Staff meeting fun games
Then, tell them that this item is going to be their new product, and that they must come up with a name, logo, slogan, and marketing plan for that object. Give them a set amount of time. This could be done individually, or in small groups if desired. Discuss, as a group, which products were successfully sold and why.
Purpose: For marketing and design teams, this exercise presents the challenge of seeing old things in a new light.
When combined with groups working together to sell a common object, you introduce teamwork and crunch-time brainstorming. It promotes creativity and problem solving, too. Come up with several scenarios in which a person would be chosen to do something. For example, it might be a new job hire, marriage, leading an organization, or commanding an army. Have each team member write their question down.
When all scenarios have been covered, discuss the questions as a group and see what each team member thinks would be the perfect question. Purpose: Team members quickly learn how each other thinks differently. The perfect question that each comes up with will reflect their motives and what they think matters the most. This is an excellent way to lead into a discussion on how team members determine who is capable and who they will follow or trust.
Collect a variety of objects and put them in the center of a table. The broader the variety, the better e. The goal is to collect items that, at first glance, have no apparent connection. Break the team into groups, giving each group a sheet of paper and pen. Make sure they have a clear view of all the objects. Instruct them to classify the objects into four groups, writing down the groupings on their sheet of paper. They should not let the team groups hear what they are doing.
When the time is up, have a spokesperson for each group reveal how they classified the objects, and why. Reasons might vary, from the function of the object to how it looks, or the material it is made of. Purpose: This exercise promotes teamwork and creative thinking, but it also encourages your team to rethink how they view everyday objects.
They are forced to look for commonalities in otherwise unconnected objects. This leads to a discussion on how to work outside the box for solutions to problems that seem wholly unrelated. Bring in four objects or multiple sets of four objects of the same type e. Write up a conversational scenario for each set that outlines what the perfect item would be, in the order of preference.
While none of the four objects is an exact match, each have qualities that reflect that perfect list. Read this scenario to your team, and instruct them to order the objects from best fit to worst fit. When all object sets are done, have team members explain why they ordered the objects that way.
Purpose: This exercise helps your team break down a scenario or problem and figure out which things are the best fit. This dovetails directly into discussion on current projects or challenges facing the group, in which you can, as a group, write a scenario for an actual project you are working on and decide which solutions are the best fit.
Bring the team into the room, and divide evenly into groups of at least two. Tell them they have thirty minutes to come up with a group problem-solving challenge that would make use of: teamwork, creativity, communication. When the thirty minutes is complete, the team will choose from one of the problem-solving challenges and actually do the activity. A variation is to use all of the challenges over a period of time so that your team-building activities come directly from your team itself.
Purpose: This team building exercise puts leadership responsibilities back on your team, showing them that they have the potential to come up with solutions, too. It also gives your team a chance to challenge other team members in ways they might not otherwise find the opportunity to do so in regular workday activity. Bring your team in for what they think is just another staff meeting. Have a long document filled with mind-numbing but coherent jargon-filled speech that talks vaguely about sales and marketing goals.
Sprinkled in the document are sentences which say something else entirely. These sentences should contain instructions or information that they will be quizzed on after you are finished. Begin reading it to your team in monotone. The goal is to get them to tune you out.
When you are finished, hand out paper to each team member. Then, ask them to write down what they thought you talked about. If your real sentences contained random information, quiz them on that. Discuss who heard what, and see who was able to actively listen.
It shows the importance of listening to verbal communication, but also non-verbal communication. They can discuss why they tuned you out, and what you could have done to keep them tuned in. Create a card deck that has images or words related to your company or brand. It might be logos, products, photos of your team, and so on. Whatever route you go, keep the images related. For example, use all photos of your team, or all photos of your products.
Divide up into teams and see which team can match the most pairs in the least amount of time. You might set additional rules, such as requiring the name of the person to be said aloud when the card is flipped over, or some other related bit of information connected to the image on the card.
Purpose: To learn the names, information, and visuals associated with your company. This is particularly effective if you have a lot of new team members and you want everyone to learn their name and something about them.
Teams can get a point for matching up cards, but they can get two points if they choose to successfully debate and argue why the two cards the turned over are associated. If the majority of the room agrees with their reasoning, they receive the points. If not, they lose a point. It also forces them to decide what is worth debating or not, as well as whether or not someone has provided a good argument.
Place the name stickers in a container, and have each team member draw a name sticker out without being able to see the adjective. Have them stick the name tag on their shirt and wear it for a specific period of time, instructing them that all of their responses and interaction for that time must reflect the adjective on their name tag. You can use this in several ways. Your team could wear them during a typical meeting or brainstorming session to show how good and bad attitudes affect outcomes.
They could wear them for a typical work day and then discuss how they felt. Or, you could have them wear a name tag half of the day, and switch with someone for the second half. If they switch name tags, they will see how behavior and action often defines feeling, and not the other way around. Give each team member a piece of paper. Learn more about Online Office Games. One of our most popular online team building games is Murder in Ancient Egypt.
