an instrument.” After each stage, a new person gets to pose a question and your team gets to know one another and their commonalities in a simple, effective way.

Cross the Circle #teambuilding #get-to-know #energiser #team #thiagi This activity provides a playful way for participants to find commonalities among themselves.

This fast-paced exercise is fun but gently challenging game that helps create focus and presence in a group. Get started by getting your team into a circle and ask them to move a clap around the room quickly by having two members clap at the same time.

By asking your group to synchronize and move quickly, sync claps is a fun way to energize the room and help your group feel more connected.

Sync Claps #hyperisland #energiser This circle exercise is simple, but challenging and very effective for generating focus and alignment in a group. Participants stand in a circle and send a clap around the circle. Each clap involves two members of the group clapping their hands at the same time. The group tries to move the clap around the circle faster and faster with as much synchronization as possible. The exercise gets even more challenging when the “double clap” is introduced and the clap can change direction.

Fun team building activities

In an increasingly stressful environment of deadlines and meetings, it’s worth remembering the value of joy, play and simply have fun as a team.

Injecting fun and laughter into your team building event is effective on many levels. We often recommend starting a session with one of these activities, as they can help set a more relaxed and personable tone in an instant.

We’ve also found that some of the more memorable moments of our sessions have come out of these kinds of activities. It’s lovely to have something funny to reference in future meetings too!

Bringing team members out of their shells and loosening them up with a funny game can also help prevent existing hierarchies or team structures from affecting the team building session.

You can also use these funny team building activities to kick off your session, or when the energy levels drop and you need to get your team re-engaged for the team workshop ahead. Let’s take a look.

Having fun and energizing your team is a great way to kick off your team building event. Bang is a simple and effective game that encourages quick reactions and fun – perfect for both new and established teams to play together!

Start by electing a sheriff and having the rest of the group stand in a circle around them. The sheriff spins around and points at one person in the circle and says “bang!” That person then crouches as quickly as possible. The two people on either side of the person crouching must quickly point at each other and shout the other’s name. Whoever does not react quickly enough is eliminated. Try using this one at the beginning of a team building event to really loosen up the group!

Bang #hyperisland #energiser Bang is a group game, played in a circle, where participants must react quickly or face elimination. One person stands in the middle of the circle as “the sheriff”, pointing at other players who must quickly crouch while those on either side of them quickly “draw”. A good activity to generate laughter in a group. It can also help with name-learning for groups getting to know each other.

Build-a-Shake

Creating a secret handshake was something many of us did as kids. This team building activity taps into that same sense of creativity and also encourages team members to get to know each other while sharing and building on their handshake in pairs. By moving between pairs and teaching others the steps of your handshake, this also helps create group closeness and cohesion. We love team building activities or office games that encourage people to bring a little of themselves to the table and Build-a-Shake is a great example of that!

Build-a-Shake #teampedia #energiser #get-to-know #opening #team How to introduce yourself in a fun, creative way? Build a handshake!

Simple tasks that require team focus, cohesion, and awareness are great for any group working on team building. In Count Up, a team has to come together and count up to twenty with their eyes closed and without any other communication. People cannot say more than one number at a time, and if two people speak at the same time, the group must start over.

Though it seems simple, this team building exercise can really demonstrate the power of effective teamwork and is a great opener for a team building workshop.

Count Up #hyperisland #team #energiser #remote-friendly In this short exercise, a group must count up to a certain number, taking turns in a random order, with no two people speaking at the same time. The task is simple, however, it takes focus, calm and awareness to succeed. The exercise is effective to generate calm and focused collective energy in a group.

Follow the Leader

When performing online team building, simple activities are often the best strategy in ensuring participation and removing frustration. Follow the Leader is a great team building energiser suitable for online and offline teams.

In virtual settings, put Zoom into gallery view and invite people to perform an action in the frame of their screen that other participants have to follow. Being a little silly is encouraged and this team building exercise often results in laughter and energy as a result!

Follow the Follower #zoom #virtual #physical #teambuilding #connection #energiser #opening #remote-friendly #ericamarxcoaching One person is designated as the leader. Others copy exactly how the leader moves. The leader calls on a new person to be the leader, and so on. Follow the follower variation is when the leading gets passed to the entire group and no single person is leading.

Portrait Gallery

Creative team building activities are great for breaking the ice or energising a team via play. In Portrait Gallery, you and your team will collaboratively create portraits of everyone in the group and have a fun, electric set of portraits to display afterward.

Start by splitting your group into two teams. Team B will draw portraits of Team A, though every 10-15 seconds, they’ll pass their current drawing to the next person to continue. By the end of this team building game, you’ll have a set of eclectic portraits for everyone in the group and have broken the ice significantly too!

Portrait Gallery #hyperisland #team #icebreaker The Portrait Gallery is an energetic and fun icebreaker game that gets participants interacting by having the group collaboratively draw portraits of each member. The activity builds a sense of group because it results with each participant having a portrait drawn of him/herself by the other members of the group together. It also has a very colourful visual outcome: the set of portraits which can be posted in the space.

Fun team building games are a great way to start any group development process, and they’re even better if they energize the team too! Snowball is a great activity for getting people out of their seats and moving around while also breaking the ice.

Start by asking a question relevant to your group and ask each participant to write an answer on a piece of paper. Once that’s done, invite everyone to crumple their paper and come to the centre of the room to have a snowball fight! After a few minutes, ask everyone to keep a snowball and find the person who wrote the answer. Not only does this team building exercise invite energy into the room, but it encourages people to get to know each other too.

Snowball #get-to-know #opening #energiser #teambuilding #team This is a great activity to get people up and moving around in a playful way while still learning about each other. It can be related to any topic and be played at any time during the group’s life.

Celebrity Party

You’ve likely played the game where you stick the name of a random celebrity on your head while then asking questions to help you guess who it is. (Or at least seen a film where someone else does it!) It’s simple, but it absolutely works when you want to break the ice or just generate some laughter and conversation.

This classic team building game is a great way to warm up large groups, encouraging mingling and have fun too. Ask participants to be creative, keep it light and not to give hints and you have all the makings of an effective team building exercise.

Celebrity Party #teampedia #icebreaker #communication #diversity #team #action Great activity to help people warm up in a new environment.

Non-verbal improv

Whether you’re working with remote teams or co-located groups, having fun when you get together should never be undervalued. We love simple games that are also ways to begin conversations about how we’d like to work together more effectively.

This improv game is easy to touch and is a great way to build team connections while raising some smiles. Start by preparing some actions on post-it notes, such as drinking a glass of water or eating pasta. Next, invite participants to mime the action without speaking. Include more difficult and amusing scenarios to challenge the group and create some funny opportunities for team connection!

Non-verbal improv #improv game #energiser #fun #remote-friendly An improv game where participants must use non-verbal communication and actions to communicate a phrase or an idea to other players. A fun game that’s a great way to open a discussion on better communication!

Rock, Paper, Scissors (Tournament)

Encouraging team members to play and have fun is an often overlooked aspect of building better teams. Play is an inherently human activity, and by doing this as a team, we can start to see ourselves as more than just a group of people who work together.

In this version of Rock, Paper, Scissors, large groups pair off until only two players remain for a final showdown. We love that losing players become fans of the winners and cheer them on. This is a quick and easy team game that can build excitement and get the group ready for deeper team building activities to come!

Rock, Paper, Scissors (Tournament) #energiser #warm up #remote-friendly This is a fun and loud energiser based on the well-known “Rock, Paper, Scissor” game – with a twist: the losing players become the fan of the winners as the winner advances to the next round. This goes on until a final showdown with two large cheering crowds! It can be played with adults of all levels as well as kids and it always works!

Fun team building activities often ask the group to let go of their inhibitions and find space to be playful and silly. This game from Hyper Island encourages the group to perform some loud, exuberant moves to emulate our favourite historical raiders – the Vikings.

You might use this activity during a longer workshop or meeting to energize a group and create a memorable moment with your team. For bonus points, have a group photographer capture those moments and put them on a history wall for reflection later!

The Viking #hyperisland #energiser In this group game, players stand in a circle and perform a series of loud physical moves, passing from one person to the next. When a player hesitates or makes a mistake, he or she is eliminated and the game continues. The game generates laughter and playfulness in the group.

Wink Murder

We love team building exercises that include space for friendly competition and laughter. Wink murder is a variation on a classic party game that asks every team member to try and catch the wink assassin, whose job it is to eliminate the other players by winking at them without being caught.

We especially like the fact this game makes team members to use creative thinking while playing. Run multiple rounds with extra rules such as adding an accomplice to spice things up and have even more fun!

Wink Murder #icebreaker #energizer #group game #team #teambuilding A fun energizer where one player must try and eliminate the rest of the team by winking – all without being caught.

Corporate team building activities

Running team building games in the office can be a great way to finish up the week, onboard new team members or just boost employee engagement.

While all of the activities in this post are suitable for the office, the team building games in this section are especially effective in a corporate environment where some team members may need some coaxing or you want to gently introduce important topics.

Try these activities if you want to add an opportunity for your team to bond during a corporate training session, all-hands or other office event.

Appreciations Exercise

Office trivia can be fun, but you know what’s better? Taking a moment to appreciate each team member and uplift everyone in the group.

This method is designed to help everyone in a group receive appreciative feedback on their strengths from others. Start by sitting the group in a circle and having each participant write their name on a piece of paper and pass it to the person on their left. Each person writes down what they have most valued about the person whose name is on the sheet before passing it along.

At the end, share these appreciations and celebrate everyone in the group! You might even include this activity during a happy hour to truly celebrate one another!

Appreciations Exercise #team #appreciation #self esteem #remote-friendly When you hear about your strengths from others and acknowledge them to yourself, this builds your motivation and self-confidence. If you do this at the end of a workshop, you go away feeling good about yourself and your colleagues too.

Cover Story

Bringing an activity that encourages creative thinking and imagination can be an effective method for getting team mates involved at your next corporate event. In this game, small groups create a magazine cover with your team on it and add headlines and taglines that show the best possible version of your team.

By defining the ideal future state for the organization your group can see what actions they might take today while also creating a fun and useful artefact for the team. Use as many sheets of paper as you need!

Cover Story #gamestorming #idea generation #organizational development #vision #strategy Cover Story is a game about pure imagination. The purpose is to think expansively around an ideal future state for the organization; it’s an exercise in visioning. The object of the game is to suspend all disbelief and envision a future state that is so stellar that it landed your organization on the cover of a well-known magazine

Coat of Arms

Even established teams have more to learn about one another. A corporate team building activity is a great time to encourage groups to go deeper and share who they are as a team.

In Coat of Arms, each team member begins by drawing a personal coat of arms and then sharing it with a partner. The partner interprets the coat of arms and then presents it to the rest of the group. This kind of getting to know you activity taps into group creativity and is a fun way of helping your team bond.

Coat of Arms #teambuilding #opening #icebreaker #team #get-to-know #thiagi Coat of Arms exercise provides a way for participants to introduce themselves and their colleagues, particularly for groups who think they already know each other very well. Almost invariably participants discover something about their colleagues of which they previously had no idea. Occasionally this revelation has an immediate and direct application to another participant’s current project or challenge.Because this activity forces people to use drawings rather than words, it is particularly useful as a dual-purpose introductory exercise in training sessions that deal with such topics as innovation, creativity, and problem-solving.

My Favourite Manager

Leaders and managers can be a deciding factor in creating a great company culture and employee happiness. In this game, get started by bringing your team together to discuss their favourite and least favourite managers.

This corporate team building activity is great at creating a safe space to discuss management styles and create empathy between teams. You’ll often find team members can shift their perspective, learn something about how they relate to their leaders and have fun too!

My Favourite Manager #management #leadership #thiagi #teamwork #remote-friendly Participants work individually, assuming the roles of three different people and brainstorming their perceptions of three most favourite managers and three least favourite managers. Later, they work with a partner (and still later, in teams) to prepare a list of dos and don’t-s for improving employees’ perception of a manager’s style.

Who are you? The Pirate Ship exercise

Explore team roles and responsibilities in a lighthearted manner is a great way to spend time during an office event.

In this simple but powerful team building exercise, share the image of the crew of a pirate ship. Next, invite participants to reflect on who they most identify with on the ship. Who is the captain? Who is looking out for land or maintaining the deck? By reflecting together around a fun premise, you can encourage meaningful discussions with your grop.

Who are you? The pirate ship exercise (dinámica del barco pirata) #team alignment #team #remote-friendly #teamwork #warm up #icebreaker This an easy but powerful exercise to open a meeting or session and get participants to reflect on their attitudes or feelings about a topic, in the organization, team, or in the project.

History Map

Building effective teams is often a process of ideation, reflection and iteration over time. Sometimes, it’s easy to lose sight of just how much a team or organization has grown. With this corporate team building activity, invite your group to reflect and build on their collective experience with a memory wall that collects moments over a fixed period of time.

It’s a great way of reinforcing major takeaways, celebrating the highlights and creating a sense of closure and progress. By also encouraging the creation of a shared visual resource, History Map also enables creativity and a sense of fun that can provide the perfect end to a project or working session.

History Map #hyperisland #team #review #remote-friendly The main purpose of this activity is to remind and reflect on what group members or participants have been through and to create a collective experience and shared story. Every individual will gain a shared idea of what the group has been through together. Use this exercise at the end of a project or program as a way to reinforce learnings, celebrate highlights and create closure.

Birds of a Feather

It’s not uncommon for teams to naturally form sub-groups with common characteristics. This exercise effectively shows how consciously creating more diverse groups can make teams more resilient and productive.

Get started by giving each team member an index card with a single letter on it. Then ask people to form a group of five people as quickly as possible without any further instructions. Next, ask the groups to form the longest word possible from their cards. It will quickly become apparent that the best way to win the game is with a team that has diverse cards.

This simple game is a great introduction to a wider conversation about diversity or inclusion. As always, debrief learnings and invite deeper conversation in the group to make this activity a success.

Birds of a Feather #teamwork #diversity #team #creativity #thiagi Participants naturally want to form groups with common characteristics. This exercise illustrates how diverse groups have access to more resources and provide a greater variety of solutions. Each person is given an index card with a letter on it, and then asked to form a group of five people. Participants assume that they should get into groups with others who have the same letter. However, when the facilitator asks them to form the longest word possible with the letter cards, they realize that it would have been more beneficial to have created a diverse group.

Corporate meetings can sometimes be heavy going, but they don’t need to be. In this fun teambuilding game, encourage your group to loosen up while working together to solve a puzzle that involves their bodies!

Start by getting your team members into groups of 7-12 people. Ask each group to stand in a circle, close their eyes and then link hands with two other people in the circle. Next, ask each group to work to untangle the human knot they have created without breaking the chain. This is a really fun game that requires clear communication, collaboration and a little flexibility too!

Human Knot A physical-participation disentanglement puzzle that helps a group learn how to work together (self-organize) and can be used to illustrate the difference between self-organization and command-control management or simply as a get-to-know-you icebreaker. Standing in a circle, group members reach across to connect hands with different people. The group then tries to unravel the “human knot” by unthreading their bodies without letting go of each other people’s hands. As a management-awareness game to illustrate required change in behavior and leadership on a management level (e.g., illustrate the change from ‘task-oriented’ management towards ‘goal/value-oriented’ management).

Team building activities for small groups

Team work doesn’t always come naturally, and effective team collaboration needs attention, reflection and work in order to happen. It’s not enough to just assume your team members will be able to work together efficiently: all teams can benefit from a strategic and well-thought approach to how they communicate and collaborate.

Whether you’re having a team away day or using methods expressly designed to improve collaboration and communication in small groups, you’ll find inspiration in the activities here!

These team building games are helpful whether you’re trying to solve miscommunication or collaboration issues, or just want to strengthen your company culture or communication skills in small groups.

Conflict Responses

It’s important to remember that every team is made up of individuals and sometimes, conflicts or disagreements can arise. While its regular working practice to disagree, our responses to conflict and how we deal with them when they arise are in our control and can be improved.

In this exercise, reflect on previous conflicts as a team and collectively create a set of guidelines to use in the future. Resolving issues effectively is a massive part of team collaboration, and by including all team members in this process you can get more meaningful results too.

Conflict Responses #hyperisland #team #issue resolution A workshop for a team to reflect on past conflicts, and use them to generate guidelines for effective conflict handling. The workshop uses the Thomas-Killman model of conflict responses to frame a reflective discussion. Use it to open up a discussion around conflict with a team.

Heard, Seen, Respected

Team empathy is a vital ingredient of good team work though whatever the size of your organization, it can sometimes be difficult to walk in the shoes of others and see things from other perspectives.

Heard, Seen, Respected is a team building activity designed to help participants practice deeper empathy for colleagues and build the kinds of bonds and working practices that can improve team collaboration. By inviting participants to notice patterns in the stories shared and find common takeaways, it’s a great way to get everyone involved on the same page and improve communication skills too.

Heard, Seen, Respected (HSR) #issue analysis #empathy #communication #liberating structures #remote-friendly You can foster the empathetic capacity of participants to “walk in the shoes” of others. Many situations do not have immediate answers or clear resolutions. Recognizing these situations and responding with empathy can improve the “cultural climate” and build trust among group members. HSR helps individuals learn to respond in ways that do not overpromise or overcontrol. It helps members of a group notice unwanted patterns and work together on shifting to more productive interactions. Participants experience the practice of more compassion and the benefits it engenders.

Myers-Briggs Team Reflection

One potential obstacle to effective team collaboration is when members of the group don’t fully understand one another. Team building activities for work that encourage participants to not only try and understand their colleagues but themselves can be especially helpful when helping a team be more cohesive.

In this activity, invite your group to first take a version of the Myers-Briggs personality test. Start by asking each team member to reflect on their own personality type before then moving towards small group discussion.

When using this activity, it’s important to correctly frame the usage of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) framework: This can be a useful framework to understand different communication preferences between people, but team members should not be labeled or put into boxes based on their self-reported preferences.

Myers-Briggs Team Reflection #team #hyperisland A workshop to explore personal traits and interpersonal relations using the Myers-Briggs personalities model. Use this tool to go deeper with your team to understand more about yourselves and each other on personal and professional levels.

Strength Building exercise

Exercises for team building come in many varieties. In this activity, the emphasis is on the team championing one another and increasing confidence, self esteem and mutual trust.

Start by asking team members to share an event where they accomplished something that made them feel good about themselves. The rest of the team chimes in to suggest two to three strengths they must have exhibited in order to achieve the accomplishment. Team collaboration often means helping others on the team achieve their best, and this activity helps the group uplift one another meaningfully and effectively.

Strength Building exercise #team #appreciation #self esteem #remote-friendly 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.

Strength Envelopes

All members of a team have unique strengths, capabilities and working preferences. When working as a group, you can improve engagement and group workflow by having each participant utilize their strengths and do work that interests them the most.

With this team building activity, ask participants to write their name on an envelope and invite other members of their team to spend a few minutes writing down strength statements for that person. Place these in the envelope and pass them along so at the end of the session, each person has a set full of strengths they can use as the basis for reflection.

Strength Envelopes #appreciation #self-awareness #feedback #team #thiagi #teambuilding #action This activity helps working teams to discover and share individual strengths and to increase their engagement by structuring their jobs around these strengths. Suitable for people who work together (for example, members of an intact work team) organized into playgroups of 5 to 9 members.

Team of Two

Whether you work in a small startup or a multinational organisation, the reality is that a large part of your working day will be spent working in pairs and interacting on a one-to-one basis. Whether in-person, over email or on video chat, finding ways to work together more effectively is vital for effective teams.

Try this team building exercise to help empower your groups toward more effective communication skills and have more meaningful interpersonal relationships at work. As a member of a remote team, I’ve found this method to be personally useful time and time again.

Team of Two #communication #active listening #issue analysis #conflict resolution #issue resolution #remote-friendly #team 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.

What I Need From You (WINFY)

Some of the best team building activities focus on helping your group improve their teamwork skills and communicate and collaborate better as a team. A sometimes overlooked part of working as a team is clearly articulating what you need from other people and knowing how to ask for it.

What I Need From You is a team building method designed to help team members better articulate their core needs and be transparent with the group. This leads to a more cohesive team that works together with integrity and understanding.

What I Need From You (WINFY) #issue analysis #liberating structures #team #communication #remote-friendly People working in different functions and disciplines can quickly improve how they ask each other for what they need to be successful. You can mend misunderstandings or dissolve prejudices developed over time by demystifying what group members need in order to achieve common goals. Since participants articulate core needs to others and each person involved in the exchange is given the chance to respond, you boost clarity, integrity, and transparency while promoting cohesion and coordination across silos: you can put Humpty Dumpty back together again!

Team building games for problem solving

Teams often come together to solve collective problems as a group . Whether these are large projects or simply finding better ways to work together on a day-to-day basis, solving problems is something all teams should do – in or out of a conference room!

Improving problem solving skills with a game that asks for communication, collaboration and creative thinking is a wonderful way to bring everyone together. We love using these kinds of team building exercises to bring large groups together to solve a fun, simple problem.

By engaging team members in this way, they not only have fun, but they learn how to work together more effectively and reflect on how they can take that learning back to their day work.

In this section, we’ll look at team building exercises you can use to encourage creative thinking, build problem solving skills and teamwork in an experiential way!

Blind Square – Rope Game

Nothing energizes a team workshop like a seemingly simple problem that also gets everyone moving and engaged. In this team problem solving game, start by tying a length of rope into a circle and invite the participants to plan how to make the rope into a perfect square while blindfolded.

After planning time, team members is blindfolded and has ten minutes to form a perfect square. By debriefing afterwards, your group will find communication, planning and attention to detail are all important aspects of creative problem solving – all while having fun too!

Blind Square – Rope game #teamwork #communication #teambuilding #team #energiser #thiagi #outdoor This is an activity that I use in almost every teambuilding session I run–because it delivers results every time. I can take no credit for its invention since it has existed from long before my time, in various forms and with a variety of names (such as Blind Polygon). The activity can be frontloaded to focus on particular issues by changing a few parameters or altering the instructions.

Crocodile River

We love team building activities that challenge the group to work together in inventive ways and also help energize a workshop setting. Crocodile River is a team problem solving exercise that challenges team members to support one another physically as they look to move across a wide outdoor space and reach the finish line together.

By changing the setting and inviting problem solving and strategic thinking to solve a challenge, your group not only stretches their problem solving muscles but also works on team communication, leadership and cooperation. As with any more abstract team building game, be sure to debrief afterward for best results!

Crocodile River #hyperisland #team #outdoor A team-building activity in which a group is challenged to physically support one another in an endeavour to move from one end of a space to another. It requires working together creatively and strategically in order to solve a practical, physical problem. It tends to emphasize group communication, cooperation, leadership and membership, patience and problem-solving.

Classic team building games like Egg Drop offer tried and tested ways to encourage teams to solve problems together while improving the way they communicate. This game often generates a bunch of laughter and creative thinking too – how can we save this poor egg!

In this team problem solving activity, invite small groups to build a freestanding structure that can support the dropping of an egg from seven feet. Include some caveats and challenges to make it more difficult and encourage an even greater degree of team collaboration. Just make sure you bring a mop for afterwards!

Egg drop #teampedia #collaboration #teamwork #icebreaker #team This fun activity could be used as an icebreaker for people who have just met but it can be framed as a method that shows and fosters team communication, collaboration and strategic thinking as well.

Helium Stick

Bringing team members together with problem solving activities that also encourages play can perform multiple functions. Not only do you encourage teamwork and the building of various team skills but you can have fun and promote laughter too.

Helium Stick is an example of a simple team building game that does double duty by encouraging fun, physical activity while introducing and exploring some core team building concepts. Ask the group to lower a long pole to the ground while keeping all of their fingers in contact with the pole at all times – more difficult than it first appears!

Helium Stick #teampedia #team #teamwork #icebreaker #energiser A great and simple activity for fostering teamwork and problem solving with no setup beforehand.

