presentation topics for team building

Additional Team Building Resources

Sep 20, 2022

5 Free Powerpoint Presentations for Team Building with Activities and How To Build Your Own Team-Building Template

Heather Harper

Company Culture Writer

Team building PowerPoint presentations allow us to build a strong team , where teamwork is at the forefront of all operations and everyone is working together to reach the same common goal. 37% of workers consider teamwork, team building, and team collaboration to be incredibly important. In fact, if workers feel that these things aren’t happening within their team, they are more likely to leave.

As we all know, high employee turnover costs money that most companies just can’t afford to lose. So, to prevent this from happening all teams need to make connections, foster communication, build trust, and promote problem-solving. One way to integrate these things is to include PowerPoint presentations, with complementing activities, in your team building program.

These PowerPoints need to be inspiring, not boring, and in this article, we will give you PowerPoint presentation ideas for team building. To start, you’ll discover free PowerPoint presentations for team building and complementing activities, before learning how to make your own engaging team building presentation that WOWs.

cartoon woman giving powerpoint presentation

5 Free Powerpoint Presentations for Team Building with Activities

Free team-building powerpoint presentation: communication.

Effective communication in the workplace generates 4.5 times higher talent retention . As a result, it is crucial that all workplaces that don’t want to pour money down the drain on constant talent acquisition invest time and effort into enhancing communication within their teams. Along with plenty of team building activities, the best place to start building strong communication is with an effective and purposeful PowerPoint presentation.

The best communication PowerPoint template

This team building PowerPoint presentation free download is offered on Slideshare and consists of 29 slides that break down the important aspects of communication into manageable, bite-sized chunks.

Targeted to improve communication between co-workers and clients, this free team building PowerPoint presentation begins with a brief overview of what communication is, its history, and why you should care about it. After, you will take a look at the goal of the PowerPoint, which is to maximize client communication, improve satisfaction and enhance personal productivity.

You’ll then go over different ways groups communicate, organizational communication, the various principles of conflict, the effects of conflict, and so much more. By the end of all 29 slides, your team should have the information and knowledge they need to meet and understand these goals.

Activities that support communication within teams

Team sports day

Working as part of a team during a sporting activity is an excellent way to build trust and positivity within a team, which in turn promotes healthy and effective communication. Plus, if you want to make your team more productive at work , improve mood , and prevent chronic health conditions , there’s no better way than some good old fashioned exercise!

team members playing tug of war at team sports day

Build a tent blind

By finding a few old tents from your garage, you can throw your team into an activity that promotes communication, as well as encourages listening, leadership and teamwork.

To play, organize your team into pairs and ask one player to be blindfolded. They must listen to instructions from the other player in their pair on how to put up a tent and will race the other teams to be the first to put their tent up.

Take part in an Escape Room

Escape rooms are great ways to allow your team to escape regular workplace tasks and relax and unwind. The fact that they have to work together, as opposed to separately, means that this activity is perfect for supporting your communication PowerPoint presentation.

At the Team Building Hub , your team can immerse themselves in a prison break-out, explore the dark depths of the ocean, or participate in a thrilling gold rush… all without even having to leave the office. Together, they can work through clues and puzzles to beat the clock and escape the room.

Free Team-Building Powerpoint Presentation: Conflict Management

Employees in the United States spend approximately a tremendous 2.8 hours each week involved in workplace conflict. This equates to around $359 billion in hours paid that are focused on conflict, rather than completing productive workplace tasks. To make this worse, 60% of employees have never received basic conflict management training, meaning that millions of organizations are unnecessarily losing money every year.

Fear not, however, as there are plenty of free conflict management team building PowerPoint presentation templates that can help you to overcome any conflict issues within your team. Below is our favorite of them all.

The best conflict management PowerPoint template

Slideshare’s conflict management in teams PowerPoint Presentation is free to download and includes 18 slides on how to manage and resolve all types of various workplace conflicts.

To start, your team will learn exactly what conflict is and how it applies to the workplace. They’ll look at various types of workplace conflict, such as interpersonal conflict and intragroup conflict, before exploring when workplace conflict might be constructive, and when it might be destructive. Afterwards, the presentation offers some useful ways to prevent and manage conflict in your workplace. The Slideshare PowerPoint even makes its conflict management and prevention section engaging and entertaining by including clips from the sitcom The Office .

Activities that aid conflict management team building

Take a personality test

Getting your team to take a personality test will allow them to explore themselves so that they can understand their personality and, in turn, their trigger points for conflict and how they can work to resolve it. Tests such as the Myers-Briggs or Disc allow team members to rate their agreement with certain statements and can then make a conclusion on that person’s personality. Team Building Hub even has a package with Maxwell Leadership that adds a DISC assessment before any game, to help increase the learning and connection during the experience.

Play the compliment circle game

Everyone loves to feel that someone appreciates them and thinks something nice about them. It promotes strong bonds within a team, creates trust, builds a sense of psychological safety, and, as a result, is likely to limit the amount of conflict that occurs. To play, simply sit in a circle and get each team member to go around the room and pay a compliment to the person sitting to their right.

Designed to allow team members to understand how to work through conflict and understand differing opinions, four words is the perfect activity to complement your conflict management PowerPoint presentation.

To play, give each team member a piece of paper and ask them to write 4 words that they associate with conflict. Pair them up and between the two of them, they must decide on the best four words out of the combined eight they have. During this, each pair will have to negotiate in a considerate and efficient manner. At the end of the game, you can bring the team back together to discuss how the process went and whether there was any conflict.

Free Team-Building Powerpoint Presentation: Virtual Teams

Virtual teams are more common than ever before and, as a result, it is important to have the correct tools in place to build strong virtual teams. The benefits of virtual team building are priceless: it connects remote workers, enhances collaboration and co-working, increases productivity, boosts morale, encourages healthy communication, and prevents burnout and loneliness.

The best virtual team PowerPoint template

Geared toward virtual team leaders, this PowerShow.com template covers all the challenges of having a virtual team and gives expert solutions to each challenge. Offering 14 slides of content, this team building PowerPoint presentation starts with a bold quote to instantly grab your team’s attention and engage them. After, the presentation then moves on to cover the top three common challenges within a virtual team, before summarizing how to solve these challenges.

Activities that aid virtual team building

Ice breakers games

Virtual icebreaker games provide a remarkable way for people scattered across the world to introduce themselves in a fun and charming way. They are designed to create a relaxed atmosphere, which in return can build trust, enhance communication, and improve productivity. Some of our favorite icebreaker games include repeat performances, guess the acronym, and rank your favorites.

Play some zoom games

Zoom games for large virtual groups are designed to allow teams to stay connected, be sociable, and keep happy. Games such as Jeopardy, Trivia, and Scavenger hunt are perfect for involving your whole team and promoting virtual problem-solving and communication.

Team online games show

Online game shows are exciting and upbeat ways to encourage your virtual team members to improve morale and communication! With five fast-paced rounds, your team members can practice their communication skills and problem-solving ability, and they can create trusting bonds with each other.

Free Team-Building Powerpoint Presentation: Problem-Solving

Problem-solving in the workplace is important for everyone, from entry-level employees to senior staff. Those with fantastic problem-solving skills are better equipped to solve all sorts of unexpected challenges that might be thrown at them. As a result, they are the type of employees that help a business run smoothly, and, therefore, all teams should be investing in developing these skills in their members.