This game uses mechanics of escape rooms, puzzles and problem solving and so encourages your team to work together. This murder mystery also has an interesting twist; the murder is actually a real mystery from ancient Egypt, and after your teams make their guess, our master storytelling will share the big reveal.
Murder in Ancient Egypt is a 90 minute, fully-facilitated event. We provide an energetic host to keep your team engaged, and a co-host that manages the technical aspects.
The event is fun, challenging and perfect for groups that want to work both collaboratively and competitively. Learn more about Murder in Ancient Egypt. War of the Wizards is a collaborative storytelling game of wisdom and magic.
The story goes that a group of wizards have been at war since ages past, and no-one even quite remembers why. For example, you may develop a strategy to leap over a wide chasm, or challenge an ogre to a battle of wits. War of the Wizards is a little nerdy, and a whole lot of fun. The group games last for 90 minutes, and are facilitated over video conference by our talented host.
Learn more about War of the Wizards. You can play the game multiplayer, with three to 10 players or more if you are feeling audacious. Click image to view the game board. To play Spreadsheet Battleship, each player needs two things: a game board and the placement of ships.
You can use graph paper labelled with letters and numbers for the game board, and either randomly assign battleship placement or let each player choose where to place the ships.
Here is a Google Sheets game board you can use. Spreadsheet Battleship game mechanics are a little like Go Fish. The next player then goes in sequence, which could be in order of age or geographic location. Scavenger Hunts can be a fun way for your people to work together. Virtual scavenger hunts are more difficult to find that team spirit with. You might have game mechanics that have your team searching Google, Wikipedia, YouTube and other sites, without really working together.
The solution for successful online scavenger hunts is to throw away the normal and adopt a lightning version instead. For Lightning Scavenger Hunts, fire off a rapid series of clues that have your team members dashing to find objects, solve clues and win points. For example, you could have everyone grab their favorite mug and award points to the best mug story.
The fast paced nature of Lightning Scavenger Hunts is what makes it work for team building online. Here are more virtual scavenger hunt templates.
Lexulous is one of several free team games online that is modelled after Scrabble. The main difference is that Lexulous has eight tiles in play at a time, and the value assigned to each letter is a little different. You can easily include Lexulous in your options for online games to play with coworkers. You can keep track of points and total scores over a month, and award a Lexulous champion at the end.
Your refrigerator may be different. A fun game we could play together is Guess the Refrigerator. To play this game, everyone submits a photo of the inside of their refrigerator to one point of contact. That organizer then posts the photos to a channel where all participants can study the contents and make best guesses at which refrigerator belongs to who.
The players submit answers to the organizer, who then tallies up the scores and announces a winner. Sharing an inside view of your refrigerator takes a degree of vulnerability, which is a factor that contributes to the success of great online games for virtual teams. To play, name one person as the Describer and the other players as Artists. The Describer must explain to the Artists how to draw an item like a sunflower, kite or calculator using only geometric terms.
You can play each round for as long as you like, and three minutes is usually sufficient. At the end of each round, the Describer gets one point for each Artist that guesses the object correctly, and each Artist that guesses correctly also gets one point. Tally up points and award cool prizes to the winner. Five Clicks Away is a logic game for online team building. Unfortunately, I did audition for Zoom. Two Truths and a Lie is a fun and engaging game, and more importantly, it can help your team learn facts about one another, so they can begin forming deeper bonds.
This ice breaker lets individuals ease up and have a little fun without a hassle. If you have more time on your hands, have the pairs split up after showing off their super cool shake and make even more creative ones with new partners. Asking fun questions is an easy and effective ice breaker game. To play, simply go around the room and have each person provide an answer to a fun question.
The questions are up to you, but if you're stuck, here are a few ideas:. These questions serve two purposes -- first, they allow your coworkers to get into a sillier, more creative mindset. Second, they encourage conversation on topics typically reserved for outside the office, which enables members of your team to get to know one another on a deeper level.
Meg Prater , Sr. Marketing Manager of the HubSpot blog, says "When I first started including ice-breaker questions in our weekly team stand-up meetings, the experience was … cringeworthy. It felt like exactly what it was: organized fun. But we kept at it. I listened to feedback and tried to incorporate it into better ice breakers. Keeping the ice breakers inclusive keeps everyone engaged.
This ice breaker can promote team bonding, and it's one of the easier options on the list. Simply choose a brief personality quiz on your phone or computer if you're stuck, here's a list , and pull it up on a projector or send the link to everyone. Once everyone has completed the personality assessment, have each colleague mention one thing they agree or disagree with from their results. This game allows your team members to gain a new perspective on their peers, and it's also a fun and easy way to get an interesting conversation started.
Have everyone write a unique, strange, or unexpected fact about them on a piece of paper. Then, put the pieces of paper into a hat and mix them around. Pull from the hat and read each fact. Allow the team to try and guess who wrote it. After they guess, ask the employee who wrote the fact to identify themselves and give any further context if necessary.