Lego Challenge

Creating something is often the purpose of bringing your team members together. Tap into the engaging process of co-creation and collaboration with this team building game using LEGO.

Building on the concept of LEGO Serious Play, this exercise is a great way of encouraging play, out-of-the-box thinking and creative approaches to existing problems. Additionally, each team member has a secret assignment which increases the challenge and encourages finding inventive ways to cooperate effectively and achieve both personal and team goals.

LEGO Challenge #hyperisland #team A team-building activity in which groups must work together to build a structure out of LEGO, but each individual has a secret “assignment” which makes the collaborative process more challenging. It emphasizes group communication, leadership dynamics, conflict, cooperation, patience and problem solving strategy.

Marshmallow Challenge with Debriefing

Real-life challenges are often time-sensitive and need to be considered thoughtfully and pragmatically. Team building activities for work are especially effective when they help create this same sense of urgency while encouraging team work.

In just eighteen minutes, groups must build the tallest free-standing structure out of materials including: spaghetti, tape, string, and one marshmallow, placing this last item on top. In this version of the team building game, there’s a debriefing section which encourages reflection on the roles of everyone in the team.

Marshmallow challenge with debriefing #teamwork #team #leadership #collaboration In eighteen minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top. The Marshmallow Challenge was developed by Tom Wujec, who has done the activity with hundreds of groups around the world. Visit the Marshmallow Challenge website for more information. This version has an extra debriefing question added with sample questions focusing on roles within the team.

Getting outside and doing fun, physical activity can be a great way to bond teams and mix up a normal working routine. In this team problem solving game, participants are asked to work to make holes in a grid of string and rope that can safely and effectively accommodate everyone in the group getting through at once. Team members are not allowed to touch the string or rope and with diverse groups, the difficulty this presents makes for an interesting problem solving challenge for teams to solve.

Spider web #team #teampedia #warm up #outdoor #physical This is an active team building game and requires participants to move about a lot and so can be also used as an energiser.

Stress Balls

At one point or another, most teams will be asked to perform effectively under pressure, whether that’s generated by internal or external stressors. By using team building games that help participants work together and communicate effectively even under difficult circumstances you can prepare your team members for almost anything!

Stress Balls is a fun game to help start exploring team resilience and problem solving under pressure, and it’s easy to run with large groups too! Start by simply passing a single ball around the room before adding more complex rules to help team members learn a valuable lesson about communication and teamwork!

Stress Balls #energiser #communication #teamwork #team #thiagi #action #icebreaker Understanding the importance of communication and teamwork is an important requirement for high performance teams of knowledge workers. This exercise is an effective energizer that requires communication and teamwork. Ask participants to form a circle and throw a ball around to simulate the movement of a message. Change different variables such as speed, quantity, and complexity to create a mess.

Scavenger Hunt

Activities that encourage groups to use teamwork and communication to achieve their goals are great ways to build team spirit. A classic scavenger hunt is a wonderful way to bring large groups together and have fun doing something a bit different!

Be sure to use office trivia, inside jokes or aspects of your company culture to inform this fun team building activity. You’ll find it much more effective if it’s tailored to your group. Bonus points if you can mix in activities that speak to the various departments or skillsets in the group during your scavenger hunt!

In the virtual-friendly version below, you’ll also find rules to help you run this activity with a remote team.

Virtual scavenger hunt #energiser #teambuilding #remote-friendly A fun team-building energiser that encourages groups to recreate the scavenger hunt experience in a fully remote environment!

Team bonding activities

Mutual trust is a vital ingredient for any group of people working together, though it doesn’t always emerge organically. Taking the opportunity to build team bonds and create trust creates benefits for team connection, happiness and your company culture too!

While many of the fun team building activities above will bring your team together in some way, these methods are designed to expressly create better team bonds and build trust.

When working on improving team trust, we recommend being open about the goals of the exercise and encouraging the group to be honest . Being intentional during these activities can really help bring the group together!

Trust Battery

Great teamwork isn’t just about bringing a group of people together into the same space. Without honesty, openness, and trust, your team can’t collaborate effectively and can lead to frustration or frazzled relationships.

Trust Battery is a team building activity designed to help all members of your group reflect on their trust levels and rebuild those batteries with lower levels. By encouraging all members of a team to meaningfully reflect, you can enable better team collaboration and help your team feel closer and more cohesive too.

Trust Battery #leadership #teamwork #team #remote-friendly This self-assessment activity allows you and your team members to reflect on the ‘trust battery’ they individually have towards each person on the team, and encourages focus on actions that can charge the depleted trust batteries.

Telling Our Stories

Everyone has a story to tell, though without a framework or guiding principles, surfacing those stories in a way that makes everyone feel safe and head can be tricky – especially for new teams. Team building activities that combine self reflection, sharing and structure are great for helping people to get to know each other deeply and build better bonds.

In Telling Our Stories, invite participants to reflect on childhood, young adulthood and today while answering questions on colored post-it notes. By sharing from the full gamut of our experiences, your team can get to know one another meaningfully and create trust too.

Telling Our Stories #hyperisland #team #teambuilding To work effectively together team members need to build relations, show trust, and be open with each other. This method supports those things through a process of structured storytelling. Team members answer questions related to their childhood, young adulthood, and now; then weave them into a story to share with the rest of their team.

Better Connections

Great teamwork and collaboration is all about building stronger relationships and connections and this often means taking the time to see each other as more than just our job title. Once we get a fuller picture of who we are outside the office, everyone can feel more seen and understood. This is one of the cornerstones of team bonding and trust!

Encourage people who know each other the least to pair up and create space for meaningful reflection too – your team culture will thank you for it! It’s also a great way to improve communication skills and break down silos.

Better Connections #interpersonal relationships #teambuilding #team #connection #thiagi #get-to-know We build a stronger relationship with people when we see them as human beings with whom we share similarities in terms of family and life situations. It is very difficult to form strong relationships with people about whom we know very little.We feel more connected to “full” people. For example, take John, the accountant. If I think of John as an accountant, I might put him into a box of what I think I know about accountants. I might not feel connected to accountants and will treat him accordingly. But when I think of John as a keen mountain climber and outdoor adventurer with two children, one of whom is graduating from university next month, then John becomes human to me, and I can feel connected to him.

Feedback: Current Strongest Impression

Giving and receiving feedback is a great team building activity that sees benefits long after your session. When we find ways to be more open with one another and say what we really think, the results can be transformative for any group.

This activity is a great one to bring to any event where you want to improve team bonding, as it creates a safe and simple way to start practicing more honest feedback. The next time you think about how to improve the way your team works together, think about whether you have a good feedback culture. The trust that good, open feedback can create is a fundamental part of any high performing team!

Feedback: Current Strongest Impression #hyperisland #skills #feedback Regular, effective feedback is one of the most important ingredients in building constructive relationships and thriving teams. Openness creates trust and trust creates more openness. Feedback exercises aim to support groups to build trust and openness and for individuals to gain self-awareness and insight. Feedback exercises should always be conducted with thoughtfulness and high awareness of group dynamics. This is a good first feedback exercise. It supports individuals to try out giving and receiving a very basic form of feedback in a safe way.

When a team doesn’t trust one another, the atmosphere and culture of a team suffers. Creating space to align and create a shared understanding of what trust means to your team is a great way to build team bonds and improve the way you all work together.

Start this activity by bringing together a set of trust cards containing characteristics, behaviours, attitudes, habits, values, and beliefs associated with trust in the workplace. Next, ask participants to create their own trust cards and move towards creating three core trust cards for your team.

By co-creating the output together, this team building activity is great for ensuring buy-in and creating long-lasting trust.

Trust #thiagi #issue analysis #trust One of the most important concepts in the workplace is trust. It affects performance, informal and formal relations, atmosphere of the workplace etc. With this activitiy you cn discover what one thinks about trust.

Translated Rant

Team building workshops are a great place to give your team room to have fun, vent and be honest with one another. Creating space for honesty while also building communication skills is the goal of this fun team building activity!

Split your group into pairs and have one person rant about a pet peeve for 60 seconds. Next, have the other person translate this rant while focusing on what the person really cares about. This kind of deep listening activity is fundamental to creating team trust, and sharing some of our annoyances in the group is great for building bonds too!

Translated Rant #active listening #emotions #values #trust #conflict #introductions #opening #connection One person rants for 60 seconds. The second person translates their rant into what they care about and value.

Team building exercises for purpose and alignment

Even the best teams can have differences of opinion and approach. While different viewpoints and perspectives are useful in many situations, it’s also vital that everyone is aligned on team purpose and vision.

Aligning on how the team will work together is an important part of helping the team be happy, productive and pulling in the same direction.

In this section, we’ll look at team work activities to help improve team alignment and get everyone working towards the same purpose. Let’s get started!

Alignment & Autonomy

Activities that help improve each member of your team work more effectively and feel empowered to operate autonomously can be great for improving employee happiness and productivity. If we feel aligned on the core purpose and goals of our team while also being given the space to work in the way that is right for us, we can boost employee engagement and job satisfaction too!

In Alignment & Autonomy, invite participants to reflect on times when they felt aligned and autonomous versus non-aligned and non-autonomous. By sharing, reflecting, and then ideating on solutions, your whole group can move forward together.

Alignment & Autonomy #team #team alignment #team effectiveness #hyperisland A workshop to support teams to reflect on and ultimately increase their alignment with purpose/goals and team member autonomy. Inspired by Peter Smith’s model of personal responsibility. Use this workshop to strengthen a culture of personal responsibility and build your team’s ability to adapt quickly and navigate change.

Engineering Your Team OS

When seeking to improve teamwork, it can be useful to think of your team as a system with complex, interlocking parts which may need a gradual refresh and redesign. This kind of abstraction can help prevent discussions from becoming too personal or difficult and ensure that your team alignment efforts are a success.

In this activity, your team designs an ideal working system by making aspirational statements and then methodically chooses a single statement to work towards ahead of the next meeting. By making positive changes incrementally, your team can achieve alignment and better working practices in a meaningful and sustainable manner.

Engineering Your Team OS #team #hyperisland This is designed to work as a standalone workshop or as a companion to the Team Self-Assessment tool . Using reflections and insights on your working process, your team will ‘update’ its operating system by making deliberate choices about how to work together. The goal is gradual development, not a radical shift. You will design an ideal-state for your team and slowly work towards that.

Generative Relationships STAR

Better working relationships start with shared reflection and the discovery and discussion of existing working patterns. This team alignment activity invites participants to assess their team along four vertices: Separateness, Tuning, Action and Reason and jointly shape next steps and future actions.

By including the whole team in the alignment process from start to finish, you can get meaningful buy-in and see real results! We love using this on an online whiteboard too. It can be a great way to help remote workers consider their inter-personal relationships!

Generative Relationships STAR #team #liberating structures #teamwork You can help a group of people understand how they work together and identify changes that they can make to improve group performance. All members of the group diagnose current relationship patterns and decide how to follow up with action steps together, without intermediaries. The STAR compass tool helps group members understand what makes their relationships more or less generative. The compass used in the initial diagnosis can also be used later to evaluate progress in developing relationships that are more generative.

Team Canvas Session

Team alignment isn’t always straightforward. The more large, complex or multi-discipline your team is, the trickier it can be to help the group mesh and understand their roles and responsibilities to the team and each other.

In Team Canvas Session, you and your team create a shared visual resource for understanding and articulating your goals, values and roles of your team. It can be used for general alignment, for onboarding new team members and even for defining the structure and purpose of a brand new team – simply recreate or download the team canvas and get started today!

Team Canvas Session #team alignment #teamwork #conflict resolution #feedback #teambuilding #team #issue resolution #remote-friendly The Team Canvas is Business Model Canvas for teamwork. It is an effective technique to facilitate getting teams aligned about their goals, values and purposes, and help team members find their role on the team.

Team Self Assessment

All groups need to go through a period of reflection and self-assessment in order to grow. But without structure or a guiding framework, these discussions can become bogged down or unproductive. With this reflective team building activity, you can enable a thoughtful and thorough team self-assessment along six guiding dimensions.

Start with individual reflection before bringing everyone back together to debrief and see what you’re aligned on and what needs more work. By then narrowing these down to the most important elements, you can align and enable better co-working practices quickly and efficiently!

Team Self-Assessment #team #hyperisland #remote-friendly This is a structured process designed for teams to explore the way they work together. The tight structure supports team members to be open and honest in their assessment. After reflecting as individuals, the team builds a collective map which can serve as the basis for further discussions and actions. The assessment is based around 6 dimensions. Each one encouraging the team to reflect and analyse a different and crucial element of their behaviour.

Letter from the Future

Without a cohesive shared vision, teams can become unproductive or harbor frustration on team direction. By spending time with visioning activities, you can help everyone push in the same direction while still utilizing their unique talents.

In Letter from the Future, invite your team to imagine all the changes that might impact them in the next 5 years and write a letter back from that point. Ask your team to cover what’s been accomplished in those five years, and what kind of challenges and obstacles were overcome to make this happen. Remember to remind teams that good letters have a beginning, middle, and end and that they should read clearly – this will help during the sharing and debriefing section of this method!

Letter from the Future #strategy #vision #thiagi #team #teamwork Teams that fail to develop a shared vision of what they are all about and what they need to do suffer later on when team members start implementing the common mandate based on individual assumptions. To help teams get started on the right foot, here is a process for creating a shared vision.

Team Purpose & Culture

Defining your team’s purpose and culture is an integral part of team building. By clearly articulating why your team exists and how you will all work together to fulfill that purpose, you can align and bring focus to all the work you do. This team values and vision activity aims to create a shared visual resource that your team can refer to in the future.

It also uses wisdom from other successful organizations to help enable meaningful conversation and move from individual purpose statements to a single one for the whole team. If you’re looking for a complete process that can guide your team values and vision efforts, this method from Hyper Island is worth a try!

Team Purpose & Culture #team #hyperisland #culture #remote-friendly This is an essential process designed to help teams define their purpose (why they exist) and their culture (how they work together to achieve that purpose). Defining these two things will help any team to be more focused and aligned. With support of tangible examples from other companies, the team members work as individuals and a group to codify the way they work together. The goal is a visual manifestation of both the purpose and culture that can be put up in the team’s work space.

Checkout and recap activities for your team building workshop

The process of team building and enabling a group to work together more effectively can be involved and exhaustive.

As with any group process or workshop, taking the time to reflect, recap and check out can ensure the lasting impact of what was covered in the session.

You’ll often find that finding time to close team building activities creates space for further employee engagement and reflection. Getting team members involved in choosing the next activity or coming up with a theme for the next round of office trivia!

In this section, we’ll take a look at some great team building activities for closing a session and for recapping the main learning points. Let’s dive in!

Check-in / Check-out

Ensuring everyone in a group is present, focused and committed to the work of a session is a vital ingredient in making a team building session a success. With this workshop method from Hyper Island, you can not only start and end your session the right way, but you can help everyone in your group be seen, heard and understood by the rest of the team.

This is especially useful with a remote team, where ensuring clear connection between team members who don’t share a physical office is especially important.

This activity also helps encourage reflection and brings the workshop to an effective close – be sure to give it a try!

Check-in / Check-out #team #opening #closing #hyperisland #remote-friendly Either checking-in or checking-out is a simple way for a team to open or close a process, symbolically and in a collaborative way. Checking-in/out invites each member in a group to be present, seen and heard, and to express a reflection or a feeling. Checking-in emphasizes presence, focus and group commitment; checking-out emphasizes reflection and symbolic closure.

The trip back from a team building event is a great place to share feedback and appreciate one another. Don’t have a bus? No worries! Create a few rows of chairs and simulate the experience for this reflective closing activity.

Once you’ve gotten the chairs of the bus set-up, ask participants to speak the person next to them and share: what they like about the other person, what they appreciate and what about the other person makes them happy. Speak for just 45 seconds each and then ask the group to switch seats.

Bus Trip #feedback #communication #appreciation #closing #thiagi #team This is one of my favourite feedback games. I use Bus Trip at the end of a training session or a meeting, and I use it all the time. The game creates a massive amount of energy with lots of smiles, laughs, and sometimes even a teardrop or two.

One Breath Feedback

In particularly large teams, it can be tempting to forgo the closing activity or individual feedback steps just because it will take so long and it can be hard to maintain energy and interest. One Breath Feedback solves this problem by giving each participant the space of a single breath to check out and reflect on the session. By ensuring that everyone has room to speak and be heard while also placing a time limit on the reflection, you can cap off a team building workshop effectively and intelligently.

One breath feedback #closing #feedback #action This is a feedback round in just one breath that excels in maintaining attention: each participants is able to speak during just one breath … for most people that’s around 20 to 25 seconds … unless of course you’ve been a deep sea diver in which case you’ll be able to do it for longer.

Team building workshop templates

Building better teams often starts with designing an effective group process. Whether this takes the form of a workshop or meeting, you’ll want a balance of activities, ice breakers and reflective methods in order to help your group align and grow together.

In this next section, we’ll take a look at some example processes with a complete workshop template you can use to get started. Let’s take a look.

Team development day for a new team

Helping new teams to bond and find a shared purpose and value system is often best achieved with a well designed group process. Try the team development day template when working with a brand new team or one which has seen large growth and is in need of development.

Here, you’ll find a complete one-day group process full of team building activities that can take a group from getting to know each other all the way through to defining their needs and making commitments.

Team Development Day for a New Team

Emotional Culture Workshop

Good teams are empathetic and in touch with their emotions. Using the emotional culture deck , this workshop can be run in under 3 hours and helps your team define and improve working relationships and the emotional culture of your team.

Taking the time to articulate and define these items ensures that everyone in your group is seen, understood and valued, and that you have a shared language for moving forward.

Team Dynamics Workshop

Cohesive teams that work well together are those with an understanding about what makes a team and how it functions.

Support your team building activities with this half-day workshop template and guide your group through a process of understanding and building on the dynamics of working together.

Team Dynamics Workshop Template

Team building sessions made easy

Designing an effective team building workshop means creating a balanced agenda of activities and group discussions while also keeping everything on time.

With SessionLab, you drag, drop and reorder blocks to build your agenda in minutes.

Your session timing adjusts automatically as you make changes and when you’re done, you can share a beautiful printout with your colleagues and participants.

Explore how teams use SessionLab to collaboratively design effective workshops and meetings or watch this five minute video to see the planner in action!

Over to you

Enabling better teamwork and building stronger, more cohesive teams isn’t easy. Whether you’re running a team building day, team workshop, or simply adding some team building activities to your meetings, we hope that some of the methods above can help you and your group come together and do better work.

Got a team workshop to plan? Check out our complete guide to workshop planning to make the process a breeze. Want to start creating your agenda quickly? Use a meeting or workshop template to save time designing or get inspiration.

Which of these team building activities is your favourite? Is there anything missing from the list above? Let us know in the comments! We’d love to hear about how we can all improve our team building efforts.

Hey there, Thank you so much for sharing this interesting stuff ! I will share these ideas with my HR Departments. And I am sure this blog will be very interesting for me. Keep posting your ideas!

All the training techniques have been well thought pit, planned and illustrated with tangible objectives which in itself is incredible to say the least. Have learnt so much which O shall incorporate and refine in my Workshops…Than you Team Session Lab

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8 Best Problem-Solving Activities To Build A Successful Team

What are problem-solving activities, why are problem-solving activities essential, how to measure the effectiveness of problem-solving activities for team building, 5 best fun problem-solving activities for employees.

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Encourages critical thinking: Every individual must think critically about a scenario, analyze data and evaluate different possibilities while participating in problem-solving skills activities. Through this, the individual develops a problem-solving mindset that can be effective in both personal and professional contexts.
Develops creativity: These activities are compiled with complex problems that require creative solutions. So to solve these problems, individuals need to think out of the box and think creatively to find an innovative and effective solution.
Improves collaboration: Problem-solving group activities encourage collaboration and teamwork . This can improve communication skills, build trust , and increase motivation among team members.
Builds confidence: Successfully solving problems can give individuals a sense of accomplishment and develop confidence in their abilities.
Prepares individuals for real-life situations: Most problem-solving skills activities are based on real-life scenarios, so these activities can help you develop skills that you can utilize in your daily life situations, including workplace and personal life settings.
Self-Assessments: It is an effective technique for measuring problem-solving activities; participants can share their experience as feedback , such as how engaging it was, what they learned, and how they can implement it in their work.
Observations: Observations by trainers or facilitators can help assess the effectiveness of problem-solving activities. Trainers can observe how the team interacts during the exercise, how well they work together, and how they approach the problem-solving process.
Surveys: Surveys can collect participant feedback on the effectiveness of problem-solving activities by asking questions about the perceived value of the activities, the impact on teamwork, and whether the exercises helped to build problem-solving skills.
Metrics: It can include assessing improvements in productivity, quality of work, or customer satisfaction, which can be attributed to developing problem-solving skills .
Follow-up Sessions: It is an adequate method for measuring the effectiveness of problem-solving activities. This is a discussion on the experiences of both the organizers and participants on how they have applied the problem-solving skills they learned in their work, what challenges are faced, and how they overcame them.

1. Escape Room

2. Lego Challenge

3. Scavenger Hunt

4. Paper Tower Challenge

Paper tower challenge Problem-solving activity

5. Mind Mapping

6. blind drawing.

7. 5 Whys Technique

8. Kaizen Events

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What activities promote problem-solving?

What is the purpose of problem-solving activities, what are the benefits of problem-solving activities for employees.

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14 Brain-Tickling Team Building Problems

This page includes our list of challenging team building problems.

Team building problems are activities that present dilemmas for teams to overcome. These exercises teach teams to brainstorm viable solutions, experiment, and reflect on results.

These activities are a type of problem solving exercise for work and are similar to team building puzzles and team building challenges .

Specifically, this list includes:

team problem solving strategies
problem solving scenarios for adults
survival team building exercise
simple team building activities
problem solving games

So, check out our list!

List of team building problems

From Escape Rooms, to Frostbite, to Mission String-Possible, here is a list of some of the most challenging and engaging team building problems.

1. Egg Drop

Egg Drop is one of the most common problem solving games. The goal of the game is to avoid a Humpty-Dumpty situation by building a vessel that can help an egg survive a great fall.

To play, you will give each group an uncooked egg and allow the team to choose from a variety of construction materials, such as:

toilet paper or paper towel tubes
cardboard boxes
masking tape
wooden sticks
sandwich bags
plastic straws
cotton balls

Teams will spend thirty minutes to one hour constructing a device to shield the egg from impact. Once time is up, groups will carry the containers to a balcony, ledge, or staircase, place the egg inside the receptacle, and drop the contraption. After the device drops, participants will open the container to see whether the egg survived.

This experiment teaches teams to use available resources, exercise creativity, and apply logical design.

2. Human Knot

There is a reason that the Human Knot crops up on all kinds of team building lists– this game is one of the most simple team building activities around. The exercise requires no special materials or lengthy instructions.

Human knot steps:

Participants form groups of five to twelve members
Group members assemble in a circle
Players reach left hands across the circle and grab an opposite member’s hand
Players reach right hands across the circle and grab a different participant’s hand
Without letting go of the grip, team members must untangle the knot and form a ring

To unjumble arms and avoid pulled muscles, your team will need to communicate. In the same way that shuffling a deck of cards creates a brand new combination, each Human Knot is unique and requires an altered approach.

In addition to flexing your team’s problem-solving skills, the human knot serves as a bonding exercise. Gathering in close quarters helps teammates banish shyness and social barriers, and overcoming the collective challenge brings the group closer together.

See our full guide to doing the human knot with coworkers .

Get our free team building toolbox

icebreaker games
bingo cards

3. Mission String-Possible

Mission String-Possible is a yarn maze which combines dexterity with deductive reasoning. The game is part obstacle course, part race, and part riddle. This activity requires setup, but provides a high-energy challenge.