The best problem-solving PowerPoint templates

Offered for free by WorkshopBank , this PowerPoint is a 30-45 minute presentation where your team will cover everything from brainstorming and issue analysis, to action planning and solution finding. It is designed to allow your team to make breakthrough progress with their problem-solving and have the skill set to tackle any problems that may arise at work.

All you need to do is download the PowerPoint template and work through the activities given. It’s an excellent interactive and fun way to get your team to understand problem-solving and how they can apply it to their jobs.

Activities that support problem-solving

The Art Thief

The Art Thief is an in-person game designed specifically to help your team unlock a new level of problem-solving. Designed by industry experts, your team will tear into a box filled with clues. They will use their teamwork and problem-solving skills to work together to connect the dots and solve the mystery of the art thief.

Quick team building activities

Learning a new skill can be frustrating and daunting to many, so a fantastic way to help promote problem-solving is to include quick team building activities to ensure everyone remains inspired and engaged. Activities such as word association and ‘what’s my name?’ are designed to be simple and quick, but to encourage your team members to solve complicated problems and, as a result, learn new problem-solving skills.

Paper tower challenge

The paper tower challenge is a creative way to promote trust, communication, and, most importantly, problem-solving in a workplace team of any size. To play, split your team into small groups and give them three minutes to build the largest freestanding tower possible. The only catch – they can’t use anything but paper! Award a prize to the team whose tower is the tallest and still standing at the end of the game.

Free Team-Building Powerpoint Presentation: Trust

Trust within teams promotes the highest levels of productivity and effectiveness because it allows every single team member to feel valued, and appreciated and that they are safe to share opinions, problems, and ideas. Therefore, it is of no surprise that workplace teams who trust each other have 50% higher employee productivity, 106% more energy at work, and 13% fewer sick days.

The best trust PowerPoint Presentation template

Comprised of 48 engaging and eye-catching slides, you can download Slideshare’s trust building PowerPoint for free.

Created to help co-workers build healthy relationships, the PowerPoint presentation begins by explaining to your team why they are here and enlightening them about the importance of trust within teams. Looking at a model of trust, you and your team will explore what happens in the absence of trust and will take a look at examples of teams that have no trust. Next, you will explore the various types of trust, the essential ingredients of trust, and how it can be created in your workplace team. Your team will then partake in a reflection activity, whereby they will discuss what they’ve learned and how they can help develop and enhance trust within the team.

Activities that support trust building

Constantly incorporating trust building activities

Trust is something that, once built, needs to be constantly reinforced and worked on. As a result, to ensure optimal workplace trust it is crucial to keep using plenty of team building tools throughout the year. Introducing virtual meeting platforms, having a joint calendar, constantly using icebreakers and team building activities, and sending out Google forms are all fantastic ways of ensuring that trust is constantly worked on within a team.

Team skydive

If your budget can be stretched to allow this, a team skydive is a fantastic way to get your team members bonding at 10,000 feet in the air. To make this a trust building exercise, you can pair your team members up and get them to do a skydive at the same time (whilst being attached to a professional, obviously). Team members will learn how each other behaves when scared and pumped full of adrenaline, and will learn to trust the other person as a result.

Trust fall

Quick, simple, and easy to coordinate, a trust fall is a fantastic activity to chuck in at the end of your team building PowerPoint presentation. To play, get your team to work in pairs and one person must turn to face away from their partner and allow themselves to fall back into their partner’s arms. The partner must then catch them, proving to the other person that they are trustworthy.

How to Build Your Own Team Building Powerpoint Presentation Template

Building your own PowerPoint presentation is something that can be time consuming, but worth it for a presentation that will wow your team. In order to engage and inspire, you need your presentation to be insightful, unique, interesting, and tailored to the needs of your team. That’s why it’s never a bad idea to create your own.

If you’d like to give creating your own PowerPoint presentation a shot, here is everything to include:

Make sure you have PowerPoint. This is a no-brainer. In order to create a Powerpoint presentation, you must have access to PowerPoint. You can buy the whole Microsoft Office package for as little as $69.99 a year. If you don’t have the budget for Powerpoint, Google Slides is a great free alternative!
Decide precisely what you want to talk about. The best presentations are concise and straight to the point. You don’t want to bore your team by talking aimlessly about every team building topic under the sun. So think about what it is your team needs to work on. Conflict management? Problem-solving? Training? Onboarding? Morale in the workplace? It can be anything that will make your team stronger.
Get your facts right. One fantastic way to show facts is to include accurate and up-to-date statistics to reinforce what you’ve said. Using bold statistics, especially in the first section of your presentation, will grab your team’s focus and encourage them to pay attention.
Make your presentation visually appealing . Getting your facts straight is all well and good, but if your presentation is dull and boring, you’re never going to inspire a group of people. Utilize visuals and animations to help bring your slides alive and allow information to be digestible.
Find a way to get everyone involved. Sitting in a meeting room with information being relayed off a screen will take most of your team back to school, leaving them feeling bored, frustrated, and uninspired. To avoid this, find a way to involve your team in your presentation. You can use a variety of techniques to do this, such as quizzes, polls, questions, and answers. It will make your team feel seen and valued, which will inspire them in return.
Include meaningful takeaways. The whole purpose of this team building presentation is to teach your team something important about team building and the team they are in. To make sure your presentation has been worth the time, include an essential takeaway from the meeting. For example, it could be about steps your team can take to improve performance, communication, and/or trust.

Conclusion

That’s a wrap on the best team building activities and PowerPoint presentations. Whether your team is in-person or virtual, they are likely to need to work on their trust, problem-solving, communication, or conflict management. Offering exciting PowerPoint presentations, backed up with fun team building activities, is a fantastic way to teach them new and relevant skills.

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Heather Harper has a Masters in Occupational Psychological from the University of Manchester. She currently works as an editorial writer specializing in organizational psychology – helping teams work better together.

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120 Presentation Topic Ideas Help You Hook Your Audience

Updated: January 15, 2024

Published: August 09, 2023

Cooking is easy. The puzzle is figuring out what to eat. As soon as you know that, you can get started. The same holds for presentations. The sooner you can whip up a good, informative, and catchy topic, the easier the rest of the process becomes.

man presents presentation topics to a group

Pick a good topic that resonates with you and your audience to set a strong foundation. But select the wrong topic, and it becomes difficult to connect with your audience, find mutual interests, or hold their attention.

So, let’s learn how to develop thought-provoking and relevant topics for your presentations. You’ll also find some best practices to make your presentation memorable.

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Table of Contents

How to Choose a Great Presentation Topic in 5 Steps

120 presentation topic ideas, 5 presentation tips.

How to Choose a Great Presentation Topic. Be novel. Begin with the end in mind.

4. Choose an appropriate presentation style.

There are many ways to present a topic. Your personality, the topic at hand, and your audience’s personas will help you determine which style would best fit you and your audience.

Select a presentation style that will communicate the main idea clearly and have a lasting impact on your audience.

For instance, explore a freeform style presenter by Sir Ken Robinson.

5. Engage with your audience.

Work on your presentation skills to make a strong connection with your audience, get through to them and leave a mark.

