Team Building activities can be an amazing asset for a Project Manager who needs to manage a team.
It can be hard to believe that you can have fun at work or with colleagues, but if you had the chance to work with forward-thinking companies you know that this is not only possible, instead it should be promoted.
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Reasons are clear. Often the atmosphere in the office is boring, heavy and uninspiring. This can lead to problems that affect productivity.
For many years now, we have been trying to transform working environments into enjoyable places where positivity and relationships between colleagues are promoted. Companies know that a motivated team can increase productivity by up to 30% and more. On the other hand, we have already talked about this in this article on the company environment.
So planning some team building activities will not only relieve boredom, develop communication and create good memories, but will also bring interesting new ideas.
In addition, newcomers can also benefit from short team building activities that will allow them to integrate more quickly into the group and get to know their colleagues more easily.
What is the purpose of team building?
The idea at the heart of team building is to empower people to contribute to common goals and work in the same direction.
The very success of an organization depends on the ability of its employees to work in teams, understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses, show interest in each other and provide quality work together.
Here are some advantages that an organisation can see when it creates, according to the Agile methodology, a team with strong goals:
- The level of productivity improves
- Increased morale and motivation among team members
- Improved collaboration in the workplace
- Improved creativity among individuals
- Positive reinforcement
- Improved professional satisfaction among employees
- Improved work quality
Do team building activities really work?
Statistically, there is a lot of evidence that team building activities actually impact positively productivity and the workplace in general.
In particular, they work well for teams who are looking for new ways to improve their work and interaction with others.
The benefits of team building games and activities not only affect the way teams work, but also reflect the improvement of everyone’s overall personality.
The interesting fact here is that there are team building activities for every need and for every kind of team.
This means that if an activity is not considered suitable or not liked, there are dozens of other ideas that can be explored.
A major reason why such simple games and activities make a big change in a work environment is that they can help people get out of their comfort zones.
They provide team members with a means and platform to break the ice in an intimidating way and bring their teamwork to a whole new level.
What are the best team building activities?
For starters, before choosing the best team building activity, it is important to identify the team’s needs.
The first and most important step in planning team building activities is to identify the team’s strengths and weaknesses.
You can start by asking the following questions to determine the root of any problems:
- Are there conflicts between particular individuals who are creating internal divisions?
- Should team members get to know each other better?
- Do some members focus on their own success and, as a result, damage the group?
- Is poor communication impacting on the team’s progress and productivity?
- Should people learn to work together rather than individually?
- Do some members influence the group’s ability to progress through resistance to change?
- Does the group need a moral boost?
Once these questions have been answered, you can move on to choose one or more targeted activities to help the team deal with specific problems.
Let’s see some examples of team building activities:
Team Building Activities: Two Truths and a Lie
Problem: communication and icebreaker
Required time: 15-30 minutes
First, each team member should secretly write two facts about themselves and a lie on a small piece of paper – of course, the answers should not be revealed to anyone.
Once each person has completed this step, give 10-15 minutes for an active conversation, just like an informal meeting, where everyone discusses the three questions.
The idea is to convince others that your lie is actually a truth, while on the other hand, you try to guess other people’s truths / lies by asking them questions.
After the conversation is over, grouped in a circle, each participant repeats their three statements and the group decides what they think the lie is. This game helps to promote better communication in the office and allows colleagues to get to know each other better.
Team Building Activities: The “giant” puzzle
Problem: Problem Solving
Required time: 30 minutes
This problem solving activity involves the leader choosing a well-known image or comic book full of details.
The image should be split into as many equal squares as there are participants in the activity. Each participant then receives one of the “puzzle pieces” and must create an exact copy of their piece five times larger than its original size.
The problem is not knowing why or how one’s work might affect the overall picture. When all participants have completed their magnifications, they will be asked to put the pieces together into a giant copy of the original image on a table.
This problem solving activity will teach participants how to work in a group and will prove “departmental” work, i.e. the understanding that each person, while working alone, ultimately contributes to the overall result of the group.
Create your own team building activity
Required time: 1hour
The group leader asks the participants for help: it would be interesting to carry out a team building activity, but they don’t know any new ones and want support from the group members to find something original and never tried before.
The goal or problem, therefore, is to get each participant – or group of participants – to present a new team building activity appropriate for them. As well as being a problem solving activity in itself, this game also helps to promote creative thinking, communication, trust and time management.
Ultimately: team building activities are a fun and educational way to improve communication at team level, but it is important to identify the right activity to address the specific problem to be solved.
Only in this way will team building activities turn into a real success to boost morale and productivity.