To create a yarn maze:

Buy a different color of yarn for every team
Thread yarn across a small space, being sure to loop the string around furniture, fixtures, and other strings
Affix sticky notes to the thread with clues
Allow each team 15-25 minutes to unravel the thread
Challenge teammates to solve the puzzle at the end of the rope

An example of a riddle might be a combination to a lock located at the end of the yarn. Each sticky note contains a different number, and team members must order the numbers to guess the correct combination. I advise coordinating the color of the post-it notes with the string, because if the stickies fall off the string, then your teams might miss clues and fail the riddle.

4. Spaghetti Tower

The objective of this activity is for teammates to construct a tall tower using nothing but twenty sticks of spaghetti, tape, and string. Once complete, the tower must bear the weight of a single marshmallow without toppling.

To perform this exercise, split the group into teams of four to seven. After supplying teams with the necessary materials, you should give each group 20-30 minutes to complete the task. Teammates can break the spaghetti, but must keep the marshmallow intact.

Upon completing construction, each team must balance the marshmallow on the top of the tower. You can then measure the height of the still-standing structures, and name the group with the tallest tower the winner.

This game emphasizes group design, and is an especially apt activity for engineering teams. Yet all departments benefit from this group building challenge. As author C.B. Cook once said, “On our own, we are marshmallows and dried spaghetti, but together we can become something bigger.”

5. Lily Pads

Lily Pads is a group problem solving activity that turns team building time into a real life game of Frogger, minus the traffic. In this game, participants must move across the room, or the “pond,” stepping only on circles, or “lily pads.”

To play lily pads:

Use masking tape to mark off a starting line and finishing line on the floor.
Divide groups into teams of seven to twelve..
Provide each team with six paper plates to use as “lily pads.”
Direct teams to cross to the other side of the “pond,” by stepping on the lily pads.

Players cannot touch any space outside of the lily pad, otherwise all group members must return to start. The goal of the game is for the entire team to cross to the other side of the pond.

Lily Pad emphasizes that all members must reach the endpoint in order for the team to succeed, thus teammates scheme methods of getting every participant across the pond.

6. Shipwreck

The team building game Shipwreck strands employees on a hypothetical desert island together.

The game opens as the team’s ship sinks. Each team receives a list of 25-30 items, along with instructions that the group can select no more than ten items to bring to the island.

Sample shipwreck items:

Empty bottle
Toilet paper
One mystery item of your choice, which cannot be a boat

You should fill the list with highly useful items so that your teams struggle to narrow down the choices. First and foremost, the teams must agree on a collective goal. Groups may wish to escape, survive comfortably on the island, or some mix of both. Based on the group objective, teammates must collectively decide which objects to prioritize. Every team member must explain the rationale behind each selection and persuade the other members to acquiesce.

After twenty minutes, invite all groups to share the lists and reflect on the activity. Groups can compare and contrast the lists, and if time allows, then you can try to form an overall consensus of a master list.

7. Escape from Pompeii

Escape from Pompeii is a team survival game that challenges groups to outrun an epic eruption. In the early days of civilization, Mount Vesuvius buried the ancient city of Pompeii under lava and ash. In this activity, you challenge your teams to imagine the group in the city with moments to escape.

To play escape from Pompeii:

Tape off a small section of the floor, or lay a board down to make a “raft.”
Split group into small teams.
Give teams five minutes to fit on the raft.

All teammates must fit within the rectangle. Participants can arrange themselves in any combination, as long as all team members are aboard the raft and no part of any member’s body touches an outside surface.

This exercise fosters collaboration and group support. Escape from Pompeii also sharpens communication skills and prioritizes collective success over individual outcomes.

8. Shrinking Feeling

Shrinking Feeling is an exercise that encourages participants to develop team problem solving strategies. The concept is simple: as the surrounding space shrinks, groups must figure out how to fit all team members within boundaries.

Using rope, you will create a shape on the carpet. All team members must fit within the border, and no body part can touch any outside object. As soon as all team members assemble inside the boundary, invite the group to step outside the rope, and make the shape smaller.

Teammates must analyze, discuss, and execute team strategies to include every member within the perimeter. Shrinking Feeling underscores adaptability and group response to change.

9. Trading Pieces

Trading Pieces is a spin on the barter puzzle, one of the most well-known team building problems. In this exercise, groups race to complete a jigsaw puzzle, with a twist that each team receives a couple of the other teams’ pieces. To complete the puzzle, teams must negotiate with other groups and convince competitors to surrender pieces.

This version of the game ups the difficulty of the original barter puzzle with one extra condition: teammates can speak to each other, but cannot talk to other teams. In addition to persuading other teams to release pieces, participants must strategize how to silently broker the deal.

Trading Pieces practices persuasion and negotiation along with flexibility and creative thinking.

10. Founders Keepers

During Founders Keepers, your teams will need to establish laws and respond to threats to create a functional new kingdom. To play the game, you should instruct teams to choose a name for the country and create five central laws. Afterwards, you can prompt your colleagues with some of the challenges on the list below.

Sample founders keepers challenges:

Neighboring country attacks
Drought wipes out half the crops
King caught in a scandal
Peasants protest
Kingdom runs out of money
Country cannot communicate with outside lands

Teams must respond to these disasters while staying loyal to the core laws. This exercise serves as a model for upholding values in times of crisis. Unlike the other challenges on this list, the problems posed in this activity require diplomacy and discussion as opposed to immediate action. This exercise challenges the team to think of long-term consequences of proposed solutions instead of merely reacting to the situation at hand.

11. Escape Rooms

Escape rooms are one of the most popular problem solving scenarios for adults. These entertainment venues are immersive investigative experiences. Many rooms revolve around themes such as haunted houses, spy missions, or outer space, and some locations rely on actors to propel the story. All escape rooms pose puzzles that groups must solve together using abilities like critical thinking, time management, observation, and composure. These rooms provide elaborate scenarios, challenging riddles, and subtle clues that teams must work together to decipher.

Chances are, an escape room or two already exists in your vicinity. A simple Google or Yelp search can help you locate these venues. You may even score a group rate.

Check out this list of DIY escape room puzzles , and these online escape rooms for teams .

12. Frostbite

Frostbite is a survival team building exercise that summons teammates to imagine an arctic expedition gone wrong. In this team challenge, participants must construct a shelter in the face of an upcoming storm. However, a bad case of frostbite prevents the team leader from using hands, while snow blindness leaves all other team members blind.

To play frostbite:

Split the group into teams of 4-5.
Designate a leader on each team.
Explain the scenario.
Bind the leader’s hands, and blindfold all other group members.
Allow teams 30-45 minutes to build a structure out of playing cards, cardboard, rubber bands, tape, and staples.
Turn on a small electric fan and find out which “tents” can withstand the “artic wind.”

Frostbite flexes group decision making and adaptability, and challenges teams to find ways to triumph even despite limitations.

13. Apocalypse How

Apocalypse How compels teams to strategize ways to survive the end of the world. To play, simply divide participants into teams of four to six, and provide groups with a catastrophe, such as zombie attack, time-traveling dinosaurs, asteroid shower, or volcanic eruption.

To spice up the discussion, you can periodically hand out specific scenarios to which groups must respond.

Sample scenarios:

Car engine dies
Electricity goes out
Cell phone communication ceases
Deep gash on your leg
Run out of food

Apocalypse How exercises group problem solving and negotiation, and reminds teams to stay calm and think logically in the face of crises.

14. See Saw

My middle school gym class involved an outdoor ropes course. In one course challenge, my classmates and I had to balance the entire team on a giant see saw. This exercise may seem like one of the easiest imaginable team building problems imaginable, but completing the challenge is actually quite tricky.

To ensure that neither board end hits the ground, group members must distribute weight evenly. Teammates of relatively equal weight must step onto the see saw at the same time, otherwise the board will hit the ground, and the whole activity will restart. This maneuver requires a great deal of coordination and analysis, along with careful strategy.

The See Saw activity affirms that coordination requires careful consideration and effort. When working with a group, sometimes balance and timing are vital components to group success.

Team building problems help groups develop techniques to resolve on-the-job issues. For more information on nurturing competencies such as communication, compromise, and creative thinking, check out more of the resources below.

Overcoming obstacles as a group requires a great deal of trust, and these team problems teach teammates to depend on each other.

Next, check out this list of problem solving books .

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FAQ: Team building problems

Here are answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about team building problems.

What are team building problems?

Team building problems are challenges that prompt groups to respond to situations with ingenuity and cooperation. Examples of team building problems include the Spaghetti Tower, the Human Knot, and the Egg Drop.

What are team problem solving skills?

Team problem solving skills are competencies that help groups conquer problems quickly and with minimal conflict. Team problem skills include decision making, deliberation, explanation, and delegation.

Why is problem solving important in a team?

Collective problem solving is a different process from individual problem solving. Group problem solving requires skills such as active listening, persuasion, and compromise. Teams need to practice the art of consensus building and collective decision making. Team building problems provide colleagues with scenarios that help sharpen these skills.

Does solving team building problems together really work?

Though it may seem silly to hold hands, assemble puzzles, build spaghetti towers, and debate about zombies, these kinds of activities encourage objective analysis, verbalization of logic, and compromise, all valuable teamwork skills. If nothing else, team building problems encourage groups to communicate effectively.

Author: Angela Robinson

Marketing Coordinator at teambuilding.com. Team building content expert. Angela has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and worked as a community manager with Yelp to plan events for businesses.

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August 24, 2021
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Post: The 13 Best Team Building Problem Solving Activities

Employees playing reverse pyramid a team building problem solving activity

This post was last updated on, August 13th, 2022

There is a team-building problem-solving activity for everyone. Whether you’re looking to have fun and make new friends or sharpen your team’s skills, team-building activities are the perfect solution!

In this blog post, we will cover 13 team-building activities that can help improve problem-solving skills while increasing productivity and morale.

Benefits of problem solving activities team building

We all know the importance of team building . It’s how we build relationships, foster creativity, and innovate in order to succeed. One way that team building is done today is through problem-solving activities.

Problem-solving activities:

Build stronger teams, improve morale and encourage employees to work together. Collaboration is improved because teams are better able to solve problems together when they’re more engaged with each other
Foster better communication skills among team members, especially amongst remote teams.
Provide an outlet for creative thinking and increase confidence in employees who may not otherwise speak up or participate in departmental meetings.
Group problem-solving activities help your team increase productivity and motivation within the workplace and can align employees with company goals and objectives.
Improve mental health of team members by reducing stress and improving the moods of team members.

Problem solving team building activities are hands-on, creative, and collaborative. They help team members trust each other more in order to grow their relationship as teammates.

Oftentimes problem-solving team-building activities can be done virtually which is important for virtual teams or remote companies who don’t have the opportunity to interact face to face.

What is problem solving in team building?

Rather than having so-called frivolous fun with ice breaker questions and virtual happy hours (those types of team building activities do have their place) problem solving games are about identifying leadership and decision-making skills by solving problems.

The more efficient a team is at problem-solving activities, the more successful they can be at actually solving real-world problems in the workplace.

Quick and easy team building problem solving activities

It’s time to have some problem-solving fun! Here are some quick and easy team-building games for your next event.

The blind drawing game challenge

In this creative problem solving challenge, team members have to rely on their teammates for input when drawing an object from a list.

Each team chooses one participant to wear a blindfold while another member describes the item they must draw without telling the “artist” exactly what that item is.

The team whose drawing is closest to the actual item at the end of the activity wins!

Ideal for small groups of up to six.

Stumped for ideas on what to draw? Ask teams to draw your company logo.

Pro tip: to make this simple team building exercise even more challenging, have each non-drawing team member provide just one clue as to what the item is.

Inspired by the Jodie Foster Panic Room movie, group members of this team-building activity must take refuge in a boardroom, but before they do each participant must take with them just one item they feel will help their team’s survival before locking the door.

Once inside each participant must present to the rest of the team why they choose their specific item and then work together to rank the items in order of importance to their overall survival.

Pro tip: Each team must decide in 30 minutes or less whether or not their goal is to either survive in the panic room for a long period of time or to break free! In those same 30 minutes, teams must also collect their 10 items so time is of the essence.

Reverse Pyramid

While using copious amounts of red plastic cups is not ideal, nor environmentally friendly, playing with glass cups or ceramic mugs may potentially be dangerous.

In ‘Reverse Pyramid’, teams must build the tallest pyramid from the ground up. Starting with just a single cup (recyclable paper cups are also another great alternative) teams must work together to lift the top of the tower to add to the base below.

Hard to imagine? Watch this YouTube video of a ‘Reverse Pyramid’ in action.

Classic team building problem solving activities

The famous high school egg drop experiment.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall … Humpty Dumpty had a great …(sorry we couldn’t help ourselves).

The egg drop team building exercise, also known as ‘Defend the Egg’ is a problem solving skills game that involves building a structure out of random ordinary items such as masking tape, rubber bands, sticky notes, etc that will protect a raw egg from breaking when dropped from a high elevation.

The goal is to have each team build a structure that they can agree upon that will not only protect the egg but also allow it to be retrieved afterward.

The team with the highest percentage of successful drops wins!

Ideal for groups of up to six people.

The Lego challenge

The Lego challenge is one of the best team-building activities out there. In this activity, groups have an hour to complete a piece with their given number of LEGO bricks (which may vary depending on complexity).

After time runs out, everyone will get together and show off what they made!

The goal? Improve communication among team members by refining methods for problem-solving through creative thinking.

Domino effect challenge

Though it may sound like a simple game, the Domino effect challenge is an initiative that has been used in schools and businesses all over the world.

The challenge? To create the largest chain reaction contraption possible using whatever materials you wish including dominos should you choose to.

In this collaborative and creative problem solving exercise, participants are split into teams, and each work together on building their own individual section of the challenge.

Once group members agree on their final design, or time is up, all teams will then come together to either join their sections together to create one cohesive chain reaction, or to compete against each other.

Ideal for teams of up to five people.

Fun fact: The Guinness World Record of the most dominoes toppled by an individual is 321,197 by Liu Yang (China). And the Guinness World Record for the largest human mattress chain of dominoes was 2,019 people by Ortobom Globo of Sao Paulo Brazil #truestory!

Fun team building problem solving activities

Organizational jenga.

Think of the board game Jenga, with a twist. Divide your group into small teams and give them equal numbers of blocks, either wooden blocks or an actual Jenga set!

After everyone has built their structure as per company hierarchies, divide resources evenly between each group so they are balanced in size and type.

Now comes the fun part: take turns removing one block at a time without destroying any other pieces on that level- if there is too much weight on top then it will collapse!

This exercise gets people thinking about what happens when we don’t have the right personnel for every position.

This team building activity is great for groups of up to six people.

Pro tip: Use colored blocks instead of regular ones and get ready for laughter when someone knocks down another person’s block.

The marshmallow & spaghetti tower

The spaghetti tower is a classic team-building game and a great way to use up leftover spaghetti in your kitchen cupboards.

Participating people gather uncooked spaghetti and marshmallows, to build the tallest tower possible.

Besides the structural integrity of the tower, teams are then evaluated on three major factors: the amount of towers, tower height, and uniformity.

Got a remote team? In the virtual team building version, participants create their own towers, rather than building one grand freestanding tower.

Escape room

Escape rooms are excellent group problem solving exercises that usually take place in an hour or so.

Players have to solve puzzles and riddles based on a theme to escape the room.

Teams are usually split into groups of six and have an hour to solve the puzzles in order to escape from the room. If they fail, then they are locked inside until their time expires!

They’re quite difficult to create on their own, so you may need to team up with an escape room company for this. Ideal for groups of up to six people, with one or two facilitators, present along the way, and reasonably priced at approximately $25+ per person.

Best Virtual Problem Solving Games & Activities for Groups

Geocache adventure.

This treasure hunt will require a GPS device, in the form of an app on your phone or built into it. The clues you hide are part of a bigger question that needs to be solved by finding and locating Geocaches within different locations.

One variation is using QR codes around the office or home where we can mix geographic coordinates with other hidden treasures which could be identified through any smartphone-enabled camera (i.e., scanning for riddles).

This activity promotes creative problem solving while working together as teams towards accomplishing specific aims at designated times!

Online escape rooms

Being “trapped” in an escape room is a satisfying challenge for any puzzle solver. With digital versions, you can now enjoy the experience from anywhere with just your computer!

Players are given a set of puzzles or clues and have to use their problem solving skills in order to escape.

This team building activity is great for groups of up to four people, with one team member as the team leader who can allocate tasks so everyone feels involved.

Virtual scavenger hunt

A virtual scavenger hunt is perfect for a team that is working remotely and wants to have a little bit of fun while problem solving. It also makes for a great team building event if you’re looking to change things up while increasing your sense of teamwork. Here are the basics:

Your group will be given a list with different items, locations, or actions written on it.

Each item has been assigned a point value so teams (or individuals) can compete against each other by trying to collect as many points before time runs out.

As the world becomes increasingly more competitive, businesses are looking for new ways to keep their small teams happy and productive. One way of doing this is through problem solving activities that present novel tasks in a fun environment.

Working with others on challenges can help build better communication skills with remote teams as well as make teams more cognizant of team roles.

Businesses all over are starting to realize how important group interaction is for improving morale while also making work environments less stressful since it’s always nice having peers there who will support you.

Team building problem solving activities like these provide an excellent opportunity for teams from various departments to interact easily without feeling overwhelmed by unfamiliar circumstances—while also getting comfortable with taking risks and thinking outside the box.

In the professional world, one thing is for sure: problem solving is a vital skill if you want to survive and thrive. It is a universal skill sought by employers and managers alike.

Problem solving activities are perfect opportunities to explore different aspects of what it means to be an effective team while still being a collaborative team.

Staying Connected While Working Remotely

The best wfh productivity tips for remote workers in 2024 .

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Asynchronous Work – Build a Robust Company Culture Environment

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35 Fun Team Building Activities

By Priya Jain

Published: January 24, 2024

Workplace Culture & Morale

Writer & Career Coach

According to Forbes , “Team building is the most important investment you can make for your people.” Team building activities enhance job satisfaction, foster employee engagement, and contribute to organizational success.

However, simply assembling a group of employees is insufficient. Successful team building requires carefully selecting activities that promote a sense of connection and improve collaboration within the group.

In this article, we provide insights and inspiration for choosing and implementing 35 team building activities that go beyond the conventional, fostering a workplace culture that thrives on unity and shared success.

Why Do Team Building Activities Matter?

Team building activities are important for several reasons, as they contribute to a team’s overall success and effectiveness.

Here are some key reasons why these activities matter:

Improved Communication: These activities involve various forms of communication, helping team members understand each other better. With 55% of employees never meeting their coworkers in person, these activities help HR managers foster a sense of community, break down interpersonal barriers, and cultivate stronger interpersonal relationships within the team.
Enhanced Collaboration: Team members learn to work together more effectively through team building activities. They discover each other’s strengths and weaknesses, which creates a more collaborative and efficient work environment. With science proving that collaboration supercharges performance , team building activities are necessary for every organization with a remote, on-site, or hybrid workforce.
Building Trust: Team building activities allow team members to build trust by relying on each other, solving problems, and completing challenges as a cohesive unit.
Increased Motivation: These activities can boost morale and motivation. When individuals feel connected to their team and enjoy working together, they are more likely to be motivated to achieve common goals.
Fostering Creativity: Many team building exercises involve problem-solving and creative thinking. These activities can stimulate innovative thinking and encourage team members to approach challenges with a fresh perspective.

Cultural Sensitivity and Inclusivity Tips

When planning team activities, it’s important to incorporate cultural sensitivity and inclusivity to ensure all team members feel comfortable and valued.

Here are some cultural sensitivity and inclusivity tips:

Inclusive Planning

Employers should proactively consider cultural diversity and inclusion when planning team-building activities. This involves recognizing and appreciating different cultural norms, communication styles, and preferences to ensure that the chosen activities are welcoming and respectful of all team members.

Prioritize inclusivity by avoiding activities that may inadvertently exclude or make individuals uncomfortable based on their cultural background and encourage input from diverse perspectives during the planning process.

For instance:

Incorporate a variety of foods from different cultures during meals or breaks.
Select team-building games and challenges that do not rely heavily on specific cultural references or knowledge.
Offer workshops that allow participants to customize aspects of the activity based on their preferences or cultural backgrounds.
Plan team-building activities around cultural celebration days, where employees can share aspects of their cultural heritage.

Accessible Venues

When selecting venues for team-building activities, prioritize accessibility to ensure an inclusive environment for all team members.

First and foremost, organizations must ensure that physical facilities are accessible to individuals with varying physical abilities. This may entail the installation of ramps, elevators, and other accommodations.

Paying attention to visual and auditory accessibility, utilizing aids, and adequate lighting is essential for conducting seamless team building activities. Additionally, organizers should choose centrally located venues with good public transportation access to minimize travel challenges. By addressing these considerations, employers can create a welcoming and accessible environment that fosters inclusivity.

Consent and Comfort

It’s essential for organizations to prioritize the well-being of all team members by respecting individual preferences and boundaries. Emphasize that participation in team-building activities is voluntary, allowing each member to engage comfortably.

By fostering an environment of choice and understanding, employers ensure that team members feel empowered to contribute in a way that aligns with their cultural, personal, or comfort considerations, promoting a positive and inclusive team dynamic.

There are various types of activities, and they can be categorized into four main types:

Communication Team Building Activities

Strengthening the foundation of teamwork begins with improved communication. These activities enhance team members’ verbal and non-verbal communication skills, fostering a more cohesive and understanding work environment.

1. Two Truths and a Lie

Team members take turns sharing two true statements and one false statement about themselves, and others try to guess the lie.

2. Communication Circle

Members stand in a circle and pass a ball of yarn to someone across the circle while sharing something about themselves.

3. Collaborative Storytelling

Coworkers begin a story with a sentence and each team member must contribute one sentence at a time. The goal is to create a cohesive story, encouraging active listening and adapting communication styles to fit the evolving narrative.

Problem-Solving Team Building Activities

Encouraging creative thinking and collaborative problem-solving is crucial for a team’s success. The following activities aim to challenge and develop these skills, promoting a culture of innovation and adaptability within the team.

4. Marshmallow Challenge

Teams are given spaghetti, tape, string, and a marshmallow tallest freestanding structure using these materials. This activity promotes creativity, teamwork, and problem-solving under time constraints.

5. The Egg Drop

Teams are tasked with creating a device to protect an egg from breaking when dropped from a certain height. This activity fosters creative problem-solving and engineering skills.

Trust-Building Activities

As trust forms the building blocks of teams, these activities instill trust and enhance interpersonal relationships among team members.

6. Blindfolded Trust Walk

One team member is blindfolded, and the rest guide them through an obstacle course, emphasizing trust and communication.

7. Personal Histories

Each team member shares a significant event or achievement in their life. This encourages team members to understand each other’s backgrounds and builds a foundation for trust.

Team Bonding and Social Activities

A positive team culture is often built through shared experiences and enjoyable moments. These activities foster team spirit by providing opportunities for team members to relax, socialize, and connect in a more informal and enjoyable setting.

8. Themed Social Events

Hosting themed parties, dinners, or outings allows team members to relax and socialize and can foster a connection beyond the workplace.

9. Office Olympics

Create a mini “Olympics” within the office with fun and lighthearted competitions. Include activities like chair races, paper airplane contests, or desk chair relay races.

Five (5) Minute Team Building Activities

Brief and engaging exercises serve as quick, effective breaks, promoting teamwork, communication, and a sense of camaraderie within the team.

Here are some 5-minute team building exercises:

10. Human Knot

Instruct team members to stand in a circle and reach across to grab hands with two different people across from them. The challenge is to untangle the “human knot” without letting go of each other’s hands.

11. Emoji Feedback

Have team members express their current mood or feelings using emojis on a shared whiteboard or flipchart. It’s a quick way to check in with each other and foster open communication.

12. Speed Networking

Pair up team members and give them one minute to introduce themselves and share something interesting about their weekend or a hobby, they then rotate and repeat with a new partner.

13. Memory Wall

Place a large sheet of paper on the wall. Give each team member a sticky note and ask them to write down a positive memory related to the team. Stick the notes on the wall, creating a visual “memory wall.”