Think of the presenter as the link between the topic and the audience. A strong or a weak presenter can make a difference between a presentation being a thriving success or a boring failure.

Hone your skills by engaging and interacting with your audience. Make them feel like a part of the presentation and not just spectators. 70% of marketers have found presentations with interactive content to be more effective than those without.

Here are a few ways you can make your presentation interactive:

Start your speech with uncommon questions to your audience. Involve them from the get-go, like ask to raise their hands if X.
Make eye contact to build credibility and show confidence. Don’t stare at your slides or notes. Smile occasionally and talk to the audience directly.
Have an active and confident body language. Don’t stand in the same place the entire time. Move around the stage.
Don’t be monotonous. Speak as you would to a colleague — with enthusiasm.
Ask close-ended questions in between to keep the audience engaged without losing time. Address them using their names to keep things interesting.
Share personal experiences and stories that your audience will find fascinating and relatable.
Practice thoroughly before you present so you’re fluent with the material and delivery.
Energy and excitement can be quite contagious. Make sure you exude enough to spread some to your audience.

Feeling Inspired Yet?

Now you have all the right ingredients for choosing amazing topics and a hundred ideas to drive inspiration from. So, go ahead and start cooking presentations that will blow your audience away.

Don’t forget to choose a super-relevant topic and add meaty information. Do it with excitement to make it enjoyable for you and your audience. Best of luck!

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Team Building Presentation Tips That Inspire Instead of Bore

Teamwork makes the dream work, right? That’s what they say, anyway. But how many companies actually put team building at the forefront of their culture and values? 37% of workers consider employee teamwork, team building, and collaboration to be very important. So much so that it can affect how long employees stay with a company. So what are employers doing to support their teams, and foster cross-departmental relationships and collaboration?

Many companies have attempted to maintain culture and team building during the pandemic through virtual happy hours, events, and snack boxes mailed to employees’ homes. And while those efforts didn’t go unnoticed, it’s just not quite the same as water cooler talk, in-office happy hours, or huddles in the conference room.

As teams gear up to return to the office after a nearly two year stretch of remote work, team building is extremely important. "There's going to be such a reversion to trying to reconnect," Mark Hoplamazian, CEO of Hyatt Hotels Corp said of returning to the office at Fortune's Reimagine Work Summit. Any professional will agree that that personal connection is an integral part of culture, collaboration, and workforce function, so restoring in-person teamwork should be top of mind for many companies as offices start to open.

The first step to nailing team building— both virtually and not— is to create training , onboarding , and group presentations that inspire instead of bore. Consider the following five team building presentation ideas for a more enjoyable presentation experience for all parties involved.

Open with a bold statistic

You’ve heard us talk about introductions before, and that’s because they can make or break your entire presentation in less than 30 seconds. If you’re really looking to rev up your team and inspire them, start the team building presentation with a bold quote or a motivating statistic from your business. This can be an impressive metric or a positive customer quote that shows their efforts are paying off, but it should be something that grabs the team’s focus and makes them want to pay attention to the slides that will follow.

Hide easter eggs throughout the deck

How can you be sure the team is actually paying attention to your presentation and not pondering what they might eat for dinner? This is a challenge presenters will face regardless of whether you’re giving an in-person or a remote team building presentation. Our recommendation: hide easter eggs throughout the deck. These could be hidden words, a specific icon included a certain number of times throughout the presentation, or funny photos. Use said easter eggs as an incentive to your team to pay attention to the deck, and offer prizes to whoever can find the most hidden eggs throughout the course of the team building presentation.

Utilize dynamic visuals and animations

The fastest way to lose your audience to boredom? Loads of data and text that’s impossible to digest. Instead, make sure you’re including plenty of beautiful visuals— photos, video, or icons— and utilizing dynamic animations to bring your slides to life. Using visuals allows you to say more with less. And it’s no secret that over half of people are visual learners, so by simply opting for photos or icons you’re a lot more likely to have your team building presentation resonate with your audience.

Get them involved

Whether you choose to include icebreakers mid-deck, or leave time for discussion at the end, don’t forget to involve the team. You can involve them in a variety of ways including gamifying the presentation with polls, quizzes, or questions, asking them to each create their own slide to include, or bringing them into the conversation with their own ideas. Whichever method you decide to run with, make sure your deck reflects that. By involving your colleagues in the team building presentation it will make them feel seen and valued, which is a surefire way to inspire them.

Start inspired with a template

As things start to return to normal, there’s an increased pressure to foster team building. But when it comes to your presentation there’s no need to stress—Beautiful.ai can handle the heavy lifting so that you can focus on your team building strategy, onboarding, or training. With countless pre-built presentation and slide templates in our inspiration gallery you can plug and play without having to start from scratch. Focus on your team, we’ll do the rest.

Jordan Turner

Jordan is a Bay Area writer, social media manager, and content strategist.

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Team Building Workshops

All activities on this page work well in Team Building Workshops. Each helps you build a strong cohesive team while simultaneously achieving valuable learning objectives.

We believe the best kind of team building is when people work on real professional challenges together. Solving issues, coming up with creative solutions, building action plans together are all platforms for creating a supportive and productive team.

[…] Team Building Ideas […]

Its an excellent contribution to knowledge…….A generous and philanthropic initiative of the author!

Thank you for such great ideas of team building games! I especially like the “Build a Bridge” activity you listed. I think this type of activity can really demonstrate how well people work together and share ideas and leadership. I will keep this in mind for the future!

Thank you for sharing these great informations. All methodologies are very helpful!

Pleasure Flavio 🙂

Much appreciate to share all useful workshop guidance! Very helpful for me to organize internal workshop within my team! Great ideas!

Very useful information has been provided here. Thanks for sharing such a good information with us! Keep updating

Thank you for making these workshops open to all. Some great inspiration for me to work with my team – in a charity where funds are not as available as they might be in other organisations.

It’s a pleasure Kathy!

wonderful set of topics

Great work guys. Very consolidated info, very high quality of content. A big thank you for sharing.

Can you please provide me this item’s complete free pdf user manual copy

Thank you for this list of activities!! Excellent job!!!

Thank you very much for this initiative, Nick. I have been asked to run a 2 hour workshop on partnership working with a group of individual creatives who do not necessarily know each other, may consider each other as competitors, and will have significantly different levels of experience. Oh, and for good measure some will be listening via translation! Some stimulating ideas in your collection which will be very helpful.

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Catchy Topics for Team-Building Presentations

by Jill Harness

Published on 1 Jun 2019

When you are doing a presentation on teamwork, it can be hard to find a winning angle that will get people's attention. After all, the topic of team building is pretty broad and also a little boring on its own since most people already know what teamwork is and understand that it can be a good thing.

That is why you might want to consider some team-building presentation ideas that focus on one specific aspect of team building, such as reasons for working as a team or methods of team building, or consider ideas that illustrate how team building can make or break a project, which could even focus on examples of great or poor teamwork in pop culture or in music history.

Reasons for Teamwork Topic Presentation

Generally speaking, people know that teamwork is good, but giving them reasons detailing why team building is so vital to the timely and efficient completion of a project can still open their eyes to just how important it is to work together. Remind them that teamwork increases productivity, improves creativity and problem solving, reduces conflict and builds better means of communication. Additionally, it can help them network and improve their careers and can be fun too.