This could be a great way to get to know surprising new things about your teammates. To play, you simply divide your team into groups of four and give each group 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and a marshmallow.
Whichever team can build the tallest structure, wins -- the trick is, the marshmallow must be on top. There are a few reasons this game works as both a great ice breaker and a team-building exercise.
First, the most successful teams are the groups of people who don't spend time competing for power. The game forces your colleagues to work collaboratively when brainstorming potential solutions. Second, the Marshmallow Challenge encourages people to think quickly and offer alternative solutions when their initial idea fails.
With the Marshmallow Challenge, you can strengthen your team's brainstorming and problem-solving skills, and your team can also have some fun. A win, win. At HubSpot, we conduct a scavenger hunt for new hires on the first day of their training. It's fun and encourages collaboration, but additionally, it can help employees learn their way around the office. Fortunately, you can conduct a scavenger hunt for your team even if they've worked at your office for years.
Simply split up your team into groups, and give each group a shortlist of items to find -- if you work in a smaller space, maybe you can hide some funny items around the office ahead of time. A scavenger hunt is also an exceptional opportunity for cross-department interaction.
Consider reaching out to managers from other departments and creating groups of employees who don't often get to work together. This game is simple and meant to energize your team. Get your colleagues in a circle and ask one volunteer to sit or stand in the middle.
Tell the volunteer that they can not laugh or smile, regardless of what happens. I lost, but for 30 minutes my small team was deeply engaged as we struggled to remember Nebraska and Wyoming. Lightning Scavenger Hunts are designed to be fun and fast-paced virtual team building games. Check out our full instructions for virtual scavenger hunts.
To start this virtual activity, one player chooses an identity, which can be anything from an object to a concept. On a road trip to Canada, one friend chose to be a small rubber ball. Explore your imagination and feel free to choose really difficult identities. The player with the identity is known as The Post, and all other players can bombard The Post with unlimited questions to uncover the identity.
The following questions incorporate a new word into the game. Here are more question games to play with remote teams. Pancakes vs Waffles is a fun game I learned on a group trip. The game mechanics are focused on friendly debate and unanimous decision making, which can be helpful for remote team building activities. You can play until your team is ready to move on. Pancakes vs Waffles is a great way to engage the introverts on your team, because everyone has an opinion about the trivial subjects of debate.
Here is an example game of Pancakes vs Waffles that demonstrates how it might go. And here are more virtual games to play with large groups. Werewolf is one of the best virtual team building activities for conference calls, as it is a game of speaking, careful listening and voting as you seek to survive the night. To start the game, players draw roles of werewolf, villager, medic or seer.
Then, the game master announces that night has fallen, and players closer their eyes. The game master asks the werewolves to wake-up and select a victim, followed by the medic who points to one person to save, and the seer who points to one person to reveal.
Finally, the game master announces the sun is rising and reveals whether a villager became wolf-grub during the night. Anyone the werewolves eat becomes a ghost and cannot speak for the remainder of the game. The survivors debate who might be a werewolf, and then vote to either eliminate someone or skip the round. Repeat until you only have villagers or wolves left. Here are more detailed instructions on how to play werewolf.
One of the quickest virtual team building games you can play is Something in Common, which is a challenge that encourages your remote employees to learn more about each other. For this game, assign your people into small groups and then have each group identify the three most unique things they have in common. If you want to do multiple rounds then you can make the virtual activity more challenging by removing broad categories like movies, books and food.
Here are more icebreaker games for work. Two Truths and One Lie is one of the most common virtual team building games. The activity is conference call friendly, since all you need is a reliable WiFi connection and a little cunning deceit. For the remote work version, give each participant two minutes to prepare two truths and one lie. For example:. Have each participant share three facts, and guess which one is the lie.
Two Truths and One Lie is a fun virtual game to play with drinks. Here are more online drinking games that are work friendly. A monthly Healthy Lifestyle Challenge is even more important during quarantine. You can track progress of your Healthy Lifestyle Challenge with this free tracking tool , which helps add an element of accountability. Really everyone wins, because everyone that participates gets a little healthier and has fun with the challenge.
Your coworkers will love engaging in a Typing Speed Race. The race is a way to show off your lightning fingers, and also a great way to develop one of the most important remote work skills: typing quickly and accurately. Your team members can participate in the typing test and post scores to Slack, email or other communication channels.
You can also do a Typing Speed Relay, where you add up team totals. Try the 1-Minute challenge on typingtest. Here are more virtual minute-to-win-it activities. Here is a guide on how to play chubby bunny by Icebreaker Ideas. This post has more fun workplace competitions for virtual teams. Murder in Ancient Egypt is one of three virtual murder mystery activities we run.
The game uses mechanics of escape rooms, puzzles and problem solving to bring your people together in a race against the clock. Murder in Ancient Egypt is an exciting and challenging virtual team building event, and culminates in the big reveal: this was an actual murder mystery from history.
Your team will hear the story from an expert storyteller, and learn about what really happened.
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