Corporate Team Building Activities

Corporate team building activities are essential for fostering a positive work environment, improving communication, and enhancing collaboration among team members.

Here are some specific activities tailored for a corporate setting:

14. Cooking Class

Take the team to a cooking class where they must work together to create a meal. This activity promotes collaboration and creativity amongst a corporate team.

15. Community Service Day

Volunteer as a team for a local charity or community project. This contributes to a good cause and fosters a sense of purpose and teamwork.

16. Board Games

Play strategic board games that require teamwork, communication, and problem-solving. Games like Pandemic or Codenames can be great choices. Board games are fun and they also help form bonds within a close corporate team.

17. Innovation Challenge

Encourage the corporate team to brainstorm and present innovative ideas for a specific organizational challenge. This promotes creativity and enhanced collaboration within the team.

Outdoor Team Building Activities

Outdoor activities promote teamwork, communication, and trust among team members.

Here are a few outdoor exercises to consider:

18. Zip-Lining

Teams traverse an inclined cable using a pulley, often reaching high speeds. It’s an exhilarating activity that promotes facing fears and building trust. Zip-lining encourages risk-taking, builds trust, and provides a sense of accomplishment.

19. Rope Courses

These activities consist of ropes, cables, and obstacles that team members navigate through. These can include tightropes, cargo nets, and suspended bridges. Rope courses enhance teamwork, communication, and problem-solving, build trust, and encourage individuals to step outside their comfort zones.

20. White-Water Rafting

Teams navigate a raft through turbulent river waters. This activity requires coordination and communication to navigate obstacles and rapids. White-water rafting promotes teamwork, communication, and quick decision-making and builds trust as team members rely on each other for safety.

21. Rock Climbing

Traditional outdoor rock climbing involves ascending natural rock formations using anchors and protection. Sport climbing on artificial walls provides a controlled environment for skill development. It requires physical strength, problem-solving, and trust in belay partners. This activity builds trust and communication between climbers and belayers and encourages problem-solving and perseverance.

Team Building Activities for Small Groups

Team building exercises for small groups can be as practical and enjoyable as those designed for larger teams.

Here are some tailored activities that work well for smaller groups:

22. Puzzle Race

Provide a complex puzzle, and have the team work together to complete it as quickly as possible. This fosters collaboration and problem-solving.

23. Trust Fall Exercise

The trust fall remains an excellent exercise. Have team members take turns falling backward, relying on their colleagues to catch them.

24. Minefield

Set up an “obstacle course” with objects representing mines on the floor. Blindfolded team members must navigate the course with verbal guidance from their teammates.

25. Picnic or Lunch

Organize a small outdoor gathering, perhaps a picnic or lunch, where team members can relax, chat, and build personal connections in a more casual setting.

26. Personal Timeline

Have each team member create a timeline, sharing significant life events. This helps team members understand each other better and builds a sense of connection.

27. Book Club

Choose a book related to personal or professional development and have a small group book club discussion. This encourages thoughtful conversation and shared insights.

Fun and Unique Team Building Activities

Here are some fun and unique activities to add variety and excitement to your team building efforts:

28. Escape Room

Employees in an escape room find themselves “locked” in a room, challenged to solve a series of puzzles collaboratively, and overcome obstacles within a specified time frame. The experience encourages critical thinking and problem-solving skills, necessitating effective communication among team members to share discoveries and work toward the common goal of escaping.

29. Murder Mystery

Murder mystery activities immerse teams in a fictional scenario where they assume roles and collaborate to unravel a compelling mystery. The experience incorporates clues, character interactions, and a storyline, creating an engaging and dynamic atmosphere. Teams must work together to pool findings and observations.

30. Scavenger Hunt

A scavenger hunt involves teams following clues or tasks to locate hidden items or specific locations, often leading to a final destination or goal. The versatility of scavenger hunts allows them to take place indoors, outdoors, or even virtually using mobile devices. Effective communication is crucial as teams decipher clues and coordinate their search efforts.

Virtual Team Building Activities

Virtual team exercises are essential for fostering collaboration, boosting morale, and maintaining connections among remote team members. With 82% of remote workers agreeing their organization supports in-person activities, these activities can help you build a remote community.

Here are some virtual activities to conduct on Zoom:

31. Online Trivia Night

Divide the team into smaller groups and host a trivia night using platforms like Zoom. Tailor the questions to include general knowledge and fun facts about team members. This activity encourages friendly competition and helps team members learn exciting things about each other.

32. Virtual Coffee Break

Schedule regular virtual coffee breaks where team members can join a video call, share a cup of coffee or tea, and engage in casual conversations. To make it more interesting, you can introduce a “topic of the day” or use icebreaker questions to spark discussions, creating a relaxed environment for team bonding.

33. Virtual Fitness Challenge

Launch a fitness challenge where team members set personal fitness goals and track progress over a set period. You can create a shared platform or use fitness apps to share updates, achievements, and words of encouragement. This not only promotes physical well-being but also fosters a sense of mutual support and motivation.

34. Team Building Through Music

Arrange a virtual music session where team members showcase their musical talents, play instruments, or simply share their favorite songs.

35. Virtual Happy Hours

Host virtual happy hours where team members can unwind, share stories, and enjoy a casual and social atmosphere. Themes or icebreaker activities can add an extra element of fun.

New Trends in Team Building Activities

From wellness-focused sessions to high-tech augmented reality hunts and sustainability challenges, these new trends reshape how teams connect and collaborate.

Here are some new trends:

Wellness-Centered Activities

To cultivate a workplace culture prioritizing well-being, consider implementing wellness-centered activities. Start by promoting mindfulness through activities like guided meditation and yoga, offering tools for stress management and focus. You can extend these efforts outdoors by organizing retreats, providing a refreshing break, and promoting physical and mental well-being.

By focusing on aspects like nutrition, fitness, and mental health, these challenges contribute to both individual and collective well-being, fostering a positive team dynamic.

These activities have surged in popularity due to their proven ability to reduce workplace stress, enhance mental health, and foster a positive work culture, increasing employee engagement and productivity.

Companies recognize that prioritizing their workforce’s holistic well-being improves individual health and contributes to talent retention and recruitment success.

Augmented Reality (AR) Scavenger Hunts

Today, organizations use AR technology to create interactive and dynamic scavenger hunts that engage team members in exploring their surroundings. AR adds a layer of excitement and creativity to traditional scavenger hunts.

Tailor the AR scavenger hunt to align with the organization’s culture, values, or specific learning objectives. This personalization enhances the relevance of the activity.

Sustainability-Focused Activities

In recent years, a heightened awareness of our environmental impact has led to a significant shift toward greater environmental consciousness and a steadfast focus on sustainability even in the corporate spheres.

By embracing sustainability in team building, organizations can engage in volunteer projects, like tree planting and beach cleanups, fostering a positive environmental impact.

Organizers can incorporate green initiatives, such as sustainable materials and energy conservation, into team activities, and companies can actively contribute to eco-friendly practices. Educational workshops on sustainability further inspire teams, cultivating a shared commitment to environmentally responsible practices at work and in personal lives.

These initiatives enhance the organization’s environmental footprint and instill a sense of collective responsibility among team members.

About the Author

Remote Work

100+ fun virtual team building activities to boost team morale.

Sudarshan Somanathan

Head of Content

April 23, 2024

Even with all the benefits of virtual teams , over 53% of remote workers feel it’s hard to connect with coworkers from behind the screen.

We’ve all been there!

As convenient as remote working is, employees are bound to feel lonely sometimes.

Virtual team-building activities are fun games and exercises that help coworkers collaborate on a shared goal, no matter how remotely located. It helps you know each other and build relationships, fostering cohesiveness and creativity.

Most of your coworkers will find team building event announcements ‘meh’ because they fear another boring meeting without the ‘fun’ element.

To level up your team-building efforts with remote employees, we’ve curated a list of 100+ fun virtual team-building activities and tools to enhance collaboration and engagement within remote teams.

Let’s go 🎉

Importance of Virtual Team Building

1. virtual icebreakers, 2. virtual team-building games, 3. virtual talent shows, 4. online team-building workshops, 5. virtual lunch meetings, 6. remote movie nights, 7. group meditation or yoga sessions, 8. online cooking classes, 9. online comedy sessions, 10. online fitness challenges, games, quizzes, and trivia, food and drink, music and dance, creative expressions , intellectual pursuits , interactive team-building activities , cultural exchange and diversity , tools to facilitate virtual teams, keep remote teams engaged and productive with clickup.

Virtual team building is essential for remote teams to help overcome isolation, improve communication, build team trust , and keep employees engaged. Let’s see how virtual team-building activities help remote teams stay connected.

Help build relationships: Virtual team building activities help remote employees get to know each other personally despite not being present physically in the same location. These activities help build stronger relationships, which are essential for maximizing collaboration and team productivity
Boost morale and engagement: Engaging in fun and interactive team-building activities provides a break from the daily grind and allows team members to unwind and relax. Such breaks help reduce stress and lead to improved morale and overall well-being
Improve communication skills: Our list includes many fun virtual team-building activities to enhance communication and team bonding. These activities include active listening, expressing ideas clearly, and providing constructive feedback to keep remote employees engaged . If you are tired of hurdles in productivity due to miscommunication, then these activities are a must-try!
Enhance problem-solving skills: Many virtual team-building activities require participants to work together to solve complex issues. Such virtual games teach your team to work cohesively to accomplish goals

100 Virtual Team Building Activities to Try in 2024

Here’s a list of 100+ fun-filled virtual team-building activities to facilitate your team’s coming together to achieve maximum efficiency.

Do you feel your team members aren’t yet acquainted with each other? It’s time to break the ice! 🥶

Virtual icebreakers are activities and exercises that encourage conversations with your team members.

The main agenda of icebreaker activities is to allow team members to have free-form conversations in a fun, informal setting.

For example, ‘Two Truths, One Lie’ is an excellent icebreaker. Each team member has to come up with three statements about themselves. Of these statements, two are truths, and one is a lie. The rest of the team listens carefully and tries to guess which statement is the lie. Once everyone has voted, go on and reveal the answer.

Similarly, there are other virtual icebreaker activities, like ‘Six Word Memoirs’ and ‘Desert Island Intelligences.’

Speaking of introductions, it’s not easy to remember everything about everyone in just one meeting. That’s where ‘meet the team’ templates can help you quickly introduce everybody. Keep these templates handy to see everyone’s job titles, experience, skills, and contact information in one place.

You can also use team charter templates to document your team’s mission and objectives so you’re all on the same page.

Interactive games like Pictionary or Dumb Charades are a fun way to improve teamwork and friendly competition.

These games aren’t what one would call an icebreaker; you typically play them once you’ve established some rapport with your team members.

The good part is that most video conferencing apps like Zoom, project management tools like ClickUp, and collaboration apps like MS Teams are equipped with drawing tools and elements to play Pictionary without having your team install another app.

Understanding your team members’ interests and passions helps you interact with them better. Sometimes, it means appreciating your colleagues for their unique talents.

Virtual talent shows can be a handy tool for this. You and your co-workers get to showcase your creative sides, and discovering a possible overlap of their interests with yours helps you and your team bond better!

Another great avenue for team-building is hosting virtual workshops or training sessions. Topics could cover team leadership , communication skills, team dynamics, and enhancing professional development and collaboration. Workshops with role-playing exercises and group discussions are worth a special mention.

While these workshops will help your team members grow, bringing out the best in each member requires focusing on different stages of team development – forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Just make sure you are there at every stage to guide your employees.

Food is among the simplest ways to bring people together. Virtual lunch meets enable team members to gather online, eat together, chat, and bond over meals. The good part is that these meetings are incredibly simple and easy to pull off.

Moreover, having a virtual meet-up over lunch once every week is an excellent practice for building relationships outside work-related discussions. Use these virtual meetings to learn more about your coworkers—food preferences, favorite restaurants, and how they like to spend their time outside work.

Everyone bonds over food, and movies are a close second. 🎬

To improve your virtual team-building game, consider organizing virtual movie nights where team members watch films together using synchronized streaming platforms.

For example, Netflix Party is the big fish of the remote-watch-party ecosystem right now. It works as a browser extension, allowing up to 50 people to watch anything on Netflix together.

Likewise, third-party apps like Scener facilitate remote watching via Netflix, Disney+, HBO, and more.

As a team leader who is acutely aware of how stressful the work environment can be, you must encourage your team through activities that promote mental well-being .

If you are into meditation and yoga, you could lead virtual sessions to promote relaxation, mindfulness, and stress relief among team members. If not, you can conduct group yoga/meditation sessions using video guides from YouTube that are bound to give everyone some much-needed de-stressing!

Do you cook? If yes, maybe teach your team a recipe or two or even learn their favorite recipes. 🍴

Alternatively, you could let a team member lead a virtual cooking class. If no one on your team cooks, have group sessions where you can learn from the gazillions of videos the internet offers!

What is something that everyone loves, apart from eating? Laughing, of course!

You could host online comedy sessions with your team, where everyone shares jokes about each other or what’s happening in your lives. You might discover a colleague’s hidden talent at stand-up! Moreover, giving your team a chance to rib you about your quirks openly and taking it like a sport will make you the coolest team lead ever!

If there’s one thing we all learned from 2020 and 2021, it is the importance of a healthy body to house a sound mind. Setting fitness goals for each other will not only help you stay healthy, but it’ll also foster a sense of working together towards a common goal, and the overall outcome is bound to reflect on the output of your projects!

Looking for a few more suggestions of virtual team-building activities? Here are some more team building activities for your remote team.

11. Virtual board game night

12. virtual bingo , 13. augmented reality game , 14. virtual ‘never have i ever’ , 15. bucket list challenge, 16. personality test quizzes, 17. virtual ‘emoji conversation’ game , 18. virtual code-break , 19. virtual murder mystery , 20. digital marketing trivia , 21. online trivia games , 22. virtual scavenger hunt, 23. virtual arm’s reach show-and-tell , 24. virtual escape room , 25. guess the emoji contests , 26. virtual ‘who am i’ , 27. online time machine trivia , 28. guess the slogan , 29. logo trivia , 30. podcast trivia , 31. friday special – ‘know your team’ virtual meet, 32. virtual racing games , 33. virtual five-finger showdown , 34. virtual pub crawl , 35. virtual mixology class , 36. digital dessert party , 37. virtual happy hours , 38. cookbook club , 39. trivia cook-off , 40. virtual karaoke sessions , 41. online collaborative playwriting , 42. virtual dance party , 43. virtual open mic night , 44. group karaoke competition , 45. virtual dj battle, 46. online music jam sessions , 47. group playlist collaboration , 48. ‘name that tune’ challenge , 49. what if you were x (a ceo, movie star, or similar recognizable roles), 50. photo-sharing challenge , 51. virtual improv session , 52. remote creative writing contests , 53. digital playwriting challenge , 54. remote storytelling session , 55. virtual art challenge , 56. remote paint and sip sessions , 57. remote crafting sessions , 58. spreadsheet pixel art , 59. diy craft challenge, 60. virtual origami session , 61. digital art collaboration , 62. virtual fashion show , 63. diy home decor challenge , 64. intra-team photography contests , 65. online sketching class , 66. debate club , 67. virtual sudoku sessions , 68. virtual book club , 69. power hour , 70. spreadsheet wars , 71. leader role play , 72. weekly wins celebration , 73. productivity tip showdown , 74. product pitch challenge , 75. department swap day, 76. virtual workshop on communication , 77. online brainstorming sessions , 78. virtual team pursuit , 79. interdepartmental mentorship program , 80. ‘deal or no deal’ negotiation game , 81. department swap day , 82. empowerment workshops , 83. online fundraisers , 84. customer persona creation , 85. virtual secret santa , 86. gratitude circle , 87. virtual team-based story building with objects around you , 88. virtual team-building experiences , 89. virtual support squad social , 90. book swap session , 91. virtual travel talk , 92. virtual museum tours , 93. virtual plant shop , 94. diy spa day , 95. sharing favorite movie quotes , 96. digital escape to nature , 97. remote book club discussions , 98. virtual language exchange , 99. virtual cultural exchange session , 100. diversity panel discussions .

Now that you have the best virtual team-building activities list, you need the right tools to execute them. Before you pick activities for the month, discuss them with other members.

Use ClickUp Whiteboards to discuss different activities and ask your team members for suggestions. There are many fun activities in our list above that you can execute using our virtual whiteboard.

Once you have the right virtual team-building activities, you must ensure everyone becomes a part of it. As your team members might be located in different parts of the world, ensure you get the sessions onto their calendars and remind them of the upcoming activities.

With ClickUp Reminders , you’ll be free from the hassle of manually sending out reminders to team members. It’ll automatically notify members frequently to ensure everyone participates in the fun activities.

While it’s all fun and games with team-building activities, our platform also has features to keep your remote teams organized.

ClickUp Teams allows you to collaborate with distributed teams, align on common goals, and track progress.

When collaborating with virtual teams, there is a chance of miscommunication if you solely rely on meetings. You need to visualize your processes, action plan, and progress to keep everyone in the loop.

That’s precisely what our visually compelling ClickUp Dashboards will help you do. They will keep everyone on the same page regarding team goals and track project progress. Assigning tasks to team members will also keep them accountable at all times.

The ClickUp Tasks feature further enhances accountability and team discussions. Add comments, assign tasks with comments, record and share voice clips , and add priorities so that everybody in the team knows what to work on first.

ClickUp 3.0 Docs Collaborative space with sidebars

In addition, collaborative ClickUp Docs make it easier to sync efforts and keep everyone in the loop regardless of location and time (a big yay for hybrid and remote teams!) Our Chat View also makes it convenient to chat with your team in real time. If you prefer, you can arrange Zoom calls within ClickUp.

Bonus: How productive is your team? Take the productivity quiz to find out!

Making sure your remote team has fun at work is serious business! Do try out one or more of the suggested virtual team-building ideas to break the monotony of work and bring teams closer.

Another way to keep your virtual team productive is by using collaborative task management tools like ClickUp. Designed to help the whole team work efficiently together, irrespective of location, ClickUp is the go-to platform for big and small teams worldwide.

Want to learn more about how remote work becomes easier with ClickUp? Book a demo today !

1. What are team-building activities for virtual work?

Virtual team-building activities strengthen bonds, boost morale, and foster collaboration among remote team members.

These activities can include virtual icebreakers, such as fun quizzes or online games, to help team members get to know each other better.

2. How do you build teamwork online?

Online teamwork happens through work management platforms like ClickUp.

These comprise streamlined processes that ensure smooth workflow, activities, and games where team members worldwide can participate while working from home.

The goal is to unite all the team members, no matter which part of the world they live in.

3. How do you build team spirit virtually?

Building team spirit virtually requires creativity and intentional efforts.

Start by scheduling regular virtual meetings where team members can interact, share updates, and engage in casual conversations to build rapport.

Use a video conferencing platform for face-to-face interactions to mimic the feeling of being in the same room. Incorporate virtual team-building activities such as online games, quizzes, or challenges that encourage collaboration and teamwork in a fun way.

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Work Futurist

Senior Quantitative Researcher, People Insights

Principal Writer

18 virtual team building activities and games

This isn’t academic theory or some stuff we just made up. This is how real remote teams have fun and stay connected.

5-second summary

Building bonds between teammates is extra-important when you’re in remote or hybrid mode, as a growing body of research confirms.
Whether an activity is just for fun or helps move your work forward, taking time to help your virtual team to get to know each other is an investment that pays dividends in team cohesion and performance.
We collected a list of activities used by real teams at Atlassian that can help virtual teams get to know each other as people and colleagues.

The bad news: team building is a lot more challenging when all or some of your people are working remotely. Try as you might, you just can’t do trust falls over Zoom. (Also, no one likes trust falls anyway.)

The good news: we have a trove of the best virtual team building activities to share with you. These are the same super-creative, road-tested, remote-team-approved activities that we use here at Atlassian.

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What is virtual-team building?

Virtual team building means creating human-to-human connections between your remote team members. Forging these bonds not only promotes team harmony, it can also help streamline communication and increase productivity.

Distributed eam bonding is a topic that matters deeply to us. We have a Team Playbook of exercises and workshops to help teams work better together (not to mention a guide to hybrid meetings for when it’s time to get down to business). It’s important to take time out to build connections while having fun, too. And, as a company of several thousand people distributed across five continents, we’ve had plenty of chances to act as test subjects for both flavors of virtual team-building activities.

Keep your virtual team connected with these proven rituals

How do you do team building virtually.

The best way to connect remote teams is to help them feel seen and heard, literally, and in ways that directly address the challenges of a dispersed workforce.

In mid-2020, we ran a survey on remote work , which uncovered the real-world complications we’re all facing with distributed work: feeling that our work is “invisible,” navigating new barriers to organic collaboration, and having less access to our managers. When we ran a similar survey in 2021 , we found that, although some of the initial challenges we faced have eased up a bit, teams are still struggling with belonging and cohesion.

The common thread here is that working from home can be lonely. Spending less time in an office environment means fewer built-in opportunities to form social bonds and build trust with colleagues. That can lead to disengagement, which, in turn, can lead to poor performance on the job.

That’s no small deal. In fact, 94 percent of workers we surveyed said that mutual respect and connection were critical to their team’s success, and 19 percent said it’s the most important factor in their sense of well-being at work. Understanding each other on a personal level means we can communicate more effectively and have an easier time distributing roles and responsibilities across the team.

So how can teams overcome these hurdles?

Tools of the trade

We use Trello boards as sort-of a virtual whiteboard, Slack as our chat tool, and Zoom for video conferencing. You’ll need at least one of these tools (or their equivalent) for each of the activities shared here.

Fun remote team building activities for any occasion

Choose what’s right for your team based on these categories:

Real-time vs. asynchronous – Do you need to do this simultaneously, or can each person participate at whatever time works best for them?

Practical vs. just for fun – Is the activity intentionally unproductive (which is not necessarily a bad thing), or does it serve the dual purpose of building social bonds and improving the way you work in a more tangible way?

18 ideas for virtual team games and activities

1. don’t overlook the classic: icebreaker questions 🧊.

Type: real-time, just for fun, on the regular

Time: 5 minutes

Tools required: video conferencing

Before you roll your eyes and go “Duh … like I hadn’t already thought of that,” understand that some of our distributed teams (my own included) do an icebreaker at the start of our team meetings every week. Even though we’ve been working together for a couple of years and feel pretty connected already, there are always more interesting tidbits to learn about each other. Some recent favorites include:

Who was the last artist you searched for on your music streaming service of choice?
What are your parents’ best qualities?
Put these morning routine items in order: breakfast, coffee/tea, open up your laptop.
What was something that always frightened you as a child?

Small talk at work has big benefits

2. have an online lunch date 🍱.

Time: 60 minutes

This one comes from the engineering team that built the Trello app for Android. Once a month, the team links up via video conferencing over lunchtime. Team members can even expense up to $25 so they can join from their favorite cafe, order delivery, or cook up a little something special at home (because, real talk: heating up leftovers gets old).

Only have 15-30 minutes to spare? No worries. Virtual coffee chats and virtual happy hours are fun variations on this activity.

3. Socialize over group chat 💬

Type: asynchronous, just for fun, on the regular

Time: varies

Tools required: Slack, Teams, or other group chat app

Group chat is an ideal way for distributed teams to stay in touch, but who says you have to keep it strictly business? Pre-pandemic, Atlassian set up a channel in Slack called #social-remote where we remote workers (which is now pretty much all of us), talk about what we had for lunch, compare notes on standing desks, share articles related to remote work, and generally discuss anything but the projects we’re working on.

There are even off-shoot channels for cities or states where clusters of “Remote-lassians” live. Let’s just say that more than a few hot-dish recipes have been swapped in the #minnesota channel.

4. Have a messy-desk photo contest 📸

When you work in an office, you feel compelled to keep your desk at least minimally clean: no used tissues, three-day old cereal bowls, or constellations of coffee rings.