If you want, you could even focus on one specific benefit of teamwork, such as reduced conflicts in a group. Alternatively, you may want to zero in on how improved teamwork can actually help individuals themselves, focusing on how networking, increased productivity, improved problem solving and other benefits can help people who might otherwise resist working on a team together.

Team-Building Topics for Work

Successful teamwork can only be achieved if the team is effective in communication, delegation, efficiency, conflict resolution, creativity and support for one another. While you can easily do a presentation discussing how these aspects are all necessary for creating a strong team, you can also focus on any of these as good team-building topics for employees.

For example, if you know that the group to which you are presenting is good with communication and creativity, you might emphasize how improved delegation can help a team like theirs to better achieve their goals.

Methods for Team Building

Your audience may already understand that team building is important, and they may know what values are important in building a strong team, but they might not know how to actually go about team building for themselves. That is why a specific plan instructing your listeners on how to strengthen their teams might be a winning topic for your presentation. While there are many guides for doing this, Dr. Carter McNambra's 18-point guide to building highly effective teams is an excellent resource, and this information is readily available online.

Dr. McNambra suggests starting by setting clear goals, establishing clear objectives to measure effectiveness, defining how to create clear communication between team members, establishing a procedure for making decisions, developing staffing procedures, determining membership of the group, establishing time frames for establishing and dissolving the group (if applicable), figuring out the membership of a team and assigning the roles of leader and communicator.

Next, you will need to start work on the project by identifying your resource needs, developing a budget, clarifying the specifics of the project to each group member, planning team-building activities to unify your group and planning the initial team meeting. As the project progresses, you will need to regularly monitor and report on the status of the team, support team meetings and celebrate accomplishments by team members.

Classic Team-Building Exercises

Depending on the type of presentation you are giving, you could always work in team-building exercises , or if you are talking to a group of leaders, you can describe some effective team-building techniques that they can use to make a stronger team. While it is fine to use popular exercises about which many people have already heard, try to stay away from those that are simply cliche, like trust falls, or that have questionable value as a training tool, like tug-of-war.

If you are looking for some ideas for exercises that operate as team-building topics for employees to work better together, the human knot is a popular activity that requires teamwork and a few people to step in with leadership. This exercise works by having everyone hold hands with different people across the circle and then straightening out the circle without anyone letting go of one another's hands.

Alternatively, the minefield is a team-building exercise that focuses on communication and leadership skills by asking someone to guide another person through a "minefield" made with obstacles like napkins by using only words such as "forward, back, left and right." You can easily find more exercises like these online that can serve as team-building topics for workplaces.

Assign a Project

This is a fun way to stress the importance of understanding strengths and assigning proper roles when working as a group. First, make up a simple project that would best be performed by people with specific tasks. For example, formulate a simple LEGO design, set bricks out on a table that can be used to make that design and then ask for three random volunteers. Next, ask for specific people to volunteer, starting with a manager, an engineer and a customer service person or salesperson.

Tell everyone that one person from each group will sit at a table and be the only one able to look at the plans for the design, one person will be at the table to build the LEGO creation, but she will be unable to look at the plans, and the third person from each group will be required to go between the two tables to relay what the builder is building and what the person with the plans says she will need to do in order to complete the design.

Now, randomly assign the first group of three volunteers but then assign the manager to be at the table with the plans, the engineer to build the design and the customer service or salesperson to work as the runner communicating between the two tables. Inevitably, the group whose roles were assigned based on their skill sets will finish first. You can then use this fact to illustrate to the rest of the audience why it is so important that people in a group are properly assigned to the right tasks given their strengths and experience.

Teamwork for a Specific Industry

Some people are used to working alone , especially people in certain positions or industries that don't tend to rely on teamwork. Unfortunately, when you need them to work in a group, they question the purpose of the team. This is why it can sometimes be a good idea to put your focus on an industry-specific teamwork topic for the presentation.

For example, it is easy to imagine why a medical team needs to work well together, but it can be a lot harder to convince a bunch of accountants why they need to improve their teamwork. However, by showing a monthly report sample that envisions contributions from each person's specific area of expertise, the group might better understand why they need to work on their team-building skills.

Pop Culture Examples

People love movies and TV shows, so by pointing out how fictional characters operate better after focusing on team building, it can help illustrate your point in an interesting way to which everyone can relate. Of course, this does mean that you will need to pick a franchise to which the majority of your employees will relate.

This means that you can't pick something you love that the majority of people have not watched, like "Dexter" or "Four Weddings and a Funeral." Instead, focus on franchises with which people of all ages and genders will be at least somewhat familiar, even if they have not actually seen it. For example, you could do something on how better conflict-resolution skills could have helped to prevent the division of the avengers in "Captain America: Civil War" or how the only way that the rebels can be successful in "Star Wars" is through working as a coordinated team.

Keep your audience in mind and try to avoid spoilers that are not common knowledge as well. While a Harry Potter presentation would be fine if most of your co-workers are millennials, if they are mostly baby boomers, they might not be as familiar with the topic. Likewise, while a mostly male group might be familiar with "John Wick," many female co-workers would not be as familiar. As for spoilers, you can generally assume that anything older than 10 years is safe, but be careful about revealing spoilers, even if it seems like everyone has already seen it.

Talk About Music

Yes, musical taste tends to be even more diverse than people's movie and TV show preferences – the person who loves Metallica will think that Taylor Swift is the worst sounding thing on Earth and vice versa. That being said, bands can make for great examples of teams, and most people will understand what you are talking about, even if they don't listen to rock music.

You can talk about how a band needs to have the right balance with its members , pointing out that a band with five drummers probably is not going to be able to make music as great as a band with one drummer, a bassist, a lead guitarist, a rhythm guitarist and a singer. You can explain how a band like the Beatles was only able to perform together effectively as long as they had good communication and that after poor communication dissolved their relationships, they broke up.

You may also talk about failed so-called "supergroups" and focus on the fact that when people are unwilling to get out of their own comfort zones or when they let their egos take over so they can't compromise, you are going to end up with something mediocre no matter how talented the individual members of the group may be. A great example of this is SuperHeavy, a group few people have even heard of despite the fact that it contained Mick Jagger, Damian Marley, Joss Stone, Dave Stewart of Eurythmics and, oddly, A.R. Rahman, the singer-composer best known for working on "Slumdog Millionaire." While each of those people is unarguably very talented, the end result of their collaboration is mediocre, chaotic and forgettable.

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Team Building Workshop

Team building workshop presentation, free google slides theme, powerpoint template, and canva presentation template.

It has been fully demonstrated that team building activities reinforce the quality of work. Teamwork makes the dream work... That is why we have prepared this template, so that you can organize a team building workshop in your company. Start by giving some technical notions and then dive completely into the activities you have planned. We have included some as an example, but feel free to add those that come to mind.

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Team Building Business Plan presentation template

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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Home / Business / Best Free Team Building PowerPoint Templates – Updated February 2021

Best Free Team Building PowerPoint Templates – Updated February 2021

Does this phrase detract your attention towards effective team building? Team building is an approach to creating a team that works cohesively towards a specific goal. And to build a successful team, each team member needs to establish a bond with each other.

One of the most prime reasons for forming a team is to get results. A series of team-building activities that can be fun, motivational, brainstorming, or educational builds skills like communication, planning, conflict resolution, etc.