But when you work from home, there’s no such social contract to uphold. So one of our rituals in the #social-remote Slack channel is “messy desk Thursdays” in which we out ourselves for the abysmal state of our workstations while the ROTFL 🤣and 🤦🏽‍♀️ facepalm emojis fly fast and thick.

It’s also a chance for your preternaturally tidy teammates to do some humble bragging about their austere, magazine-worthy office spaces.

Screenshot of a conversation about messy desks in Slack

5. How do you make online meetings fun? Presents 🎁

Type: real-time, just for fun, one-hit wonder

Tools required: video conferencing, Trello board

Whether your team prefers white elephant style or something more thoughtful, you can pull off a gift exchange even if you’re not at an offsite. Start by copying this handy Trello board template and inviting your teammates to join. It has full instructions in the “Rules” column, but here’s the gist. Each team member buys a gift that can be shipped easily. Instead of announcing what the gift is, you’ll add a card to the board with a picture and title that provides a hint.

During the game, you’ll take turns clicking on cards to reveal what the gift is. Once you turn over a card, you’ve claimed that gift. You’ll also get chances to steal a gift someone else has already claimed. After the game is over, mail the gift you contributed to the person who ended up with it.

6. Teach people how to work with you with “My User Manual” 📋

Type: asynchronous, fun but practical, one-hit wonder

Tools required: Keynote or PowerPoint

When you’re just forming as a team, or when a new member joins, it’s worth taking the time to share your personal workstyle. Do you prefer chat or email? What time of day do you do your best heads-down deep work? Are you cool with impromptu video calls? Check out this example from the CEO at CultureAmp:

Inspired? So were we. That’s why we created the My User Manual play, where you’ll find instructions on how to run this exercise in your team. Set up a meeting to review everyone’s “user manuals” in real-time, or share the decks so people can review them asynchronously. Either way, collect the decks in a central repository where future team members can access them.

7. Expand your professional skill sets together with “Learning Circles” 📚

Type: real-time, fun but practical, on the regular

Time: 30-60 minutes

Tools required: video conferencing, study materials as needed

It’s easy to get so caught up in executing on your work that you forget to expand your horizons, especially when working from home with no office banter happening around you. Plus, remote work can be isolating if you don’t make a point to connect with your teammates on a personal level.

Our Learning Circle play can address both issues. Choose a topic related to your work that you want to learn more about – anything from SQL to leadership styles to trends in recruiting practices – and find colleagues who share that interest. Each month, gather over video conference to discuss a book or article, or have someone in the group give a short presentation. The best part about learning circles is that you can extend them beyond your immediate team and connect with people across the entire organization.

8. Take your team’s pulse with “Health Monitor” 🩺

Tools required: video conferencing, Confluence, or Google Docs

Health Monitor is a variation on the classic agile retrospective. It prompts you to examine how you’re working together, instead of what you’re working on.

Through extensive research, we identified eight attributes that healthy, high-performing teams tend to have in common, then developed the Health Monitor as a framework for assessing how your team is doing in each area. Do you have the right balance of skills on the team? Are you making decisions effectively? Do you understand the dependencies around your work? Here’s a one-minute overview, staring yours truly.

Although this activity was not designed specifically for remote teams, it’s amazingly beneficial. When your team doesn’t sit shoulder-to-shoulder, it feels easier to sweep issues under the rug rather than address them head-on.

But little problems have a way of growing larger while you’re not looking, and eventually, you’ve got a crisis on your hands. Health Monitor prevents this by prompting teams to self-assess on a regular basis and keep their weaknesses from becoming full-blown liabilities.

9. You can’t have Nerf wars, but you still have .gif battles 💥

Time: 15-30 min

If you’ve ever been jealous of the Nerf dart wars waged by your co-located colleagues and friends, you’ll love .gif battles. Copy this Trello board template and invite your teammates to join it. (Click on the “How it works” card to see full instructions for the game.)

The game consists of four rounds, each with its own theme. You’ll use Giphy.com or Google Images to find a .gif that fits with the theme for that round and attach that gif to a card. Once everyone has their .gifs in, you’ll vote on the round’s best submission. At the end, the person who wins the most rounds will be crowned the Ultimate .Gif Battle Champion of All Time™. Just think of the glory! Don’t be afraid to add a tiebreaker round if needed.

Screen capture of a trello board with fun categories ie. "find the best walrus gif" and users have each added a fun gif that matches the category.

10. Uncover your superpowers 🦸🏽

Type: real-time, fun but practical, one-hit wonder

Time: 30 min individual prep, 60 min as a team

If you think “water cooler moments” unlock creativity, you’re focusing on the wrong thing

If you’re ready to go beyond surface-level connections with your team, this is the activity for you. Each person will prepare for the session by taking an online strength finder assessment such as Clifton Strengths . During the group session, everyone hops on a video call and takes turns sharing their results.

When my team did this, each person shared top three strengths, lowest-ranked strength, and something in our results that surprised us. Then we’d discuss as a group how that person’s top strengths contribute to the team already, and how we could make even better use of them.

This is an intensely personal activity. You’re going to feel a bit vulnerable and exposed, so it works best if there’s already a sense of psychological safety amongst teammates. But because you’re discussing each other’s strengths, the conversation tends to be very positive and affirming. Chances are, everyone will walk away with a deeper sense of belonging and an understanding of the unique value they bring to the team.

11. “How you doin’?” 👋🏽

Time: 5 min

(This one is so much better if you say the words “How you doin’?” in a low, Jersey mobster voice – think Sal from “The Sopranos.” But I digress… ) The team that looks after the Atlassian Community website and our user groups added this five-minute ritual to the beginning of their weekly team meetings.

The board they use to track agenda items includes a space for each person to add a card representing how they’re feeling that week. Maybe they’re struggling with something in their personal life and are a bit low-energy. Maybe they finally ran that 10k over the weekend and are PUMPED for the week ahead. It’s an easy way for teammates to let each other know when they might need some extra support or patience, or when they’ve got good vibes to spare.

12. Make sweet music together 🎶

Tools required: Spotify or Google Play, Slack or other group chat app

Raise your hand if you and your remote teammates talk about music. (Thought so. Pretty much everyone does.) The content team at Trello is no different… but they’ve gone next-level with it. Using Spotify, they create collaborative playlists that anyone on the team can listen to and help curate.

Try creating an upbeat, “get $#!t done” playlist, a soothing “de-stress” playlist, or any other theme that suits your team.

13. DIY boba tea 🧋

Type: real-time, just for fun, one-hit wonder

Time: 2 hrs

Tools required: video conferencing, kitchen

Y’know how boba tea (sometimes called bubble tea) costs like $6 at a retail shop? It sounds overpriced until you realized how labor-intensive it is! About 50 members of our marketing team learned this first-hand when we did a virtual boba-making session. Each participant received a kit containing all the ingredients (we used this one ). Then, an expert guided the whole group through the process – it really does take two hours to make a batch! But that provided plenty of time for icebreakers and general chit-chat while ingredients cooked and/or cooled.

14. The fellowship of the traveling plush toy 📦

Type: asynchronous, just for fun, on the regular

Time: varies

Tools required: Slack or other group chat app

A cross between the gnome prank in Amélie and the Flat Stanley craze, this ongoing activity yields months of fun. Choose a plush toy or doll that will be easy to pack up and mail – we had a custom plush made in the shape of our logo, and named it “Ace” – and set up a rotation so it travels between team members. When it’s your turn, use your chat channels to share photos of the plush hanging out with you, then pack it back up and mail it to the next person after a week or so.

15. Birds of a feather read books together 🤓

Type: real-time, just for fun, on the regular

Time: 30-60 min for discussion; reading time varies

Tools required: video conferencing, Slack or other group chat app

Calling all bookworms! If you’re like me, then you know that the only thing better than reading a good book is discussing it with friends. Or, in this case, colleagues who also enjoy books (which, really, is pretty close to friends anyway).

Our brand content team runs a casual book club where the only parameter is that the books we choose must have nothing to do with our jobs. We use a Slack app called Polly to vote on book selections and when to meet over Zoom (and drinks) to talk about it.

16. Monday JAMM sessions 📆

Time: 5 min

Tools required: Slack or other group chat app

“So, how was your weekend?” The Atlassian brand and events teams took this time-honored Monday morning question into the virtual world by sharing stories and photos from their weekend over chat – but with a twist. To help put themselves in the best mental space possible for the week ahead, they focus on sharing the most positive and rejuvenating aspects of their weekend that will help them power through the week. Each entry starts with JAMM, which means “just another manageable Monday.” For example, “JAMM because I got to an amazing hike on Saturday!” Think of it as part gratitude practice , part pep-talk. It’s been such a hit that it’s spread to other teams, too!

17. Enneagrams for everybody 🥸

Type: real-time, fun but practical, one-hit wonder

Time: 2+ hours

How well do you really know each of your teammates? Take time out for a deep dive into your personalities by using the Enneagram system . You’ll walk away with a better understanding of what makes everyone tick, and you’ll probably get some juicy insights into your own personality as well. (I sure did!)

Unlike finding your Myers-Briggs type or your zodiac sign, Enneagram asks you to self-identify your personality type based on the descriptions for each one. From there, you can explore how to best get along and communicate with other types. It’s a self-awareness + team harmony win-win.

18. A lightning round of mini-games 🕹

Time: 1-2 hours

Game apps for tools like Zoom and WebEx can be a ton of fun. (Hot tip for Zoom users: try the Kahoot! trivia app .) It’s a great way to add extra flavor to your virtual team lunches or kill a few minutes while you’re waiting for people to trickle in at the start of a meeting.

Now go forth and bond!

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99 Five-Minute Team-Building Activities (Virtual)

Here’s the ultimate list of five-minute team-building activities for virtual teams.

Virtual meetings tend to start… a bit stale: “Can everyone hear me?” “Is Brian here yet?” “Should we get started or give it a few minutes?”

At the fully remote company that I ran for six years , we lucked into some great virtual icebreakers . And we also had structured team-building games from time to time. That experience prompted me to write this guide – 99 short team-building activities organized into six categories. We did almost all of them ourselves. For the ones we didn’t do, you’ll see a source to learn more.

👉 5-Minute Virtual Team Building Activities: Complete List 👈

Click below to jump to a category of five-minute team-building activities for work:

Game websites
Interactive activities
Visual activities
Discussions
Ice breakers

The Best Game Websites For 5-Minute Team Building

These are seven great websites/apps where you can find team-building games.

1) Tiny Campfire

Tiny Campfire offers a virtual campfire experience where teams can come together to tell stories, play campfire games, and even roast virtual marshmallows. It’s designed to create a cozy, bonding atmosphere, ideal for team building and making connections in remote teams.

Visit Tiny Campfire .

2) Geoguessr

GeoGuessr is an online game that drops players into a random location via Google Street View. Players must then guess their location based on visual clues. It’s excellent for teams as it encourages problem-solving and discussion, making it perfect for short, collaborative breaks.

Visit Geoguessr .

Skribbl is a free multiplayer drawing and guessing game where one person draws something related to a chosen word, and others have to guess the word correctly. It’s fun and light-hearted, suitable for fostering teamwork and laughter among colleagues.

Visit Skribbl .

4) Lumosity

Lumosity offers brain training games designed to enhance cognitive skills such as memory, attention, flexibility, and problem-solving. It’s great for teams looking to engage in mental fitness challenges together, encouraging a bit of friendly competition and cooperation.

Visit Lumosity.

HeyLime provides a variety of creative and collaborative online games tailored for remote teams, focusing on building connections and boosting team morale through interactive challenges and puzzles.

Visit HeyLime .

Wordl is a word puzzle game where players guess a target word with limited tries, receiving feedback on letter accuracy in each guess. It’s a simple yet engaging way to stimulate team communication and strategy in a casual, inclusive environment.

Visit Wordle on NY Times.

Sporcle offers a wide range of trivia and quiz games across various topics. Teams can use Sporcle to host quiz sessions that are both educational and entertaining, perfect for breaking the ice and sparking discussions among team members.

Visit Sporcle.

The Best 5-Minute Games For Team Building

Here are some games your team can play together in five minutes.

8) Improv Storytelling

Participants build a story one sentence at a time, each person adding to the last, promoting creativity and quick thinking.

9) Birth Map

Team members place a pin on a digital map showing where they were born, leading to discussions about diverse backgrounds and cultures.

(Source: Atlassian )

10) Charades

One person acts out a clue while the rest of the team guesses.

11) Typing Speed Race

“In this activity, all team members take a typing test using typingtest.com or a similar website. Then, they post their results on the chat feature of their video conferencing software. This activity helps improve employees’ typing speed in a fun and engaging manner.”

– Aviad Faruzon at Faruzo

12) Spreadsheet Pixel Art

“Users create a copy of the main Google Sheets spreadsheet and then use the color pallet and small squares to recreate a pixel image that has been provided. The spreadsheet is color formatted meaning that if you enter numbers 1-9 in any given cell it will turn that color. The aim is to replicate the original image within the allotted 5-minute time frame. It’s a lot of fun seeing team members scramble to try and get the image as accurate as possible.”

– Nazy Rafaeil at Jovani

13) Personality Quizzes

Share the results of a quick personality or trivia quiz to spark discussions about preferences and traits.

14) Riddles

Solve challenging puzzles and riddles as a group, enhancing problem-solving skills and group cohesion.

“Virtual happy hour trivia is best for building connections between remote employees and since our company is completely remote these days, it is one of the best additions to the working model. Not only that, the fun game has aided in increasing collaboration as well.”

– Lauren Proctor at BenchMade Modern

16) Name That Tune

“One of my favorites is the ‘Name That Tune’ game. In this game, team members take turns naming songs and the other team members have to guess the artist and song title as quickly as possible. This game is a great way to improve communication and collaboration within teams.”

– Marcin Jablonski at LVBET

17) Emoji Translation

Write a sentence using only emojis, and let others translate it. Promotes laughter and light-hearted challenges.

18) Pictionary Sprint

Use a digital whiteboard to play Pictionary, with team members guessing what’s being drawn as fast as possible.

19) GIF Battle

Team members send GIFs in response to a theme or prompt and vote on the funniest or most accurate.

20) Virtual Lip Sync Battle

Team members pick a song and perform a lip-sync version for the team, which can be both hilarious and engaging.

21) Meme Creation Contest

Team members create and share a meme about their work life or current projects in a few minutes.

22) What’s That Sound?

Play a sound clip and have team members guess what it is. Could include animal sounds, musical instruments, etc.

23) Virtual Bingo

Play a quick round of bingo with cards that feature work-related situations or common interests.

24) Drawing Dictation

One person describes an object, and everyone else tries to draw it based on the description alone.

25) Haiku Happening

Each team member writes a haiku (a three-line poem) about their current mood or day and shares it.

26) Two Truths And A Lie

Each person shares two true statements and one false one about themselves, others guess which one is the lie.

27) Story From A Hat

Each member writes a random word or phrase and puts it into a virtual hat. Draw and tell a short story using the draw.

28) Where In The World?

Display a street view from Google Maps and have team members guess the location.

29) Flash Fiction Fun

Create and share very short stories (under 100 words) on a given theme, promoting creativity and quick thinking.

30) Quick Quiz

Conduct a quick trivia quiz on a variety of topics, using an online platform to keep track of scores.

31) Emoji Story

Build a funny story one line at a time using only emojis. Team members interpret and continue the tale.

32) Pop Culture Quiz

A quick quiz about current pop culture that can spark discussions and light-hearted debates.

33) Word Association

A game where one word leads to another, testing how quickly team members can think and how well they understand each other’s thought processes.

Interactive 5-Minute Team Building Ideas

34) blind origami.

“Origami instructions will be emailed to one individual from each pair. The individual who has the instructions should use messaging or videoconferencing software to walk their partner (the receiver) through the steps of making an origami design (but with the camera turned off). During the call, the receiver can ask questions, request clarification, and provide comments. Participants can turn their cameras back on once each group has finished to observe if the receiver got the origami building correct. The goal of this activity is to emphasize the value of listening and soliciting feedback.”

– Zaeem Chaudhary at AC Design Solutions

35) Virtual Background Challenge

Change virtual backgrounds to fit a theme, and guess the theme or location depicted by each background.

36) Team Playlist

Each member adds a song to a collaborative playlist and explains their choice. Great for musical discovery.

37) Desk Stretch

Lead a quick session of stretches or simple physical activities to rejuvenate and boost energy.

38) Desk Yoga

A quick session of yoga poses that can be done while sitting at a desk to relax and stretch.

39) Group Fitness Challenge

A 5-minute fitness challenge (e.g., most push-ups, plank hold), encouraging health and a bit of friendly competition.

40) Mindfulness Minute

A guided one-minute mindfulness exercise to help relax and refocus, led by a team member or a chosen app.

41) Lightning Scavenger Hunt

Quick scavenger hunts where members find an item in their home that fits a quirky category, like something blue.

42) Virtual Handshake

Invent a new, funny handshake that team members can mimic and pass on.

43) Theme Dress Code

Decide on a theme (e.g., superheroes, 80s, hats) and everyone dresses accordingly during a meeting.

44) Virtual Dance Party

A spontaneous dance break where team members can dance on camera to a chosen song, boosting morale and energy.

45) Talent Show

A rapid-fire talent show where each member has a minute to showcase a hidden talent or fun trick.

46) The 5-Minute Journal

A quick journaling session where team members write down thoughts or feelings, helping to reduce stress and share insights.

47) Virtual Magic Tricks

Team members share a simple magic trick they can do, which can be a unique way to engage and surprise each other.

Visual 5-Minute Team Building Activities

These activities use photos, things around your house, and artwork to break the ice.

48) Home Office Tour

Team members give a virtual tour of their home office, sharing personal touches and workspace setups.

49) Logo Draw

Team members try to draw famous logos from memory, leading to fun and sometimes humorous results.

50) Caption This Photo

“The team members will have to pass around a mobile device that displays a funny photo. Each person is instructed to come up with a creative caption for it. You can make the rules as flexible or strict as you want. For example, you might require everyone to submit their caption within the next 10 minutes. It’s a good way to help people loosen up and get more creative with their thinking.”

– Brice Gump at Major Impact Media

51) Handwriting Challenge

Everyone writes a specific sentence and shares it, comparing styles and perhaps discussing the lost art of handwriting.

52) Ugly Sweater/Holiday Outfit Contest

A fun and festive contest where team members wear and showcase their ugliest sweater or holiday-themed outfit, promoting light-hearted fun.

53) A Classic Show-And-Tell

“The best virtual team-building activities strip away the usual formalities and allow everyone to come as they are, socializing in a way that is absent of pressure or potential embarrassment. A great activity that accomplishes this goal is classic show-and-tell with a set topic, like pets, house plants, or what’s for lunch that day. It’s easy, instant and can kick off some great conversations.”

– Laura Spawn at Virtual Vocations

54) Photo Of Your Life

“In this challenge, each member is tasked with summing up their life in an image they have personally taken. It could be anything, from a location to hobbies, to family photos or pets. The image is then shared with everyone on the team along with an explanation on why they think the photo best sums up their life. This is a great way to present a more personal side to each member and allows others a peek on who they are as a person.”

– Scott McKinney at Debt Bombshell

55) Guess The Desk

Team members submit a photo of their desk and others guess whose desk it is.

56) DIY Desk Decor

Team members use quick crafts to create or modify a desk decoration, then share their creations.

57) Coffee Art Contest

Team members try their hand at creating latte art or arranging a creative coffee mug snapshot to share.

58) Show And Tell

Team members take turns showing something from their home/workspace and explaining its significance.

59) Pet Parade

Team members showcase their pets on camera, or share a photo if their pet isn’t nearby.

60) Quick Draw

Team members quickly draw something related to a prompt and then share with the group. Encourages creativity.

61) DIY Puppet Show

Quickly create simple puppets and perform a short sketch or tell a story using them, sparking creativity and teamwork.

62) Snapshot Moments

Each team member shares a photo or image that had a significant impact on them recently and explains why.

63) Slogan Rewrite

Rewrite famous slogans for products or companies, fostering creativity and humor in marketing and brand understanding.

5-Minute Discussions For Team Building

These are structured ways to get conversations going.

64) Personal TED Talks

Team members give short, inspiring talks on topics they are passionate about, modeled after the famous TED Talks format.

(Source: The Go Game )

“One of the best team-building activities can be playing virtual games like “X or Y.” It is one of the most appropriate activities to understand other people. It is a simple activity in which team members can select some choice questions like “dog or cat” or ‘OTT or Cinema.’ The team members can then discuss the answers to these questions and better know the colleagues’ personalities.”

– Daria Maltseva at KeyUA

66) Debates

Quick, structured debates on light topics where team members express and justify their viewpoints, enhancing communication skills.

67) Bucket List

Sharing personal bucket list items, revealing dreams and aspirations, which can help in building deeper personal connections.

68) Recipe Swap

“Angry BBQ invites each team member to share their favorite recipe and how they did it. They are given the opportunity to present this in whatever form they like–may it be through a video file internally shown, a Tiktok content, or photo presentation every Friday during our informal virtual meetup. This activity effectively encourages employees to take time out from work to do something as satisfying as preparing food.”

– Michael Haas at Angry BBQ

69) Hot Seat

One member answers quick-fire questions from others, helping the team learn about them in a fun and engaging way.

(Source: Deel )

70) Eat And Greet

“We’ve created virtual lunches in a program called Gather Town. It’s a virtual office that gives our team of 100 employees the time and chance to meet each other over our lunch breaks. It’s become a really great way for all of us to stay in touch even though most of us are working remotely.”

– Amanda Kelly at NorthOne

71) Learning Meetings

“We offer every employee weekly paid learning time. And every week, everyone in our company meets virtually to share their learning updates. The meetings help build visibility and increase cohesion. More importantly, they expose everyone to new perspectives and encourage everyone to look at learning as a lifelong pursuit. This ties directly to our core values of Learning, Sharing and Giving Back.”

– Fraser Wilson at AnywhereWorks

72) 60 Seconds Of Fame

As our weekly meetings can become repetitive, I have decided to start them with a fun point. To do this, I ask each team member to share a joke, read a poem, sing a song or do something funny at the beginning of the meeting. In addition to helping break the ice and get to know the team better, I have also innocently discovered hidden superstars in my team!”

– Bartek Boniecki at Passport Photo Online

73) Guess Who?

Team members provide obscure personal facts to the group, and others have to guess who the fact belongs to.

74) Recipe Roundup

Share quick recipes or favorite snacks, possibly related to productivity or health.

75) Hero Award

Quickly nominate and award a “Hero of the Week” for team members who went above and beyond.

76) Speed Debating

Quick debates on harmless topics (e.g., is cereal soup?) with team members randomly assigned to positions.

77) High-Speed Networking

Quick 1-on-1 chats between team members randomly paired, rotating every minute.

78) Appreciation Round

Everyone takes turns to appreciate or thank another team member for their help or work.

79) Express Gratitude

Each team member quickly shares something they are grateful for, fostering a positive team environment.

80) Fast Fact

Each member shares a quick, unknown fact about themselves. Builds deeper understanding of each other.

81) Commonality Quest

Discover things that all team members have in common, fostering connections and revealing interesting facts.

82) Virtual Coffee Break

A structured 5-minute break where team members grab a coffee and chat about non-work topics.

5-Minute Virtual Ice Breakers For Team Building

These are icebreaker questions specifically. We grabbed them from our main virtual icebreaker post .

83) What Was Your Worst Job?

Sharing experiences from unpleasant jobs, often leading to humor and a sense of common ground among colleagues.

84) Would You Rather Have A Rewind Button, A Fast Forward Button, Or A Pause Button On Your Life?

A philosophical discussion where members choose a hypothetical life control and justify their choice.

85) Do You Think You’re An Introvert Or An Extrovert, And Why?

Members discuss their personality traits, providing insights into their behavior and preferences in social settings.

86) Do You Think You’re An Optimist Or A Pessimist, And Why?

Individuals explain their outlook on life, facilitating deeper discussions and understanding among the team.

87) If You Can Give One Sentence Advice About How To Live Life, What Would It Be?