According to a survey, when in a group of 1000 team members, communication, mutual respect, and honest feedback were encouraged, it was reported that team members were 80 per cent more emotional well-being.

Team building is the most influential step for organizational success. It turns individual contributing employees into a cohesive team.

Best Team Building PowerPoint Templates

Now educate your colleagues, team about effective team building methods using these team-building PowerPoint templates. So, without further, let’s delve into some of the best free team-building PowerPoint templates straight away.

Free Meet the Team Template

Every successful organization is a collective of dedicated individuals, each contributing their unique talents and passions. In the spirit of celebrating your team’s accomplishments and fostering a deeper connection with your audience, we proudly present our free Meet the Team Presentation Template .

Alpha Free Pitch Deck PowerPoint Templates

Take your presentation to the next level using these alpha free pitch deck PowerPoint templates. The template comes with modern, sophisticated, and highly impressable slides that guarantee you catch the audience’s eyeballs. Get ready to exhibit your points flawlessly with these team-building PowerPoint slides.

TechO Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

TechO free pitch deck PowerPoint Template

Browse our free Techo pitch deck PowerPoint template an ultimate pitch deck presentation template that can be used by CEOs, managers, business professionals for any business presentations, advertisements, fundraising, crowdfunding, or any related presentations.

Free Apex Free PowerPoint Templates

Don’t know how to elaborate on team-building ideas or strategies in a presentation. Then there’s nothing to fret about. Using these apex Free PowerPoint templates by Slidebazaar , you can draft a compelling presentation that engages with your audience.

Free Business Team Building PPT Presentation

Download our business team-building PowerPoint template by Slidehunter , an excellent illustration for teamwork and collaboration-related presentations. The template includes astonishing templates and presentation backgrounds perfect for any presentation.

Free Team Building Plan Template

Free team building plan template by Best PowerPoint Templates is an amazing slide for business presentations. The templates comprise eight high-quality slides that will help you build effective team building and training-related presentations.

Free Team Building Layout

This free team building layout by Slidecarnival is a modern, elegant and polished template that will let you communicate your ideas successfully. With illustrated scenes of professionals at work, you can highlight the concepts like teamwork, collaboration, team efforts, etc. So instantly download these free team building layouts and don’t miss the opportunity to outshine at the next meetings.

Free Leadership Team Building PowerPoint Templates

These leadership team-building PowerPoint templates by Best PowerPoint Templates are the ideal templates for clear and concise demonstration of team-building efforts, management strategies, team guidance, etc. It can be used by any team manager, leader, CEO’s and any executive with the aim to guide or instruct its team.

Free Teamwork Jigsaw Puzzle PowerPoint Diagram

free team building jigshaw puzzle diagram template

This Free Teamwork Jigsaw Puzzle PowerPoint Diagram Template by Slidehunter is an amazing template to showcase concepts like team building, group effort, leadership, etc. Like each piece of the jigsaw completes the puzzle, each team member’s contribution leaders the business to success. Download these jigsaw puzzle diagram templates and create awesome teamwork presentations.

Infographic Organization Chart Templates

Organizational chart PowerPoint template

During a presentation, what captures the attention of the audience. It’s the presentation template that clings to the focus of your audience. Org charts are the best illustration to feature a team of upcoming projects in a presentation. Get ready to draft a remarkable presentation using these infographic organization chart templates by Slideheap . Get access to 1000+ premium PowerPoint templates for just a membership fee of $29.40.

Team Building Analysis PowerPoint Template

Encourage or motivate your team to perform better by giving them a detailed overview of the work structure, team, management using these team-building analysis PowerPoint Templates by Slidebazaar. The team building analysis PowerPoint template is a common PowerPoint diagram for information dissemination. Regardless of the topic, you create any PowerPoint presentation using the simple ppt template. You can download this team building template on a monthly membership of $9.99 and get access to 100 premium PowerPoint templates.

Oftentimes in MNC’s team-building efforts are overseen. Such negligence, in the long run, can cost heavy for the business.

Many organizations undertake team-building activities with the aim of enriching communication and trust. While it’s the general goal in every office, you can find several areas focused on.

Successful team-building efforts guarantee a comfortable, successful work environment. With these team building PowerPoint templates, you can precisely reflect the concepts.

Promote team-building ideas, develop an employee-friendly workplace, encourage the team to boost performance with these team-building slides. All templates in the selection can be tweaked accordingly.

Get ready to stun your audience. Also, comment on which templates you liked the most.

About The Author

Priyanshu Bharat

Priyanshu is a copywriter who loves to tune into what makes people tick. He believes in presenting his ideas with flair and wit, which has made him an expert at standing on stage and charming the pants off of any audience he's faced with. Priyanshu lives for learning as much as he can, so if you ever need help understanding something - just ask!

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14 Fun & Interactive Presentation Games for Teams and Students

So you've got an audience to energize, students to engage, or a team that needs a little extra fun — playing an interactive presentation game is an easy way to do just that.

We've done the research and found the best of these games for you: we looked specifically for games that are simple to set up, fun to play, and flexible enough to be used with a variety of presentations and audiences. Most of these activities work virtually with Zoom/PowerPoint and can also be used in person.

Which of these 14 presentation games do you like best? Take a look and let us know your favorites:

1. Live Trivia Competition

A great way to ramp up the excitement and engagement is to enable a little bit of friendly competition. Trivia is an easy way to do this—plus, it can be whole-group inclusive and large-audience friendly (if you use the right tools).

Here's a great trivia game you can run with your team, students, or any large audience. It's already created for you with questions and scoring built in to make it even easier:

Here's how to play:

Make a free account here: https://slideswith.com/
Click the slide deck and copy it.
Launch the trivia game by clicking "Start Event."
Invite your group to join in and submit answers using their mobile devices (show the winners automatically).
Interact and play during your presentation!

This trivia game has questions on many topics to keep your audience's attention and appeal to everyone. It only takes 10-15 minutes to play, so it's a great game for long discussions! Also, this interactive activity is free for up to ten participants and is totally customizable.

2. Sing and Swing

To really liven up your group, encourage your listeners to play Sing and Swing. This activity is best for long presentations because it boosts energy, creates a fun, light-hearted environment, and makes people laugh a lot.

Here's how to play:

Before your presentation, pick a well-known song and rewrite the chorus (replace parts of it with words and phrases from your presentation)
When you're ready to play, show the song on your screen.
Invite your audience to sing it with you!

If you have a fun group or a class of energetic students, consider adding choreography to engage your audience even more.

3. 20 Questions

If you want a presentation game that requires your listeners to talk more than you, 20 Questions is the one to play! A classic and simple activity, this game immediately boosts engagement and gets people laughing.

Here's how to play: Have someone put an appropriate image or word on the screen behind you (this can be an audience member you trust or a colleague or co-presenter). To make things more fun, put on a blindfold so that everyone knows you can't cheat. From there, ask 20 "yes or no" questions to guess what's displayed on the screen. Your group should respond "yes" or "no" to guide you to the correct answer.

4. Scavenger Hunt Challenge

To get your audience out of their seats, a scavenger hunt challenge is one of the best interactive games for presentations. It'll immediately energize your audience , team, or students while giving them a fun way to learn.

There are tons of in-person and virtual scavenger hunt ideas you can use to dive deeper into your topic or help everyone learn about one another. But if you want a ready-to-play game that you can instantly launch without having any tech skills, here's a fun one to play:

Use an email address and password to create a free account here: https://slideswith.com/ (a free account guarantees up to ten people can play at no charge).
Click the game and press "Copy and use this slide deck."
In the top right corner, click "Start Event."
Ask listeners to join the game by using their mobile devices to scan the QR code. Players should continue using their mobile devices to submit answers to questions.
Have everyone start hunting for items!

This activity is a particularly fun game because it's a photo-hunt, show-and-tell challenge! That means your audience will not only get out of their seats to find items, but they'll also get to take pictures and share and discuss photos of what they find. This conversational element will help engage your group!

5. Group Word Clouds

Whether you're speaking to team members, students, or conference-goers, this activity lets you ask questions and get your listeners' thoughts on specific topics.

This game is the perfect way to start your presentation, especially if you're discussing something with a wide range of opinions or are unsure how much your listeners know about a certain subject. Group Word Clouds is also beneficial if you want to do a quick meeting pulse or know how your listeners feel going into your presentation—understanding their energy levels and mood can help you adjust (if necessary) to get maximum engagement and excitement.

To enjoy this activity, keep things simple by using a tool that already offers a ready-to-play Group Word Clouds game. Here's a popular one you can launch immediately:

Create a free account by entering an email and password here: https://slideswith.com/
Click the game and then copy it (the button to do so is right underneath the slide deck).
Press "Start Event" in the top right corner.
Tell participants to play by scanning the QR code.
Create word clouds and have fun!

This interactive game only takes 5-10 minutes to play, so it's a fast, fun way to engage your audience and feel out the room. Players can use their mobile devices to answer questions. This activity is also free for up to 10 people and is easy to personalize.

6. The Get to Know You Game

This activity is one of the best presentation games if you have a small group that doesn't really know each other. The Get to Know You Game is a creative way to do introductions, and it's really simple.

Here's how to play the game: Before the event, ask group members to bring a favorite song or item to the presentation (you can do this by emailing them). When you're ready to play, ask each person to introduce themself, present their song or item, and explain why they picked it. For those sharing a song, have them play it on their phones before they explain why it's their favorite.

7. Live Poll Questions

When you have a large group, it's not easy to find ways to boost engagement—but poll questions are the solutions, especially when they're live and interactive. With this unique setup, large groups engage by answering questions and seeing their answers displayed in a fun way.

Your job is to make sure you actually find a game that showcases responses uniquely to captivate your group. For a quick and great option, here's a popular icebreaker activity that promises to display responses using fun formats like word clouds, donut charts, live graphs, and per-player:

Create an account for free to access the game: https://slideswith.com/
Click the slide deck and press the button to copy it.
Look in the top right corner of the deck and press "Start Event."
Invite your group to play the game. They only need to use their mobile devices to scan the QR code.
Start polling your audience!

This activity is one of those fun presentation games everyone will want to enjoy, so invite all of your team members and students to participate. This game can accommodate up to 250 players and takes 5-10 minutes to complete. Tell your group to use their mobile devices to submit their responses.

8. Assumptions

This interactive game is a great way to break up your presentation to see who's paying attention and who can answer questions pertaining to your topic.

Ask your audience to stand up (for virtual presentations, make sure everyone's video is on).
Show true or false statements on the screen one by one.
Tell people to raise a hand if they think the statement is correct and sit down if they think it's incorrect.
Continue until one person is left standing.
Award the winner.

This activity can be as short and challenging as you want. Also, if your presentation is long, you can play multiple rounds to break up your speaking time and test your audience throughout your discussion.

9. Controversial Questions

Want to see where your audience, students, or team lands on controversial topics? Then, energize your presentation with a fun, creative game called Controversial Questions. This activity has prompts that inspire lively debates, so it's a great way to get your group excited and chatty.

However, to maintain a positive environment, make sure to find a tool that offers an office-friendly, classroom-friendly, and conference-friendly game. You don't want to sour the mood by creating uncomfortable division during your presentation. To make sure this game is fun and light-hearted, here's a popular one that's suitable for all audiences and ages:

Sign up for a free account by inputting an email address and password here: https://slideswith.com/pricing
Click the game and press the button that says, "Copy and use this deck."
Press "Start Event" (the button is in the top right corner).
Have participants join the fun by asking them to scan the QR code with their mobile devices.
Get controversial and play!

This interactive game for presentations asks fun (but appropriate) questions like:

Does pineapple belong on pizza?
Does the person flying in the middle seat get both armrests?
Should the toilet roll go over or under?

Players should use their mobile devices to submit answers. Up to ten people can play for free, and you can customize the game by updating the questions!

10. Word of the Day

With this activity, you can keep your audience, team, or students engaged throughout your entire presentation. This game requires listeners to be alert and recognize whenever you say the word of the day.

Here's how to play: At the beginning of your presentation, tell your group the word of the day (it can also be a phrase if you'd prefer). Say that you'll weave the word into your presentation and that your audience must shout it out whenever you mention it.

11. Mini Activity: Group Icebreaker

Whether you're doing an in-person or virtual presentation, you need to warm up your audience to get things started on a positive note. The best way to do that is with a quick icebreaker game.

However, make sure your questions are fun, positive, and engaging. You can easily do this by finding a game that already has the best icebreaker questions included. Here's one that's ready to play (and requiring no tech skills to launch):

Input an email address and password to make a free account here: https://slideswith.com/
Click the deck and copy it (press "Copy and use this deck).
Click the button in the top right corner that says "Start Event."
Invite participants to play by asking them to scan the QR code.
Break the ice to warm up your audience!

Your group should use their mobile devices to submit responses to poll questions. Also, this game accommodates up to 250 players, but only ten people can join for free.

12. Process of Elimination

This activity is one of the best games for presentations because it's simple yet fun and great at helping listeners get to know each other. You can play it at the beginning of your presentation or in the middle to give your group a chance to stretch their legs.

Before your event, create a list of "yes or no" questions.
Once you're ready to play, tell your group to stand up (if you're doing a virtual presentation, make sure everyone's video is on).
Ask each question one by one.
Tell attendees to stand if their answer is "yes" and sit if their answer is "no."

The questions can relate to your topic or be totally random. Also, if you'd prefer to thin out the number of people standing, you can take a creative twist and ask your questions by saying something like this: "Stay standing if (insert scenario)." When phrasing each question this way, the game will end with one person standing. To acknowledge the winner, you can give them a round of applause or award them a prize.

13. Conference Opener Icebreaker

If you're speaking at a big conference, you need an interactive game for presentations that can get everyone involved and ensure every voice is heard. To achieve these goals, you should create an icebreaker game that works for large groups .

Using an easy, intuitive template is the best step to take. That way, you don't have to start from scratch or spend hours making your game. For a template that requires no code or tech-savviness to build on, here's the best option:

Sign up by making a free account here: https://slideswith.com/
Click on the game. On the next page, click the button to copy and use the deck.
Customize the template using the instructions HERE .
During your presentation, press "Start Event" in the top right corner.
Ask the group to use their mobile devices to scan the QR code and join the fun. (Also, make sure participants use their mobile devices to submit answers.)
Play and engage your audience!