Members share profound or practical life advice in one sentence, reflecting their life philosophy or practical mindset.

88) If You Can Instantly Become An Expert In Something, What Would It Be?

Team members share which skill or field they wish to master instantly, revealing personal interests and aspirations.

89) If You Had A Time Machine, Would Go Back In Time Or Into The Future?

A thought experiment where team members choose their preferred direction in time and explain their choice.

90) If You Had To Choose To Live Without One Of Your Five Senses, Which One Would You Give Up?

A challenging question that prompts members to evaluate and discuss the importance of each sense.

91) What Is The Farthest Place You Have Ever Traveled To?

Team members describe the most distant place they’ve visited, potentially sharing interesting travel stories and experiences.

92) What Is A Unique Phrase In Your Area Of The World?

Members share and explain a unique phrase or slang from their local area, fostering cultural exchange and learning.

93) What Is The Best Piece Of Advice You’ve Ever Been Given?

Individuals share impactful advice they’ve received, which can be inspiring and motivational for the team.

94) Would You Rather Meet Your Ancestors Or Meet Your Descendants?

A choice that encourages team members to reflect on their values and what they might want to learn from or impart to their lineage.

95) What Was Your First Job?

A discussion about each person’s first job, often revealing funny or humble beginnings and shared experiences.

96) What Is Your Best Scar Story?

Team members share the stories behind their scars. This activity allows individuals to reveal personal experiences, challenges they’ve faced, or unique activities they did/do outside of work.

97) Describe Your Dream Vacation

Team members describe their ideal getaway, sharing personal interests and dreams, which can help in understanding each other’s preferences.

98) Describe Your Worst Haircut Experience

Sharing humorous or disastrous haircut stories to foster laughter and camaraderie among team members.

99) Movie Pitch

Team members quickly pitch a silly or dramatic movie idea that includes elements chosen by the team.

Resources For Virtual Team Building

Filter 122 No-Prep, Virtual Icebreakers By Type
Virtual Team-Building Activities
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43 Awesome Team-Building Activities for Kids

Build trust and community in your classroom.

Collage of team building activities, including balloon bat and a STEM challenge

Looking for great ways to help students learn to work together, listen carefully, communicate clearly, and think creatively? Try some of these awesome team-building activities for kids. They’re a super way to give your students the chance to get to know one another, build trust as a community, and, best of all, have fun!

1. Seeing Spots

Three children's foreheads, each with a different colored stick on dot in the center as an example of team building activities for kids.

The Teacher Dish: Brain Break Dots via theteacherdish.blogspot.com

For this activity, you’ll place a colored sticker dot (blue, red, green, or yellow) on each student’s forehead without them knowing what color it is. When the game begins, each “team” of students (with the same color) must find each other— without speaking. This is a wonderful team-building activity because it encourages non-verbal communication and cooperation.

2. Elbow Pass

Looking for team-building activities for kindergarten kids? This silly activity helps them make new friends and learn to work together. Not only do they get to work on hand-eye coordination, they are looking each other in the eye and having a laugh together.

3. Common Thread

Colorful team banners made by students as an example of team building activities for kids.

Fun 365/Team-Building Banner via fun365.orientaltrading.com

Divide students into groups of four and have them sit together in these small groups. Give each group five minutes to chat among themselves and find something they all have in common. It could be that they all play soccer, or pizza is their favorite dinner, or they each have a kitten. Whatever the common thread, the conversation will help them get to know one another better. Check in with the groups after five minutes to see if they need more time. After each group has come up with their common element, have them work together to create a flag that represents it.

4. Fingertip Hula-Hoop

There are quite a few team-building activities for kids that use Hula-Hoops. In this game, your students stand in a circle and raise their arms with only their index fingers extended. Place a Hula-Hoop so that it rests on the tips of the children’s fingers. Tell the students they must maintain a fingertip on the Hula-Hoop at all times, but they are not allowed to hook their finger around it or otherwise hold the hoop; the hoop must simply rest on the tips of their fingers. The challenge is for the children to lower the hoop to the ground without dropping it. To make this more challenging, you can place communication constraints on the children—no talking or limited talking, for example. Watch the video for a demonstration.

5. Four-Way Tug-of-War

This classic outdoor activity is double the fun of the traditional tug-of-war. Tie two long jump ropes together at their center points, creating an X shape. Tie a bandanna around the center point. Next, use cones to form a circle that fits around the X. Form four equal teams, and have each team stand at one of the four ends of the ropes. At your signal, each team begins pulling. The objective is to be the first team to pull the others in their direction far enough for the bandanna to cross to the outside of the circle of cones. Students who feel nervous about participating can serve as referees who make sure everyone is safe.

6. Hot Seat

This fun game is a lot like the game show Password . Split your class into two teams and have them sit together in teams facing the whiteboard or chalkboard. Then take an empty chair—one for each team—and put it at the front of the class, facing the team members. These chairs are the “hot seats.” Choose one representative from each team to come up and sit in the “hot seat,” facing their teammates with their back to the board.

Flash images one at a time on the screen behind the people in the hot seat. Taking turns, each team will offer one clue to their representative. If they guess the image correctly, their team gets one point. If not, it’s the other team’s turn to help their representative. Continue until one of the representatives gets the image correct. Then switch out students in the hot seat and continue.

7. Classification

Young students sorting objects found on a nature walk into red plastic bins as an example of team building activities for kids.

Inspiration Laboratories/Classification Practice via inspirationlaboratories.com

For this activity, prepare a tray with 20 unrelated items—for instance, a spool of thread, an eraser, a juice box, etc. Alternatively, create a document with 20 images of items to put up on the screen. Divide your class into even groups. Set a timer and have each group divide the 20 items into four categories that make sense to them. For example, they may put an earring, a glove, a headset, a sock, and a smile into the category “things you wear.” Have groups work quietly so that their ideas are kept secret. When each group is finished, give each one time to present their categories and their rationale behind each category.

8. Yes, No, Stand Up

The version of the game above is designed specifically to help English-language learners, but it can also be used as a good “get to know you” game for younger kids. Prepare a list of yes or no questions to ask your students. For example, do you like chocolate? Is your favorite color blue? If their answer is yes, the student stands up. If their answer is no, they sit down. Pause between questions to give students time to look around and find students they have answers in common with.

9. Balloon Battle

Two boys batting balloons with pool noodles as an example of team building activities for kids.

Happy Mom Hacks/Balloon Games via happymomhacks.com

This fun game teams students up as they try to bat a balloon over each other’s goal line. Divide students into two teams. Each team will have five players on the field at one time. Periodically blow a whistle to have students substitute in so that everyone gets a chance to play. The first team to score 10 points wins. For more fun balloon games check out Happy Mom Hacks .

10. Move On, Look Back

This hopping game will crack your students up. Start with students in a circle with their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them. When you say “Move on,” students will take one hop forward together. When you say “Look back,” students will take one hop backward together. And when you say “Forever alone” (or any other phrase you’d like, such as “180” or “Turn around”), students will turn 180 degrees and place their hands on the shoulder of the person who was behind them.

11. Birthday Line-Up

Did you know there are team-building activities for kids that can help teach students how to line up? It may take 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the age of your students, so plan accordingly. The objective is to have students line up in order of their birthdays—January 1 through December 31. To do this, they will need to know the order in which the months fall as well as their own birthday. They will also need to talk with one another in order to figure out who goes in front of whom. To make it super challenging, tell them they must do it without speaking at all, only using hand signals. Other ways to line up include by height, alphabetically, or by foot size.

12. The Perfect Square

This activity requires strong verbal communication and cooperation. All you need is a long rope with the ends tied together and something to serve as blindfolds for students, such as bandannas or fabric strips. Have students stand in a circle holding the rope in front of them. Signal them to put their blindfolds on and set the rope on the ground in front of them. Ask students to turn and walk a short distance away from the circle. Assign a partner to any students who may need help. Finally, have everyone come back to the rope and try to form a perfect square with their blindfolds on. Set a time limit to make it more challenging.

13. Rock, Paper, Scissors Tag

If you have a large space for kids to do team-building activities, try this one. Divide students into two teams. Before you begin, stake out the boundaries and position a home base at either end for each team. For each round, each team must confer and decide whether they will be rock, paper, or scissors. Have the two teams line up facing each other, and on your signal, have all players flash Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot! The kids on the losing team must run back to their base before they are tagged by one of the kids on the winning team.

14. Flip-the-Tarp Challenge

Looking for creative-thinking team-building games and activities for kids? Divide students into two teams. One team will do the challenge first while the other team watches, then they will switch places. Have all members of the team stand on a flat bedsheet, tarp, or blanket (kids should fill up all but about a quarter of the space). Challenge the team to flip over the sheet/tarp so that they are standing on the other side of the sheet/tarp without stepping off or touching the ground.

15. “Get To Know You” Balloons

Kids sitting at their desks in a classroom, each with a balloon in front of them, as an example of team-building activities for kids.

Beth Smith/ABC Scavenger Hunt via darlingtonschool.org

Give each student an empty balloon and a slip of paper. Ask them to write a get-to-know-you question on their paper, such as How many brothers and sisters do you have? Do you have any pets? What’s one fun thing you did this summer? Next, have them put their question inside the balloon, blow it up, and tie the end.

When everyone is ready, have them gather on the rug and, on your signal, toss their balloon up in the air. Give them a couple of minutes to bat the balloons around, then call stop . Have each student grab one balloon and come sit in a circle. Go around the circle and, one at a time, have students pop their balloon, read the question inside, and answer the question. This is one of those team-building activities for kids that they will always remember.

And to help your students remember each others’ names, try these 30 Fun Name Games To Try With Your New Class .

16. Hot and Cold

Form groups of three to five students. One person from each group (the finder) steps out of the classroom. The rest of the group picks an object (for instance, the pencil sharpener) in the classroom for the finder to find. When the finder comes back in, they begin walking around the classroom in search of the object. The others guide the finder by saying “hot” or “cold” to lead them in the right direction. If the finder is far away from the object, the group will say “cold.” When the finder gets close, the group will say “hot” until the finder picks the correct object. Variation: Instead of saying “hot” and “cold,” have students applaud softly for cold and applaud vigorously for hot.

17. Marshmallow-and-Toothpick Challenge

Divide students into groups of equal numbers. Pass out an equal number of marshmallows and wooden toothpicks to each group. Challenge the groups to create the tallest, largest, or most creative structure in a set amount of time, each member taking turns doing the actual building. Afterward, have each group describe what they made.

18. Art Reproduction Puzzle

Middle school students putting a puzzle together on a table as an example of team building activities for kids.

The Teaching Distillery/Puzzles via theteachingdistillery.com

Divide students into groups of six or eight (or larger if you want to make the task more difficult). Provide each team with an image and blank pieces of white card stock, one per team member. First, each team must cut up the image into the same number of pieces as there are group members. Then, each player will take one of the pieces of the image and reproduce it onto their blank piece of card stock with pencils, colored pencils, or markers. (If the team cuts the image into irregularly shaped pieces, each team member must then cut their blank paper into the same shape.) When every team has created the pieces of their puzzle, they will switch pieces with another team. The team will work together to solve the puzzle.

19. Hula-Hoop Pass

This activity helps kids work on listening, coordinating, and strategizing skills. It works best with smaller students. Have your students stand in a big circle. Place a Hula-Hoop on one student’s arm and have them join hands with the student next to them. Ask all the other students to join hands to close up the circle. The objective of the game is to pass the Hula-Hoop all the way around the circle without unclasping hands. Students will have to figure out how to maneuver their bodies all the way through the hoop to pass it on.

20. Bumpity-ump-bump-bump

Children in a circle playing bumpity ump bump bump.

Playworks/Bumpity Bump Bump via playworks.org

This is a fun name game that requires quick thinking! Students stand in a large circle. One student comes to the middle. That student walks around the inside of the circle, stops in front of one person, and gives them a direction. There are four choices: Left = say the name of the person to the left; right = say the name of the person on the right; it = say the name of the person who is it; or self = say one’s own name. After you give the student the direction, the designated person says “bumpity-ump-bump-bump!” out loud. The student who was given the direction races to say the name of the correct person before the student finishes the phrase. If they can’t, they’re the next person on the inside of the circle.

In this challenging trust-building activity, blindfolded students line up with their hands on each others’ shoulders. A person without a blindfold takes the end position. The object of the activity is for the sighted person to guide the non-sighted students without verbal communication to collect various soft objects scattered on the floor. Once the lead person finds an object, they must deposit it in a bucket. Extra challenge: Students must keep their hands on each others’ shoulders at all times.

22. No-Hands Cup-Stacking Challenge

Students gathered around a table, forming a pyramid of green paper cups using only strings as an example of team building activities for kids.

Nick Cornwell/Stacking Cup Challenge via nickcornwell.weebly.com

If you’re looking for hands-on team-building games and activities that work for groups of kids, try this challenge. It’s an exercise in patience and perseverance, not to mention a total blast! Decide how many students you want in each group and tie that number of strings to a single rubber band, making one for each group. Each person in the group holds on to one of the strings attached to the rubber band, and, as a group, they use this device to pick up the cups (by expanding and contracting the rubber band) and place them on top of each other in order to build a pyramid. See detailed instructions here .

23. Mini Cup-Stacking Challenge

And for younger students, this simplified version of the game allows kids to partner up one-on-one. Using just a few pipe cleaners and a rubber band, each student can take a hold and work together to create a stack.

24. Body Parts

students facing each other in a squat position with their heads touching and their hands on their shoulders as an example of team building activities for kids.

Karl Bastian/Head, Shoulders, Knees, Cup via kidologist.com

Students face off head-to-head in a squat position with a plastic cup on the ground between them. The leader calls out body parts and the players have to move their hands to that spot—head, knees, toes, eyes, nose, etc. But when they say “Cup!” the pair each tries to grab the cup. If they grab it, they remain in the game. The other player is “out” for the rest of the round.

Also, if a student touches the cup when “Cup!” was not called, they are immediately out! So they need to listen carefully as the leader attempts to trick them into lunging toward to the cup.

25. Human Alphabet

Students lying on the floor forming the letter

Nadine Silverthornes/Alphabet Game via todaysparent.com

If you have a large open space for your team-building games and activities, try this idea. Have students spread out and guide them through a few rounds of forming letters with their bodies. For instance, “Use your body to make a T. … Now make an O!”

Next, call out a simple short word, such as “so” or “dog.” Students will have to team up to form the word, with each student using their body to form one of the letters. Start with two-letter words, then three, then four. If students want more of a challenge, come up with a phrase that will take the whole class to complete.

26. Caterpillar

Divide students into groups of four. Lay out four Hula-Hoops per group and have one student stand in the center of each one to form teams of “caterpillars.” Line all of the teams up at the end of a field or large open space. Set out four or five objects in front of the lines, such as cones, foam blocks, or balls.

The goal of the game is to collect as many objects as possible by moving the caterpillar forward. To move forward, the last player in line steps into the hoop with the player in front of them, picks up their empty hoop, and passes it overhead to the front of the line. The front player then places the hoop on the ground in front of them and steps into it. Every player then shifts forward, moving the caterpillar. Only the front player may pick up objects, but it is the team’s job to carry the collected objects throughout the game. The game ends when there are no more objects on the ground.

27. Shrinking Vessel

For this activity, you will need a few jump ropes. Divide students into groups of six or eight. Have each group make a circle with their jump rope (their “lifeboat”) on the ground so that the ends are touching. Now have all the members of each group get into their lifeboat. This should be easy the first time. Then have all players get out and reduce the size of their circle by one foot. Again, all players need to get into the boat. Repeat this process, making the lifeboat smaller and smaller while you watch your students come up with creative solutions for making sure that everyone fits safely inside their boat.

28. Pretzel, Unpretzel

students holding hands twisted up into a human pretzel

Susan Box Mann/The Human Knot Game via icebreakerideas.com

This is one of the all-time favorite team-building activities for kids. Divide your class in half and have each group choose one pretzel maker and two unpretzelers. Direct the unpretzelers to turn their backs. Have the rest of the students in each group form a circle and hold hands. Now, have the pretzel maker direct the students (with words only) to twist around, step over, and duck under each others’ arms to form a human pretzel. Once they are sufficiently twisted, call the unpretzelers over and have them try to direct the students (with words only) in order to untangle them. Students cannot drop their hands at any time. The first team that successfully unpretzels their group wins.

29. Zip, Zap, Boing!

This super-lively circle game involves three actions—zip, zap, and boing. Zip directs play in one direction around the circle. Boing reverses the direction of play. And zap passes play to the opposite side of the circle. See the video above for a full demonstration. A couple of rules: Boing cannot be performed when someone passes the signal using zap. And zap cannot be passed to the person standing right next to you.

30. Spiderweb

Students connected by a web of yarn sitting in a circle on the rug

Heather Lynne/Would You Rather Web at raisingmemories.com

This team-building game will teach your students that even though they may be different in many ways, they are still connected to one another. Gather in a circle, standing or sitting. The game begins when the first person, holding a large ball of twine, tells the group a funny or embarrassing story about themselves.

Once they finish, they hold on to the end of the twine and throw the ball to someone else in the circle. Play continues until the twine has been passed to each person. The end result will produce a “spiderweb” out of the twine, connecting each student to all of the others.

31. Team Tic-Tac-Toe

This fun and active version of the old-fashioned game gets kids revved up about working as a team. Hula-Hoops are placed in the shape of a tic-tac-toe frame. Then students divide into teams and the race begins! One student from each team runs to the frame and drops a bean bag in a spot. They return and tag the next runner, who does the same thing. Play continues until one team achieves a tic-tac-toe!

32. Newspaper Fashion Show

three girls modeling outfits made from newspaper

Andrea and Rachel/Newspaper Fashion via mommylessons101.com

This is a great way to incorporate upcycling into your team-building games and activities. Divide students into groups of five or six, then give them a stack of newspapers, tape, and scissors. Set a timer and ask them to create the most fashionable outfit using only the supplies given. When time is up, have each group designate a model for the outfit, and have the group share information about the outfit. Once everyone shares, put on some rocking music and have a mini fashion show.

33. Back-to-Back Drawing

https://youtu.be/EqsL64uk1Q4

Need team-building games and activities that build communication skills? Ask students to pair up and sit back-to-back with their partner. Give one student a blank piece of paper and a pen or a marker. Give the other student a piece of paper with a simple drawing on it. The kid who receives the illustration will verbally describe the drawing to their partner. The other kid must draw the illustration by listening to the verbal instructions alone.

34. Changing Tableau

Ask for five or six volunteers to come up to the front of the class. Divide the rest of the students into two teams and have them sit together. Have the students up front arrange themselves into a tableau. Give the two teams a short time to observe the tableau, trying to memorize their physical arrangement.

After a couple of minutes, ask every person on both teams to face away from the team up front. The tableau team will decide on one thing to change about the tableau. When they are rearranged, the teams can turn around and try to figure out what changed. The first team to spot the difference gets a point. Continue play until one team receives 10 points.

35. Straw Challenge

Students huddled together doing a team building exercise

Georgia Teen Institute/Straw Challenge via https://guidegti.wordpress.com

If you’re looking for team-building games and activities for kids that require coordination and cooperation, try this one. Have your students form a large circle and give each one a plastic straw. The objective of the challenge is to balance each straw between one person’s right pointer finger with the left pointer finger of the person next to them. Try making some movements such as rotating the circle to the left or right, raising one foot, etc. The challenge is to keep the connection of straws intact.

36. Group Juggle

Have students circle up and make sure you have a supply of small plastic balls at the ready. Start by tossing one ball from person to person in the circle. After a minute, add in another ball. Instruct students to mindfully toss the ball, avoiding a collision. After another minute, add in another ball. Continue adding balls each minute to see how many balls your students can successfully juggle.

37. Hula-Hoop Ring Toss

Team members take turns tossing a Hula-Hoop over colored cones. Each color has a different point value. This game also incorporates math practice when adding your team’s score.

38. Great Chain Race

colorful plastic rings joined together into long chains by color on a white floor

Jennifer/Paper Chain STEM Challenge via themathchick.net

For this team-building activity, students split up into groups of three or four. Each group gets one sheet of paper (a different color for each group), one pair of scissors, and one glue stick. The teams then cut their paper to make a paper chain that’s as long as possible—they might choose to make many skinny rings or cut up small rings to get as many rings from their paper as possible. In the end, lay out the paper chains the kids created and see whose is the longest.

39. Team Pen

Working together, students try to create a drawing. Attach strings to a marker, however many you’d like. Have students each take one end and gather around a table. Together, they will need to communicate in order to manipulate the pen and draw the required image.

40. Knee Relay

This raucous activity will have your students rolling on the floor with laughter. Using only their knees, players must take turns picking up oranges one at a time from the ground and transfer them to a hoop across the room. The team to transfer the most oranges in 60 seconds wins. Plus, you’ll have a juicy snack for everyone when you’re done.

41. Human Caterpillar Activity

Students will work together to move a circle made of newspapers across the room. Before you begin, use strong tape to connect the sections of newspaper into a loop. To begin, students will step inside and move their feet and hands to help move the loop in the direction of the finish line, as shown in the video. The challenge is keeping pace with the students in front of them. The first team that is able to navigate their caterpillar to the finish line first is the winner.

42. Blind Minefield

Looking for obstacle course team-building activities for kids? This fun and challenging activity requires communication, listening skills, and trust. Students will navigate through an obstacle course while blindfolded with the help of a partner who will call out directions. If the blindfolded student touches any of the objects in the minefield, their turn is over and another pair gives it a try. The team with the most players to make it through without touching any hazards wins.

43. Paper Tower

Using creative problem-solving skills, each team of students must build the tallest tower possible with 20 sheets of plain computer paper. The tower must be stable enough to be measured. This activity is not only a great team-building activity, it’s a lot of fun!

Do you have favorite go-to team-building activities for kids? Come share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook !

For more great ideas, check out 45 of the best cooperative games to promote camaraderie and healthy competition ..

Teaching 21st-century learners involves more than academics. These team-building activities for kids gives them the skills they need!

WeAreTeachers

Examples of cooperative games for kids including two kids running a three-legged race and two students building a Tower of Power out of recycled materials.

45 Best Cooperative Games To Promote Comradery and Healthy Competition

Teamwork makes the dream work. Continue Reading

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25 Best Team-Building Activities in the Workplace in 2024

April 18, 2024

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Team building might seem like a non-essential business exercise, but it's a valuable investment in employee loyalty, retention, performance, and satisfaction. That's not just hyperbole, either—team-building drives results, and study after study shows it.

However, effective team building is an investment, and it's up to you to maximize your return. Fortunately, you won't need an accounting degree to make that happen.

Below, we'll explain everything you need to know about effective team building activities to help you choose the most productive activities and exercises to deepen trust, encourage team collaboration, and drive collective success.

What Is Team Building?

Team building is a strategic process designed to improve interpersonal relations, define roles within teams, and enhance social interactions in a professional setting.

It's about bringing people together with a purpose, intentionally creating experiences to foster understanding, empathy, and improved collaboration, and cooperation among team members.

The team-building process often gets stereotyped as awkward get-to-know-you games, but that's a disservice to the practice. Team building should include:

Employee Recognition

Your team-building activities should range from problem-solving tasks and physical challenges to creative workshops and retreats. You should carefully choose each activity to address specific objectives, such as breaking down barriers, building trust, resolving conflicts, or boosting morale.

While the ultimate goal of a team-building exercise is to improve overall team performance, the benefits extend far beyond productivity. Team building (done right) leads to a more engaged, motivated, and satisfied workforce, contributing to a positive company culture where every member feels valued and connected.

Why Is Team Building Important for Your Company?

Cohesive teams aren't just nice-to-haves—they're essential company assets. Even the most successful companies and business models can't stand up if they don't have well-functioning teams and positive office culture. Just ask WeWork .