This template has fun, interactive features built in to keep your large audience engaged. Those features include polls, word clouds, and ratings. Just make sure you sign up for a paid plan to accommodate the large number of people in your group—the free account only works for up to ten players.

14. Two Truths and a Lie

This classic game is a fun, energizing way to help your listeners get to know one another. It's perfect for small in-person or virtual groups and is an ideal activity for the beginning of your presentation.

Here's how to play: Pick any topic (for the purposes of this article, the topic will be "movies"). In no particular order, say two movies you've really watched and one you haven't watched. Ask your audience to guess which statement is the lie. The winner picks the next topic and says two truths and a lie.

Be Memorable With Presentation Games

Oftentimes, people forget presentations within a week or even days, and that's because the discussions are boring. But you don't work hard preparing a presentation for it to be forgotten. If you want your message to stick, all you have to do is make it enjoyable without being corny.

If you want to be remembered and actually get people engaged, you need to make your presentation fun and enjoyable, without coming off as corny or desperate to please. Ivan Dimitrijevic, 10 Secrets of Making Every Presentation Fun, Engaging, and Enjoyable

Luckily, the interactive presentation games in this article are unique and exciting—they're far from corny. So, use them for your upcoming presentations to make your messages compelling and memorable.

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Top 40 Teamwork and Collaboration PowerPoint Templates for Timely Achievement of Company’s Goals

Deepali Khatri

Everyone is looking forward for increasing organizational productivity and for learning to work together effectively. Whether you choose a private-sector career or an academic, you’ll need to know how to work together with the members of your group. Learning to work collectively for a common goal is vital these days.

Even while seeking a job, people look for a company with a happy work culture rather than a company that offers the best perks and designations. And, this is because working together effectively helps in increasing the outcome, quality and boosts up the morale of the employees.

If you wish to conduct a comprehensive training for your team and colleagues on conflict management, access our training module here that will provide all the hands-on material you need to make for an effective experience.

Comprehensive Training Curriculum on Conflict Management Training PPT

Click here to access our Comprehensive Training Curriculum on Conflict Management

Here we present to you top 40 teamwork and collaboration templates that will aid you in improving your teamwork and collaboration skills. Incorporating these PPT templates will help you make most out of the team’s collective strengths and experience. Employing these predesigned editable PowerPoint slides will enable you to build a team of people for the timely achievement of company’s goals.

Partnership Graphic With Teamwork Success Growth And Collaborate-1

Get This Partnership Graphic with Teamwork Success Growth and Collaborate PowerPoint Template

Achieve common goals of the organization in the most effective and efficient way using this readymade partnership graphic with a teamwork success growth PowerPoint template. Give your employees a common goal for which they can work together and familiarize them with the benefits of working together.

Activities and Team Marketing Manufacturing Management Treasury Finance-2

Grab this Activities and Team PPT Layout

This is a deck consisting of 9 slides that can be used for illustrating team building activities for a company. Present the steps of building an effective team using this editable PPT slide design. The benefits one can gain by working in a team can be easily elucidated taking the assistance of this activities and team template. Divide various responsibilities and activities between different team members through this slide.

Involvement of People Teamwork PPT PowerPoint Presentation Pictures Brochure-3

Download this Involvement of People Teamwork PPT Layout

Incorporate this involvement of people teamwork PPT template and make your team stronger by involving the team members in the decision-making process. This teamwork and collaborations PPT template will assist you in understanding each other and building friendly relations. Showcase how people work together using their individual skills through this amazingly curated PowerPoint slide.

Collaboration Teamwork PPT PowerPoint Presentation Professional Master Slide-4

Download this Collaboration Teamwork PowerPoint Slide Design

Showcase the value of working together for achieving a common goal. This PowerPoint layout provides every team member with equal opportunities to participate and communicate their ideas. Having collaborations can help in increasing retention rates. Work together by sharing your ideas to reach the set goals.

Collaboration Teamwork Forecasting Budgeting PPT PowerPoint Presentation model Brochure-5

Download this Collaboration Teamwork Forecasting Budgeting PowerPoint Slide Show

Display the significance of working collectively in a team taking the assistance of this teamwork forecasting budgeting PowerPoint model. The slide will enable you to illustrate the importance of working as a team. Use this predesigned PPT template to enhance participants' skills while practicing teamwork concepts.

Teamwork Chain Template PowerPoint Slide Images-6

Download this Readymade Teamwork Chain Template PowerPoint Slide Design

Display how the functional business teams are connected with the help of this creatively designed teamwork chain PPT template. Illustrate the process of managing teams and motivate your employees to work as per the set guidelines. This template can be the best tool for introducing your team members to the clients for attaining projects. Showcase the connection between various departments and how these departments together work for achieving the organizational objectives.

Collaboration Skills Teamwork PPT PowerPoint Presentation Model Design Ideas-7

Download this Collaboration Skills Teamwork PowerPoint Diagram

Use this PowerPoint template to build and develop an efficient, effective and powerful team. Mention the skills required for teamwork and collaboration. Illustrate how problem-solving, interpersonal and communication skills can help you reach your organizational goals quickly. Use this editable slide to depict the principles of effective collaboration.

Coordination Icon for Business Collaboration-8

Download this Coordination for Business Collaboration PowerPoint Layout

Employ this coordination icon for business collaboration PowerPoint slide design to devise strategies that will motivate employees to work towards the achievement of common goals. Discuss the tasks that need to be done for building strong relations with the other team members. Jot down the important plans that will help you in building a strong team using this slide.

Organizational Effectiveness Teamwork Achievement Successful Strategy-9

Click Here to Download this Organizational Effectiveness Teamwork Achievement Successful Strategy

Use this slide to depict how people can cooperate using their individual skills and provide constructive decisions or solutions. Incorporate the template to illustrate what are the qualities one should acquire to be an effective member of the team. This template depicts different people holding hands which is a symbol of strength. Build a successful strategy and present it in front of your team members with this predesigned PowerPoint template.

3D Men With Jigsaw Puzzle Teamwork PPT Graphics Icons PowerPoint-10

Click Here to Get this 3d Men with Jigsaw Puzzle Teamwork PowerPoint Slide Show

This 3D men with jigsaw puzzle teamwork PPT graphics is a metaphor for business and strategy PowerPoint presentation. The template will let you break down a complex piece of information in a simpler manner. This template has been crafted by our experts for your convenience which allows you to enter the text in the text placeholders. The interconnected puzzle shows connectivity and flow among several steps.

Teamwork and Collaboration Sample Presentation PPT-11

Get this Teamwork and Collaboration Sample PowerPoint Presentation

Incorporate this slide to build a team for the timely achievement of your company’s goal. The slide will let you showcase how good leadership can encourage better interactions amongst your team members. Showcase how teamwork and personal growth can help in appropriate decision making. Make your organization work smoothly with the help of this readily available teamwork and collaboration PowerPoint slide show.

Strategic Partnership Showing Collaboration Teamwork Plan And Strategy-12

Download this Customizable Strategic Partnership Showing Collaboration Teamwork Plan and Strategy

This PPT template will assist small businesses to grow their customer base and improve their business. Formulate appropriate plans for growth of your business organization and mention the ways through which you can build strategic partnership that will enhance your organizational productivity. Guide your viewers about the various types of strategic partnerships via this professionally designed PowerPoint slide design.