Here are a few reasons why team building should be an integral part of your company's strategy:

Enhances Communication : Team building breaks down barriers between employees, encouraging open and effective communication. Improved communication leads to clearer understanding, fewer misunderstandings, and more efficient collaboration - leading to an all-over more successful team.
Boosts Morale and Reduces Stress : Engaging in fun and relaxing activities can significantly boost morale , reduce stress levels, and increase overall job satisfaction. A happy team is more productive and less prone to burnout.
Promotes Creativity and Problem-Solving : Employees can think more freely and innovate by stepping out of the regular office environment and engaging in creative challenges. Team building activities that encourage creative thinking can lead to novel solutions to business challenges.
Fosters Trust and Collaboration : Participating in trust-building activities enhances the sense of reliability and dependability among team members.
Identifies Leadership Qualities : Team building exercises can reveal natural team leaders and highlight diverse leadership styles. Understanding these dynamics can aid in talent development and succession planning.
Encourages Adaptability and Flexibility : Facing new and unexpected challenges together helps teams learn to adapt and be flexible. These qualities are essential for navigating the fast-paced and ever-changing business landscape.
Improves Employee Retention : Companies that invest in team building show their commitment to providing a supportive and engaging work environment. This attracts top talent and plays a significant role in retaining them.

25 Best Team-Building Activities in the Workplace

The right mix of team-building strategies and activities can transform individual employees into a unified force. However, it's all about quality—not quantity.

Below, we've highlighted plenty of diverse team-building ideas, but don't feel obligated to use them all. Each will work better for different team dynamics, industries, ages, and personalities.

For example, one activity might work better for a marketing team, while another might be suited for a virtual team.

Choose the ones you think will resonate best with your team, and don't be afraid to repeat one that performs above expectations.

1. Escape Room Challenge

Escape rooms require a group to work together under pressure, solve puzzles, and decipher clues to achieve a common goal: escaping the room. This activity tests and strengthens problem-solving skills, encourages communication, and fosters teamwork in a fun, high-stakes environment.

Employees must rely on other team members' strengths and collaborate closely, mirroring the dynamics of collaborative tasks needed in workplace projects.

2. Office Olympics

Office Olympics (inspired by Jim from The Office ) is a series of competitive events tailored to the office environment. These activities get everyone involved and laughing, from chair races and paper plane contests to trivia challenges. It's a great way to introduce new team members to the whole company culture .

Here is a list of fun ideas:

Chair Relay Race: Teams compete to push their office chairs across a designated course, passing a baton or office supplies between teammates.
Paper Plane Contest : Participants craft paper airplanes and compete to see whose plane can fly the farthest or perform the best tricks.
Office Trivia Challenge: Teams answer questions about company history, colleagues' quirks, and industry knowledge to earn points.
Desk Decorating Contest: Employees decorate their desks or cubicles according to a theme, and judges select the most creative or themed setup.
Rubber Band Archery: Using rubber bands and makeshift bows, participants aim to hit targets placed around the office.
Keyboard Typing Speed Challenge: Participants compete to see who can type a passage or set of words the fastest with minimal errors.

It's an excellent opportunity for employees to bond over shared fun, celebrate victories, and learn to support one another in losses, boosting morale and fostering team cohesion. Plus, it requires little to no recognition budget .

3. Cooking Challenges

Whether it's a potluck where everyone brings a dish to share or a cooking competition where teams create culinary delights, food has a unique way of bringing people together. Here are some cooking challenges to consider:

Mystery Ingredient Challenge: Contestants are given a mystery ingredient and tasked with creating a dish using it as the star ingredient.
Budget Battle: Contestants are given a strict budget and must create a gourmet meal within that limit.
Cultural Fusion Challenge: Contestants must combine two or more cuisines into one cohesive dish.
One-Pot Wonder: Contestants must create a delicious meal using only one pot or pan.
Speed Cooking Challenge: Contestants have limited time to prepare and cook a dish.
Vegan/Vegetarian Challenge: Contestants must create a flavorful dish without using any animal products.

These activities allow team members to connect on a personal level, share stories, and discover common interests, all of which contribute to a stronger, more cohesive team atmosphere.

4. Volunteer Day

Organize a day for the team to volunteer at a local charity or community project to strengthen team bonds through shared values and altruism. This will allow employees to see one another in a different light, fostering empathy and understanding.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

Habitat for Humanity: Spend the day volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, assisting in building affordable housing for families in need. Tasks may include painting, landscaping, or construction work.
Community Clean-Up: Organize a team for a local park clean-up or neighborhood beautification project. This could involve picking up litter, planting trees or flowers, or painting benches or fences.
Food Bank Volunteer Day: Spend time volunteering at a local food bank, sorting donations, packing food boxes, or assisting with distribution to families in need.
Animal Shelter Assistance: Volunteer as a team at an animal shelter, helping to care for animals, clean kennels or cages, walk dogs, or assist with adoption events.
Senior Center Visits: Plan a visit to a local senior center to spend time with elderly residents. Activities could include playing games, reading to residents, or simply engaging in conversation and companionship.
Homeless Shelter Support: Volunteer at a homeless shelter, assisting with meal preparation and service, organizing donations, or participating in outreach efforts to support individuals experiencing homelessness.

5. Workshops

Host workshops to help your team focus on professional development or creative skills. Whether you bring in an expert for a leadership seminar, a creative writing workshop, or a coding boot camp, these team development activities challenge employees to learn and grow together.

Here are some ideas for team identity -building workshops:

Leadership and Management Training: Invite a professional leadership coach or consultant to conduct a workshop on leadership skills, effective communication, conflict resolution, and team management techniques.
Creative Writing Workshop: Bring in a published author or experienced writer to lead a workshop on storytelling, creative writing techniques, and effectively communicating ideas through written expression.
Coding Boot Camp: Organize a coding boot camp led by experienced developers to teach team members coding fundamentals, programming languages, and web development skills.
Design Thinking Workshop: Host a design thinking workshop facilitated by a design expert to teach employees problem-solving methodologies, empathy-driven design, and innovative approaches to product development.
Public Speaking and Presentation Skills: Offer a workshop focused on improving public speaking and presentation skills, including techniques for overcoming stage fright, delivering engaging presentations, and crafting compelling messages.

6. "Shark Tank" Pitch Session

Inspired by the popular TV show, a "Shark Tank" pitch session encourages teams to develop innovative ideas for new products, services, or solutions that could benefit the company. Teams work together to flesh out their ideas and then present them to a panel of "sharks" (who could include company leaders or external experts).

This activity fosters creativity, team cohesion, strategic thinking, and persuasive communication skills while also giving employees a platform to influence the company's direction. It's an engaging way to cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit and highlight the value of diverse ideas within the team.

7. Team Lunch or Dinner

A team lunch or dinner is a classic yet practical team-building activity that brings everyone together in a relaxed, social setting. Whether it's at a favorite local restaurant, a scenic outdoor picnic, or a catered meal in the office, sharing a meal provides a unique opportunity for team members to bond over food and conversation.

Keep it informal and relaxing.

This setting allows individuals to connect on a personal level, discover common interests, and share stories beyond the scope of work tasks. It's a simple yet powerful way to foster camaraderie, boost morale, and create a sense of belonging within the entire group or team.

8. Scavenger Hunt

You can do this in the office or even outside. Hide objects or clues, and task different teams together to find them based on riddles or hints. It's an excellent exercise for breaking down hierarchical barriers and encouraging cross-departmental collaboration.

9. Sporting Event

Attending a sporting event together as a team offers a thrilling and unifying experience outside the office. Whether it's cheering for a local sports team, participating in a charity run, or even competing in a friendly match against another department, the spirit of friendly competition and teamwork at sporting events is contagious.

10. Obstacle Courses

An obstacle course challenge tests teamwork, physical fitness, and problem-solving skills. From climbing walls and crawling through tunnels to balancing beams and rope swings, obstacle courses require participants to support and rely on each other to navigate each challenge successfully.

11. Group Art Project

A group art project invites team members to collaborate on a creative piece, such as a mural, a large canvas painting, or a digital art installation. This activity allows individuals to express themselves creatively while contributing to a collective masterpiece.

The finished artwork can be displayed in the workplace as a lasting reminder of what the team can accomplish together.

12. Cultural Exchange

Cultural exchange days celebrate team members' diversity through sharing and learning about different cultures, traditions, and experiences. Employees can bring in food, music, art, or stories from their cultural heritage to share with the team.

RELATED: Cultural Diversity in The Workplace: What it is, Why it’s Important, and How to Get Started

13. "Two Truths and a Lie" Ice Breaker

"Two Truths and a Lie" is a classic ice breaker that provides insight into the lives and experiences of team members in an engaging and often humorous way. Each person shares two true statements about themselves and one false statement, with the rest of the team guessing which is the lie.

This simple game can reveal surprising facts about colleagues, breaking down barriers and fostering a closer, more personal connection among team members. It's an excellent way to start meetings or team-building sessions on a light-hearted note.

14. Human Knot

Team members stand in a circle, reach across to hold hands with someone across from them, and then work together to untangle the entire team without releasing their hands. The objective is to form a complete circle again, navigating through the twists and turns created by the intertwined participants.

This activity requires patience, strategy, and a lot of laughs, as team members must communicate effectively and collaborate closely to find solutions. It's an excellent metaphor for workplace challenges, highlighting the importance of working together to overcome obstacles.

It's better for an established team that's a bit more comfortable with each other, though.

15. Silent Line-Up

The Silent Line-Up is a thought-provoking activity that challenges team members to arrange themselves in order without speaking. The criteria can vary from birthdays to tenure at the company. This exercise requires participants to find creative, non-verbal ways to communicate and collaborate, highlighting the importance of non-verbal cues in teamwork.

It's one of many fun team building activities that are an inclusive way to break the ice and foster a deeper understanding among team members.

16. Team Book Club

Launching a team book club offers a unique way to stimulate intellectual discussions and personal growth within your group. Choose books related to professional development, industry trends, or compelling fiction.

Don't make it too stuffy. Your book club should focus on fun (not homework). Book clubs can also be perfect for connecting remote teams.

17. Outdoor Adventure Challenge

Activities like hiking, rafting, or obstacle courses offer a healthy dose of adrenaline and opportunities for team members to support and motivate each other in different settings.

It's an effective way to refresh and energize your team.

18. Innovation Hackathon

Organize an innovation hackathon where team members collaborate intensively to solve a company-related challenge or explore new project ideas. This time-boxed event encourages creativity, rapid problem-solving, and cross-functional teamwork.

Hackathons are not only for tech companies—they can be adapted to any industry with challenges that require fresh, innovative solutions.

19. Wellness Challenges

Initiate health and wellness challenges to encourage a healthy lifestyle among team members while fostering a sense of camaraderie. Challenges can range from daily step competitions and mindfulness weeks to healthy eating challenges.

Need help getting started? Check out Terryberry's step challenge —a commitment-free step challenge app designed to engage your employees.

20. Charity Fundraising Competitions

Organize charity fundraising competitions where teams compete to raise money for their chosen causes. This can involve creative challenges, sponsored events, or community service projects. These competitions promote both teamwork skills and social responsibility and also create a positive impact beyond the workplace.

21. "Lunch and Learn" Sessions

"Lunch and Learn" training sessions offer a casual, inclusive setting for team members to share knowledge or learn about various topics over lunch. These can range from professional development topics and personal hobbies to insights about different departments within the company.

It's an excellent way to foster an organizational culture of learning and curiosity while providing a platform for team members to showcase their expertise or interests. It's also an easy way to engage a remote team.

22. Cross-Departmental Shadowing

Cross-departmental shadowing programs allow employees to spend time in different parts of the organization, gaining insight into the diverse functions and challenges their colleagues face.

It's a powerful way to break down silos, spark new ideas for efficiency and innovation, and strengthen the organizational network.

23. Talent Showcases

Organize talent showcases where employees can share their non-work-related skills and passions, from music and dance to photography and painting.

It's an uplifting, entertaining and fun way to encourage self-expression and break away from the routine, boosting morale and fostering a culture where people feel valued for who they are beyond their professional roles.

24. Mystery Dinner Nights

Mystery Dinner Nights are a unique team-building activity in which employees sign up and receive details about where and with whom they will have dinner, only a few hours beforehand. These dinners can take place in restaurants, at someone's home, or in unusual locations, and they involve participants from different departments who may not interact daily.

It's designed to mix socializing with networking, encouraging employees to build new team relationships across the company in a relaxed, enjoyable setting.

25. Company Retreats

These retreats mix team-building exercises with strategic planning sessions, creating a conducive environment for reflection, discussion, and alignment.

The goal is to get employees together in a new place to relax and make new connections. It also opens opportunities to align the team's strengths with the company's longer-term goals and strategies.

Best Practices for Pulling Off Great Team-Building Exercises

Successful team-building events don't just happen—they're planned. You'll need to closely evaluate your options, understand your team's dynamics, set clear objectives, and build the activity.

Here are some best practices for pulling off great team-building events:

Conduct Surveys : Before planning, gather insights into what your team enjoys, their interests, and any specific areas they feel need improvement within the team dynamics.
Diverse Activities : Choose activities that cater to various preferences and abilities, ensuring everyone can participate, feel included, and bring enthusiastic team spirit.
Define Goals : Be clear about what you want to achieve with the team-building event, whether it's improving communication, boosting morale, or fostering creativity.
Communicate Purpose : Ensure participants understand the purpose of the event and how it relates to their work or personal development.
Timing and Location : Select a date and venue that minimizes disruptions to work schedules and is accessible to all team members. Consider remote or hybrid options if necessary.
Budget Accordingly : Allocate a budget that allows for a quality event without financial strain. Effective team building doesn't have to be expensive but should provide value.
Accessibility : Make sure the activities and location are accessible to everyone, taking into account any physical disabilities or dietary restrictions.
Encourage Participation : Create an atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable and motivated to participate without pressure.
Guidance : Provide clear instructions and support throughout the activities to keep everyone engaged and on track.
Feedback : Encourage open dialogue during and after the event to share insights, experiences, and suggestions for future activities.
Reflection : Debrief after activities to discuss what was learned and how it can be applied in the workplace.
Continuity : Integrate the outcomes of team-building events into everyday work life to maintain momentum and apply the positive changes observed.

How to Team Build Without Activities

Team building extends beyond organized activities and events. It should be part of your daily work, communications, and team culture.

It's about how team members feel valued, supported, and connected in their everyday work lives.

Here's how to team build without relying solely on activities:

Foster a Culture of Recognition

Recognition is a powerful tool for building team spirit and unity. Regularly acknowledging individual and team achievements (big or small) contributes to a positive work environment where employees feel valued and supported.

Terryberry's recognition and rewards platforms offer customizable solutions to celebrate milestones, achievements, and everyday contributions effectively.

Implement Continuous Peer Feedback

Constructive peer feedback provides opportunities for personal and interpersonal relationships and professional development within the team. It encourages open communication and mutual respect.

Terryberry's Recognition Platform facilitates seamless peer-to-peer feedback, allowing your team members to recognize each other's efforts, offer constructive criticism, and celebrate successes together.

Encourage Open Communication

Encourage an open environment where team members feel comfortable sharing ideas, concerns, and feedback. Regular team meetings, open-door policies, and transparent communication channels can help maintain a sense of inclusivity and trust.

Support Work-Life Balance

Respecting work-life boundaries, offering flexible work arrangements, and encouraging time off when needed shows that you value them as individuals, not just as workers.

This approach can increase loyalty, morale, and a stronger sense of belonging to the team and the company.

Build Better Teams with Terryberry

Team building isn't just a series of one-off activities—it's a culture and a mindset focused on creating stronger, more connected teams. However, creating and maintaining this environment requires more than just intention.

You'll need the right mix of tools and support, and that's where we can help.

Terryberry's comprehensive suite of recognition and employee engagement solutions helps you build better teams that are engaged, motivated, and aligned with your company's values and goals:

Customizable Recognition Programs : Celebrate achievements, milestones, and everyday efforts with programs tailored to your team's unique culture and objectives.
360 Feedback Platform : Facilitate continuous improvement and open communication with a platform that encourages peer-to-peer feedback and recognition.
Rewards and Incentives : Motivate and reward your team with a diverse selection of meaningful rewards, from personalized gifts to experiences that resonate with each team member.
Engagement Surveys : Measure and understand your team's engagement levels with surveys that provide actionable insights to help you focus your team-building efforts where they're needed most.

We understand that building and sustaining a dynamic team is an ongoing journey. Our mission is to provide you with the tools and support to help your team feel recognized, valued, and connected every step of the way.

Ready to elevate your team-building strategy and foster a team culture of recognition and engagement? Schedule a demo with Terryberry today and discover how our solutions can help you build better teams.

Frequently Asked Questions

The four main types of team-building activities focus on different aspects of teamwork and can be chosen based on your team's specific needs:

Communication-Focused Activities: These activities aim to improve communication skills and collaboration within the team. Examples include problem-solving challenges where team members need to exchange information effectively, or back-to-back drawing exercises where clear communication is essential to achieve a shared goal.

Trust-Building Activities: These activities help build trust and rapport among team members. Examples include blindfolded trust walks, where one team member guides another who is blindfolded, or team initiative games that require physical or emotional support from teammates.

Problem-Solving Activities: These activities challenge teams to work together creatively to solve problems. Examples include escape rooms, scavenger hunts with cryptic clues, or building challenges with limited materials.

Decision-Making Activities: These activities focus on developing effective decision-making processes within the team. Examples include simulations where the team faces a complex scenario and needs to reach a consensus, or role-playing exercises that involve negotiation and compromise.

The 7 C's of team building, developed by Salas and Tannenbaum, are a framework for understanding the key factors that contribute to successful teamwork. Here's a breakdown of each "C" and its significance:

Capability: This refers to the skills, knowledge, and experience that individual team members bring to the table. A team needs to have the right people with the right capabilities to achieve its goals.

Cooperation: This focuses on the willingness and positive attitude of team members to work together effectively. Cooperation involves mutual support, respect, and a shared commitment to the team's success.

Coordination: This refers to how well team members organize their efforts and work together seamlessly. Good coordination ensures tasks are completed efficiently and avoid duplication or wasted effort.

Communication: Effective communication is the lifeblood of any team. It involves clear exchange of information, ideas, and feedback among team members, fostering a shared understanding and smooth collaboration.

Cognition: This refers to the team's shared mental model of the task, goals, and strategies. A strong cognitive foundation ensures everyone is on the same page and understands their roles within the bigger picture.

Coaching: Effective leadership and coaching are crucial for team development. This involves providing guidance, support, and feedback to help team members grow individually and collectively.

Conditions: This refers to the external environment that influences the team's ability to function effectively. This includes factors like resources, tools, work environment, and company culture. Supportive conditions can empower the team to perform at its best.

By focusing on these seven C's, teams can build a strong foundation for success. Remember, these factors are interrelated and work together to create a high-performing and collaborative team.

There are four key characteristics that most successful teams share:

Clear Goals and Purpose: A strong team needs a shared understanding of what they're working towards. This includes clear goals, a well-defined mission, and a sense of purpose that motivates and inspires team members. Everyone should understand how their individual contributions fit into the bigger picture.

Effective Communication: Open, honest, and transparent communication is essential for any team to function well. Team members should feel comfortable sharing ideas, expressing concerns, and providing constructive feedback. This fosters collaboration, trust, and problem-solving.

Mutual Trust and Respect: Team members need to trust and respect each other's skills, knowledge, and perspectives. This creates a safe space for open communication, collaboration, and healthy debate. Trust also allows team members to rely on each other and hold one another accountable.

Complementary Skills and Strengths: A well-rounded team benefits from a diverse range of skills and strengths. Team members don't need to be identical, but their strengths should complement one another. This allows the team to tackle challenges from different angles and find innovative solutions.

A number of factors can contribute to an ineffective team. Here are some of the common pitfalls:

Lack of Clarity: Without clear goals, roles, and expectations, team members become unsure of what they're supposed to do and how their work contributes to the bigger picture. This leads to confusion, wasted effort, and a lack of focus.

Poor Communication: Ineffective communication is a major roadblock to teamwork. If team members don't communicate clearly and openly, misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and frustration can arise. This hinders collaboration and progress.

Unhealthy Conflict: While some debate and disagreement can be healthy, unresolved conflict or a lack of conflict resolution skills can be very damaging. It can create a tense and unproductive work environment and hinder collaboration.

Absence of Trust: If team members don't trust each other, they're less likely to cooperate, share information openly, or hold each other accountable. This fosters a sense of isolation and weakens the team's overall effectiveness.

Lack of Accountability: If team members aren't held accountable for their work, it can lead to a lack of motivation and a decrease in overall performance. People may not put in their best effort or meet deadlines, impacting the team's ability to deliver results.

Insufficient Resources: Teams need the necessary resources, tools, and support to do their jobs effectively. A lack of resources can hinder their ability to complete tasks, solve problems, and achieve their goals.

Unproductive Leadership: Ineffective leadership can seriously hamper a team. A leader who lacks direction, doesn't provide clear guidance, or fails to motivate and support the team can contribute significantly to its ineffectiveness.

Disengagement: Team members who are unmotivated, lack a sense of purpose, or don't feel valued are less likely to be fully engaged in their work. This can lead to a lack of effort, poor quality work, and a higher turnover rate.

By addressing these weaknesses and fostering a culture of collaboration, clear communication, and mutual respect, teams can overcome these challenges and become more effective in achieving their goals.

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30+ Outdoor Team Building Activities To Help Employees Recharge

It’s that time of year again when the warm weather reminds us how great it is to be alive. But between busy personal lives and the eight hours a day, five days a week spent inside the workplace, it can be difficult for employees to actually get outside and enjoy the sunlight.

As spring makes way for summer skies, it’s the perfect time for leaders to step in and help their employees get outside the office to participate in outdoor teamwork activities. Not only does being in nature improve physical and mental wellness, but it can also help “ boost creativity and problem-solving abilities ,” according to UC Davis Health. Meanwhile, team building events provide a crucial opportunity for members to form lasting bonds that foster a tight-knit work community and facilitate better collaboration and communication skills.

To help companies take advantage of the warmer weather and the great outdoors, we’ve put together a comprehensive list of team building activities. We based each activity on one of the 6 pillars of holistic wellness:

Physical Wellbeing
Mental Wellbeing
Social Wellbeing
Financial Wellbeing
Occupational Wellbeing

Without further ado, here are our 36 wellness challenges to help employees recharge and rejuvenate this summer:

Physical Health

1. Find a Workout Buddy

The Workout Buddy challenge is a great place to start for all employees—it involves working out with another person 10 times in a month. Employees can choose a friend, a family member, or an equally motivated co-worker.

The key to success with this challenge is planning: It can be difficult for people to coordinate work out times, let alone 10 different times in a 30-day period. Have each employee work with their partners to plan out the entire month of workouts in advance for this challenge.

They should compare schedules with their “workout buddies” and carve out time in their calendars. As the weather gets nicer, encourage them to get some fresh air with an outdoor activity on nice days.

2. Practice Outdoor Yoga

Outdoor yoga sessions are a fun activity that provides an excellent way for team members to unwind and refocus. Employers can organize yoga classes in a peaceful outdoor space like a local park or garden, with sessions tailored to all levels, from beginners to regular practitioners.

Not only does this promote physical wellness by improving flexibility and core strength, but it also aids in mental relaxation and mindfulness. Incorporating regular outdoor yoga as a team building activity can help reduce workplace stress and boost overall morale.

3. Hike Some Local Trails

Hiking is the perfect outdoor activity to help teams reconnect with nature. It’s a great cardiovascular exercise that can invigorate the body and the mind, giving employees the chance to explore the natural environment around them.

In addition to the physical activity, hiking provides a breath of fresh air and an informal platform for conversations. This can help the team bond on an individual level, while simultaneously improving mood and increasing energy levels.

4. Group Geocaching

Geocaching is another fun way to get team members outside. This activity blends hiking with treasure hunting, using GPS devices to help employees search for geocaches—small, waterproof containers hidden in publicly accessible places.

But the fun doesn’t stop at finding the geocache. Once the team opens it up, they’re often met with a registry of past finders and small items or tokens left behind. They’re encouraged to write their own names and exchange the token for one of their own. This team activity requires problem-solving, navigation and communication skills, making it an exciting challenge and a memorable adventure.

5. Compete in a Relay Race

Looking for something a little more competitive? A relay race is a great way to ignite team spirit and foster friendly competition. Whether it’s a series of fun challenges or a full-on obstacle course, this team building event requires not just speed but coordination, strategy and team collaboration.

Each team member’s performance impacts the collective result, so the relay aspect really emphasizes the importance of teamwork and collective effort. This dynamic encourages effective communication and collaboration, strengthening each employee’s ability to work under pressure.

6. Go for a Bike Ride

Cycling is an excellent aerobic workout that can improve physical health without the consequences of high-impact activities like running. It’s also an eco-friendly activity that’s easy to scale in intensity based on different employees’ fitness levels.

Organizing a group bike ride at a shared pace offers ample opportunities for team bonding over shared experiences and beautiful views. Whether the route follows bike paths through a city or across country roads, cycling is the perfect way to take in the scenery and discover new places.

Mental Health

1. Take a Mindful Nature Walk

Going for a walk in nature can be great for mental health, from the fresh air and sounds of animals and leaves to the vibrant greenery and blue skies of summer. A mindfulness walk takes this to the next level, challenging employees to pay attention to their surroundings.

For this outdoor team activity, choose a scenic trail and have participants go for a walk, paying special attention to unique or interesting aspects of the environment. This might take the form of an “I Spy” game or just quiet moments of appreciation.

2. Journal Outside

Employees who are taking advantage of health coaching services or working with a mental health counselor may already keep a gratitude journal or have some way of writing down their thoughts. If not, summer is a great time to start.

Encourage employees to keep a journal for 20 days. For inspiration, tell them to head outside to write for a quick break during the day or make it part of their morning ritual. Either way, this is their time to reflect on their feelings so they can approach each new day with empathy and a sense of purpose.

3. Outdoor Art Therapy

Harness the healing power of nature and creative expression with outdoor art therapy sessions. Employers can set up stations in a calm, inspiring outdoor space, where employees can engage in painting, sculpting, or drawing.

Using art as a way to reflect on personal or professional goals, challenges or successes not only fosters creativity, but it also allows for emotional self-expression through non-verbal means. This can be particularly beneficial for those who find it difficult to articulate their feelings through words.

4. Join or Start a Community Garden

Community gardens provide a fantastic opportunity for team building while promoting sustainability and environmental responsibility. While there are plenty of pre-existing gardens that companies can join, they can also start their own closer to work.

Employers can split teams into smaller groups to divide the responsibilities of designing, planning and maintaining different sections of the garden. Employees can watch their plants grow over time and harvest the fruits, vegetables and herbs for a group meal and/or contribute to a local food bank.

5. Try a Silent Hike

We talked about how hiking can be a fun way to foster informal conversations, but it can also be a great opportunity for quiet reflection and mindful listening . A silent hike discourages talking, focusing instead on the experience of being fully immersed in nature.

On a silent hike, participants are encouraged to clear their minds and listen to the sounds around them, from birds chirping to the leaves rustling in the breeze. This is a great outdoor activity to reduce stress and deepen our connection with the natural world.

6. Company Camping Trip

A company camping trip can serve as an extended outdoor team building event. Whether at a retreat or on a campground, this activity deepens team bonds and develops skills.

Employees can engage in outdoor activities like setting up tents, cooking meals over a fire, hiking during the day, and stargazing at night. Camping trips also allow employees to open up and share personal stories or experiences, fostering a greater sense of community and connection to nature.

Social Wellness

1. Outdoor Grill-Off

What better way is there to spark some friendly competition and conversation than with an outdoor grill-off? This activity encourages creativity and teamwork while serving a delicious excuse to bond with team members.

Judges can be appointed to taste and score dishes or leave it up to a democratic vote. The goal is to enjoy the beautiful weather and give employees a chance to show off their cooking skills. Plus, food is a surefire way to boost employee engagement.

2. Potluck Picnic

Speaking of food, potlucks are a party favorite. Each department or team member can bring a dish, encouraging cultural exchange and culinary diversity, as employees can bring dishes that represent their heritage or personal favorites.

Besides enjoying a variety of foods, this outdoor event fosters community spirit and relaxation. Employees can even set up games and other activities to engage in after or between eating.

3. What About Wine or Beer Tasting?

If employees need something to wash down all that delicious food, a wine or beer tasting could be the perfect way to socialize outside of the office. Collaborate with local wineries or breweries to provide a selection of drinks, and perhaps invite a sommelier or brewmaster to discuss the nuances of each beverage.

This sophisticated activity can be an educational experience for employees, but it’s also all about the informal interactions and discussions among team members.

4. Outdoor Game Night

Take the traditional game night to the great outdoors with this refreshing twist. Employers can set up various stations with board games, card games, and physical activities like giant Jenga or a bean bag toss.

As employees rotate through stations, they might spark a friendly competition or discussion. This is a great way to break the ice for new team members and deepen existing bonds among all employees.

5. Try a Survival Challenge

For something a bit more involved, employers can try setting up a survival challenge that requires teams to use their problem-solving skills and creativity to complete tasks such as building a shelter or starting a fire.

These physically and mentally demanding activities are designed to push teams out of their comfort zones, building effective communication, leadership, and teamwork skills along the way. Given the nature of these challenges, employers could incorporate these activities into a group camping trip.

6. Host a Scavenger Hunt

To make the most of the outdoors, employers can create an elaborate scavenger hunt that takes teams across different areas of a local park or other outdoor area. Splitting teams into smaller groups is a great way to add an element of friendly competition.

As they solve problems and discover objects based on clues, employees will be building important skills and lasting bonds with each other.

Financial Wellness

1. Budgeting Bootcamp

Host a “Budgeting Bootcamp” to empower team members with financial skills that extend beyond the workplace. This hands-on workshop can be held in a relaxed outdoor setting, where teams can learn about creating effective personal and household budgets. To further test these skills, they can also create mock budgets based on hypothetical scenarios.

Introduce practical tips, tools and apps that can help with tracking expenses and planning savings. Group discussions can also highlight different budgeting techniques, reducing financial stress and improving overall wellbeing.

2. Good Plan

The rise of the digital world has been a double-edged sword.

The good news is that even remote workplaces can host engaging virtual team building activities. The not-so-good news is that we all do a lot more online shopping and wholesale opting in on subscription “deals.” And the buyers’/subscribers’ remorse is real.

The Good Plan challenge helps employees tighten their purse strings and make sure they’re spending money wisely. That includes reviewing utility bills, online subscriptions, and services they may not need. They may discover hundreds of dollars in savings every year—or more.

3. Investment Strategy Game

To further transform financial education into a fun activity, employers can set up an “Investment Strategy Game.” This outdoor game consists of stations representing different investment options, such as stocks, bonds, real estate, and mutual funds.

Teams can move from station to station making investment decisions based on given scenarios while managing a hypothetical portfolio. Along the way, they’ll encounter market changes and economic news updates affecting their investments. This kind of game teaches the fundamentals of investing, the importance of diversification, and the impact of market dynamics—all in a low-risk, interactive environment.

4. Offer Debt Education

Similarly, employers can create an outdoor workshop focusing on debt management education. This could be another series of stations, each addressing different types of debt, from credit cards and student loans to mortgages and more.

Incorporating role-playing activities where employees make decisions on managing and prioritizing debt reduction can drive home the lessons. However, there’s always room for discussions on strategies to avoid or reduce debt, including negotiating with creditors, refinancing options, and consolidating debt.

5. Retirement Planning Workshop

A retirement planning workshop would bring in financial experts to discuss topics such as retirement savings accounts, the benefits of early investments, and how to plan for different retirement goals.

Using interactive activities like retirement scenario planning games can allow participants to make financial decisions and understand the potential long-term outcomes. The goal is to motivate employees to proactively plan for their retirement, ensuring they are financially secure and well-prepared for the future.

6. Solve the Insurance Policy Puzzle

Insurance policies can often be confusing, which is why this is such a crucial area of financial education for employees. A workshop on understanding various insurance policies—from health and auto to life and home insurance—can help employees determine the best choices based on various life scenarios.

Using real-life examples and challenging teams to find the most cost-effective and comprehensive coverage solutions demystifies insurance options, encouraging informed decision-making about personal and family financial protection.

Occupational Wellness

1. Take a Break—Grab a Coffee

Encourage or schedule break times for employees to step outside during the day for a quick coffee break. They can disperse into smaller groups to walk and talk on their way to a nearby cafe. This activity offers a refreshing change of pace and scenery throughout the day, plus employees can get their favorite coffee to push past any drowsiness.

These breaks are perfect for promoting casual conversations that aren’t about work, fostering relationships, and reducing stress. Employers can also provide discussion prompts on topics like wellness or personal development to further enrich these breaks.

2. Mail Hold

For those who work from home, the office is always open. That perpetual accessibility to work, combined with a constantly escalating news feed has left employees overwhelmed and burned out .

For this challenge, have employees set a cutoff time for checking emails. They can replace those evenings of email-reading with social get-togethers, physical exercise, or just being outside. Their success should be based on how well they stick to it. It’s spring after all!

Make sure management is on board, so employees aren’t penalized for not being responsive 24/7. (The managers themselves would likely benefit from setting some email boundaries as well.)

3. Walkie-Talkie Meetings

Transform routine meetings by taking them outside. The walkie-talkie meeting is perfect for a small team to walk and talk through scenic paths or local parks, either in person or using their mobile phones. Not only do walkie-talkie meetings promote physical activity, but they also add an element of fun to what might otherwise be a mundane meeting.

The change of scenery can also inspire creativity and new ideas, and the physical movement is great for mental clarity. Walking meetings prove especially effective for brainstorming sessions or tackling complex problems.

4. Host an Outdoor Leadership Course

Why not get company leaders involved in an outdoor team activity? Set up a leadership course with various stations, each designed to tackle different leadership challenges, such as decision-making, trust exercises, and strategic planning. Facilitators can guide participants through different scenarios that require quick thinking and effective communication, mimicking real-world challenges leaders face.

This immersive experience not only strengthens leadership abilities but also helps build resilience and adaptability in a dynamic, hands-on environment.

5. Try a Skill Swap Day

A “Skill Swap Day” offers employees the chance to teach each other the skills they use regularly. Each participant can prepare a short session on something they’re skilled at, whether it’s a professional competency, a personal hobby, or a practical skill. This could range from digital workflow tips to yoga or photography.

Holding these sessions outdoors in a casual setting can make learning more enjoyable and engaging. Skill Swaps also encourage knowledge sharing and team bonding, while giving everyone a chance to shine in their area of expertise or passion.

6. Get Away From It All (on a Professional Development Retreat)

Looking to truly get away from the hustle and bustle of the workplace? Book a professional development retreat in a remote, tranquil location. Over a weekend or a few days, these retreats combine professional workshops with outdoor activities, such as hiking, meditation, or canoeing.

The focus should be on both skill development and mental health, featuring sessions on time management, work-life balance, and career growth. These retreats are perfect for deep reflection, redefining goals, and fostering a strong sense of community and shared purpose among employees—all while enjoying a refreshing change of scenery.

1. Create a Priority Plan

As the sun comes out and the weather gets warmer, this is a perfect time to channel summer energy and set some personal goals.

Encourage employees to discover the why behind their wellness journey and determine the areas they want to focus on during this time. The company can even benefit by understanding what its wellness program should look like in the years to come.

2. Group Volunteer Day

Take advantage of the warmer weather with an outdoor group volunteer day. Choose a local non-profit or community project where teams can contribute their time and effort to meaningful causes—whether it’s building homes, cleaning up a local park, or assisting at food banks.

This kind of outdoor activity is meant to foster a sense of purpose and community involvement among employees, strengthening team bonds through shared goals and the satisfaction of giving back. It’s an enriching experience that boosts morale, encourages empathy, and reinforces the company’s commitment to social responsibility.

3. Walk for a Cause

A Walk for a Cause is a fantastic way to combine physical exercise with purpose-driven activities. Have the team decide on an important cause and organize a sponsored walk where participants can raise funds through pledges per mile walked.

This type of outdoor event can be held on a scenic nature trail or through a park, allowing employees to soak in the sunshine and the beauty of the great outdoors. With each step forward, employees will feel a sense of accomplishment as they advance in their shared mission.

4. Go Out for a Conversation Day

Of course, there would be no enjoying nature without the tireless efforts of environmentalists. Dedicate a day for team members to contribute to environmental conservation efforts. This might involve activities such as participating in wildlife habitat restoration, river cleanups, or even invasive species removal.

Not only does conservation offer a hands-on way to help preserve our natural landscapes, but it also educates teams on environmental issues and the importance of sustainability. Plus, engaging in conservation work can instill a deep sense of connection, purpose, and responsibility, fostering a team spirit geared toward ecological stewardship.

5. Plant a Tree

In the same vein as conservation, a tree-planting event can be a great way for employees to contribute to environmental health with lasting benefits for the community. Dividing teams into smaller groups—each responsible for planting a certain number of trees—can turn this fun activity into a competitive game.

The more trees employees plant, the more carbon dioxide gets absorbed back into the environment. They also provide essential habitats for wildlife. Employees will leave with a renewed sense of purpose, nurturing a culture of care and resilience.

6. Educational Outreach

To help employees get further involved with the community, employers can develop educational outreach programs. Here, employees can engage with local schools or community centers to teach valuable skills, present career opportunities, or facilitate workshops on practical subjects they’ve learned, such as finance or health and wellness.

This initiative allows employees to use their expertise to benefit others. This instills a great sense of pride and purpose in their work, and it’s a great opportunity to strengthen community ties.

Want More Wellness Ideas?

Looking for more ways to customize your wellbeing program to your workforce’s needs? We’ve got you covered. Check out our free toolkit and checklist, “ Designing the Perfect-Fit Corporate Wellbeing Program .” Find out how WellRight can help you develop a personalized wellness program for your workplace.

Related Resources

5 Ways to Support Employee Mental Health in Summer

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17 Unbeatable Team Building Problem Solving Activities
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17 Unbeatable Team Building Problem Solving Activities
17 Fun Problem Solving Activities & Games [for Kids, Adults and Teens

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14 Brain-Boosting Problem Solving Group Activities For Teams
Jeopardy. Problem-solving activities such as Virtual Team Challenges offer a great way for teams to come together, collaborate, and develop creative solutions to complex problems. 2. Problem-Solving Templates. Problem-Solving Templates are popular problem-solving activities that involve a group of people working together to solve an issue.
Problem Solving Games, Activities & Exercises for Adults
4. Sudoku. Sudoku is one of the most popular free problem solving games for adults. The objective of this game is to fill each box of a 9×9 grid so that every row, column, and letter contains each number from one to nine. The puzzle makes a great team challenge. To play Sudoku on Zoom, screen share the game board.
Team Building Exercises
In this article, we'll look at three team-building exercises that you can use to improve problem solving and decision making in a new or established team. Exercises to Build Decision-Making and Problem-Solving Skills. Use the following exercises to help your team members solve problems and make decisions together more effectively.
Top 15 Problem-Solving Activities for Your Team to Master
3. Egg Drop. Helps with: Collaboration, decision-making. Why decision-making is important for problem-solving: Making decisions isn't easy, but indecision leads to team paralysis, stagnant thinking, and unsolved problems. Decision-making activities help your team practice making quick, effective choices.
Best 20 Problem-Solving Activities to Challenge Your Team
Quick and easy problem-solving activities 12. Unpuzzled (in-person, virtual, hybrid) Activity Focus Areas: Communication, reasoning, collaboration under time pressure. Objective: Unpuzzled is an engaging team-building game that combines problem-solving and trivia elements. The goal is for each team to work collaboratively to solve a series of puzzles and then unscramble them to uncover a meta ...
15 Team Building Problem Solving Activities
15 Problem-Solving Activities. 1. A Shrinking Vessel. Why adaptability is important for problem-solving: Adaptability is highly associated with cognitive diversity, which helps teams solve problems faster, according to the Harvard Business Review. Innovation and disruption are happening faster than ever before.
45 Team Building Games to Psych Up Your Team [2024] • Asana
Problem solving games. Playing problem solving games with your team helps them level up their teamwork skills, resolve issues, achieve goals, and excel together. Whether you're using new brainstorming techniques or going out for a team adventure, these fun team building activities are the perfect way to improve your team's problem solving skills.
17 team building problem-solving activities that actually work
Virtual team building problem-solving activities. If your team is working in a remote or hybrid setting and you're looking for some fun games that strengthen problem-solving skills, the following activities are a match. ‍ Related: The best team building software tools & apps. ‍ 7. Yes, and … Price: Free. Time: 5-15 minutes
13 Problem-Solving Activities & Exercises for Your Team
Here are nine easy-to-implement activities that can bring substantial change to your team culture and overall workplace dynamics. #1. Crossword Puzzles. Objective: To enhance problem-solving skills, vocabulary, and cognitive abilities through engaging crossword puzzles. Estimated Time: 15-20 Minutes. Materials Needed:
17 Team Building Problem Solving Activities & Exercises
There are a variety of different logic puzzles available online or in puzzle books. Logic puzzles are great for testing your team's critical thinking skills. Logic puzzles can be a great team-building activity as they require everyone to work together to find the solution. Activity #4. Word Association.
11 Problem Solving Activities That Will Blow Your Mind!
5. Wild Goose Chase. The Wild Goose Chase is an exciting and interactive team-building activity that combines the thrill of a scavenger hunt with the power of problem-solving and teamwork. In this smartphone-based adventure, teams explore the city and complete challenges by taking photos and videos.
9 Fun Team Problem-Solving Activities
9 Fun Team Problem-Solving Activities. Problem-solving is the ability to apply critical thinking skills to come up with a solution to a problem. Problems occur daily in the workplace and often, teams need to come up with solutions. The primary goal of problem-solving exercises is to learn how to work together. In this article, we share benefits ...
Fun Team-Building Problem-Solving Activities
Creative Problem-Solving Activities from Let's Roam. The experts at Let's Roam have carefully constructed a series of team-building activities that will help you to build stronger connections, increase productivity, and improve morale. These exercises can be used in the office, or virtually for remote teams, and focus on problem-solving, communication, collaboration, and more.
66 team building activities to bring your team together
Fun team building activities. In an increasingly stressful environment of deadlines and meetings, it's worth remembering the value of joy, play and simply have fun as a team. ... Team building games for problem solving. Teams often come together to solve collective problems as a group. Whether these are large projects or simply finding better ...
8 Best Problem-Solving Activities To Build A Successful Team
6. Blind Drawing. It is a fun problem-solving activity involving pairing team members up and having one person describe a picture. In contrast, the other person draws it without looking at it. A team with better communication, problem-solving, and active listening skills would outstand others.
14 Brain-Tickling Team Building Problems
simple team building activities; problem solving games; So, check out our list! List of team building problems. From Escape Rooms, to Frostbite, to Mission String-Possible, here is a list of some of the most challenging and engaging team building problems. ... We lead wildly fun experiences for teams with 1,000,000+ players to date. 4.96 / 5.0 ...
17 Fun Problem Solving Activities & Games [for Kids, Adults and Teens]
For this problem solving activity for older kids or teens, you will need four 2×6 boards. Divide your group into two teams with an equal number of children on each team. Place two of the four boards end to end on the ground or floor. Set the other two parallel to the first two about two or three feet apart.
13 Team Building Problem Solving Activities
The egg drop team building exercise, also known as 'Defend the Egg' is a problem solving skills game that involves building a structure out of random ordinary items such as masking tape, rubber bands, sticky notes, etc that will protect a raw egg from breaking when dropped from a high elevation. The goal is to have each team build a ...
13 Problem-Solving Games for Effective Team Building
13 fun problem-solving games for team building sessions. Here are some of the fun problem-solving games you can add to team building sessions: 1. The shrinking shape. The shrinking shape game encourages teams to work together and adapt to changing situations. Take a rope and make a shape with it on the floor that's large enough to fit every ...
35 Fun Team Building Activities
Problem-Solving Team Building Activities. Encouraging creative thinking and collaborative problem-solving is crucial for a team's success. The following activities aim to challenge and develop these skills, promoting a culture of innovation and adaptability within the team. ... Fun and Unique Team Building Activities. Here are some fun and ...
100+ Fun Virtual Team Building Activities to Boost Team Morale
Virtual team-building activities are fun games and exercises that help coworkers collaborate on a shared goal, no matter how remotely located. It helps you know each other and build relationships, fostering cohesiveness and creativity. ... Enhance problem-solving skills: Many virtual team-building activities require participants to work ...
18 high-impact virtual team building activities and games
18 virtual team building activities and games. This isn't academic theory or some stuff we just made up. This is how real remote teams have fun and stay connected. Building bonds between teammates is extra-important when you're in remote or hybrid mode, as a growing body of research confirms. Whether an activity is just for fun or helps ...
99 Five-Minute Team-Building Activities (Virtual)
65) X Or Y. "One of the best team-building activities can be playing virtual games like "X or Y.". It is one of the most appropriate activities to understand other people. It is a simple activity in which team members can select some choice questions like "dog or cat" or 'OTT or Cinema.'.
43 Best Team-Building Games and Activities for the Classroom
6. Hot Seat. This fun game is a lot like the game show Password. Split your class into two teams and have them sit together in teams facing the whiteboard or chalkboard. Then take an empty chair—one for each team—and put it at the front of the class, facing the team members. These chairs are the "hot seats.".
25 Best Team-Building Activities 2024
It's one of many fun team building activities that are an inclusive way to break the ice and foster a deeper understanding among team members. 16. Team Book Club. ... Problem-Solving Activities: These activities challenge teams to work together creatively to solve problems. Examples include escape rooms, scavenger hunts with cryptic clues, or ...
Team Building Activities for Work: Boosting Team Morale
It requires problem-solving skills, adaptability, and close coordination among the entire team. Problem-Solving Activities Murder-Mystery Game. ... The Gutterball Game is a fun team-building activity that promotes collaboration and communication skills. In this game, team members work together to roll a ball down a lane to knock down pins. ...
30+ Outdoor Team Building Activities To Help Employees Recharge
In addition to the physical activity, hiking provides a breath of fresh air and an informal platform for conversations. This can help the team bond on an individual level, while simultaneously improving mood and increasing energy levels. 4. Group Geocaching. Geocaching is another fun way to get team members outside.

14 Best Team Building Problem Solving Group Activities For 2024

What are the benefits of group problem-solving activities?

Popular Problem Solving Activities

2. Problem-Solving Templates

Problem Solving Group Activities & Games For Team Building

4. Crack The Case

5. Catch Meme If You Can

6. Puzzle Games

7. Virtual Code Break

8. Stranded

9. Letting Go Game

10. Wild Goose Chase

11. Human Knot

12. What Would You Do?

13. Crossing The River

14. End-Hunger Games

People Also Ask These Questions About Team Building Problem Solving Group Activities

Q: What kind of skills do group problem solving activities & games improve?

Q: What are problem solving based team building activities & games?

Q: What are some fun free problem solving games for groups?

Q: How do I choose the most effective problem solving exercise for my team?

Q: How do I know if my group problem solving activity was successful?

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Top 15 Problem-Solving Activities for Your Team to Master

The importance of problem-solving skills in today’s workplace

Classic team-building, problem-solving activities

2. Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower

3. Egg Drop

4. Stranded

Creative problem-solving activities

7. Frostbite

8. Minefield

9. Blind Formations

Quick and easy problem-solving activities

11. Reverse Pyramid

12. Move It!

13. Human Knot

14. Dumbest Idea First

15. What Would X Do

Additional resources on problem-solving activities

How to organize problem-solving activities with Wrike

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15 Team Building Problem Solving Activities

In this article you will find:

15 Problem-Solving Activities

2. Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower

3. Egg Drop

4. Stranded

7. Frostbite

8. Minefield