Commitment Showing Collaboration Between Group-13

Download this PowerPoint Template Now

Display the most important skills required for teamwork and collaboration using this amazingly curated PowerPoint slide. The slide can also be used to depict the effects of commitment on teamwork and organizational productivity. With the commitment between team members and groups, your organization will benefit from more ideas, thereby increasing the profits of the organization.

Collaboration Continuum Diagram PowerPoint Slide-14

Download this Collaboration Continuum Diagram PowerPoint Template

Communicate efficiently taking the assistance of this collaboration business model. The template consists of five stages showcasing networking, coordination, cooperation, collaboration, and integration. This PPT design is divided in two parts displaying trust and turf which makes easier for you to share information. The collaboration continuum will help in achieving goals collectively that otherwise cannot be achieved by a single agent.

3 Important Skills Teamwork Collaboration PPT PowerPoint Presentation Outline Good-15

Download this Readymade 3 Important Skills Teamwork Collaboration PPT Template

Elucidate the skills required for effective teamwork and collaborations. Let your viewers be aware of how communication skills, credibility, accommodation, and other important skills can help in working collectively for the common organizational goals. If you are to work with others on a long term basis, you need to possess certain skills. Display the skills that your employees must acquire for efficient working within the business organization.

Team With Bulb Puzzle And Icons Flat PowerPoint Design-16

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Find a solution for your business problems by discussing on the matter through this amazingly designed PPT template. Showcase how collaboration helps the organization to achieve the desired objectives. Showcase the problem-solving concept in an organization and illustrate the ways and methods to tackle with the given situation. This team with bulb puzzle template allows you to convey your ideas and messages for reaching to a conclusion collectively.

Teamwork for Project Completion in Coordination Icon-17

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Take the assistance of this readily available teamwork for project completion in the coordination template and showcase how working together in a team assists you in completing the projects keeping in mind the deadlines. Using this slide one can ensure that resources are well managed, and less time is needed to complete the project. This PPT template will let you assign duties and responsibilities to the workforce. Let your staff members be aware of who is accountable to whom.

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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

How to accomplish big things with long-term goals

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

34 Team-Building Ideas for In-Person and Remote Teams in 2023

By Becky Simon | August 8, 2023

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While team-building ideas and activities often get a bad rap — picture golf outings, trust falls, and other cliché team exercises that everyone dreads — they can actually be incredibly useful in the workplace when properly executed. By recognizing that people learn in different ways, organizations can effectively and creatively encourage team bonding with fun and exciting activities that won’t feel like a chore.

However, choosing the right team-building activity can be tricky. Our list of 34 team-building ideas gives you a variety of exercises for both in-person teams and virtual teams , and also outlines why team-building activities are important and how they can make a difference in your company.

Types of Team-Building Exercises and Activities

Better teams are built through collaboration and team exercises that break down biases, others require collective participation, and invest in team culture. While there are plenty of different team-building activities, many help promote teamwork and encourage workplace collaboration in the following categories:

Icebreakers: Warm-up activities help participants get to know each other better and build camaraderie. Use icebreakers and other team-building games at the start of a longer team-building program to help bring people together who don’t typically work side by side.
Bonding Activities: Bonding exercises encourage team members to feel connected to each other and their mission, follow directions, trust one another, and have confidence in their leadership.
Communication Skills Activities: Communication is one of the most common weak spots for teams, and poor communication can give rise to misunderstandings, wasted work, and even internal sabotage. Communication activities often involve building trust, honesty, and clarity.
Motivational Activities: Team-building activities can grow a worker’s appreciation for their coworkers, managers, and places of employment. Motivational exercises may even spur professional work forward.
Creative Activities: Teams may require some encouragement to step outside their comfort zones or brainstorm creative solutions to a problem. These activities are designed to inspire action.
Appreciation Activities: Employees who feel appreciated have much higher motivation and commitment to their work. Creating that feeling requires intentional effort, and sometimes managers need help feeling comfortable enough to extend praise. Activities that focus on these skills can build appreciation into your culture.
Team Values Activities: These activities can help your team learn more about how they work together and what they value as individuals. When people have a better understanding of what their coworkers value, they have a point of reference for why they may behave a certain way. This knowledge can foster a more harmonious workplace.
Teamwork Activities: Teamwork requires a range of skills, from learning to work with challenging personalities to forging a sense of common purpose. Teamwork activities help participants identify ways they can individually contribute to or hinder the success of an organization.
Problem-Solving Skills Activities: Problem-solving activities focus on improving communication so that you can work together effectively to reach a common goal.
Trust Activities: Teams work better together when they learn to trust the other members around them. These activities are designed to foster this value for all employees, including entry-level employees, managers, and company owners.
Leadership Skills Activities: While many team-building activities have areas where leaders can naturally emerge, these exercises specifically targets improving help improve leadership skills.

Different types of team building exercises are used to reach various goals.

In-Person Team-Building Activities

If your team works together in an office environment or can meet up during working hours, these 24 in-person team-building activities are great for teams of various sizes.

1. Board Games

Number of Participants: 2 to 10 Objective: Team collaboration, problem solving, and communication Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour Materials: Board games of your team’s choice

Similar to puzzles, board games are a great way to encourage team collaboration. Games are great for networking, building relationships built on communication, and encouraging playfulness in a more structured environment. You can create a specific time for team members to play games, or you can leave them in the office to encourage continued collaboration throughout the regular workday.

2. Compliment Circle

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Appreciation and bonding Time: 10 to 20 minutes Materials: None

Teams work better together when they feel appreciated for both the work they do and the people they are. With a compliment circle, your team members have the opportunity to compliment their coworkers on their work, attitudes, project management, and more. You can do this in a group circle, via a communication platform, or anonymously.

3. Human Knot

Number of Participants: 6+ Objective: Communication and problem solving Time: 5 to 20 minutes Materials: None

The human knot is a popular camp activity that can easily be repurposed for a variety of teams. In this team-building exercise, an even number of participants stand in a circle facing forward. Members reach each of their hands forward and connect with two different team members, creating a web of interconnected hands. Participants then attempt to untangle the knot without releasing their hands, relying on team communication to solve the problem.

4. Spectrum Mapping

Number of Participants: 5 to 15 Objective: Communication and bonding Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour Materials: Whiteboard, sticky notes, and writing utensils

Teams consist of individuals with unique ideas, perspectives, and values. To align these — and encourage team communication about personal perspectives — spectrum mapping can be useful. In this activity, write a topic in the middle of a whiteboard, and have participants surround the topic with sticky notes filled with opinions and perspectives on the topic. Then, group these sticky notes into similar categories and facilitate conversations about the different ways the team views the topics.

5. Puzzle Solving

Number of Participants: 8 to 20 Objectives: Team collaboration, problem solving, and communication Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour Materials: Jigsaw puzzles

Team collaboration, problem-solving skills, and communication are vital to team success. In this team-building activity, participants work together to solve jigsaw puzzles. To challenge your team members further, split them into two teams that compete to solve their puzzles in a certain time frame. You can even mix puzzle pieces from different puzzles together, creating a scenario where both teams need to work together to succeed.

Puzzle solving is a team building idea that can encourage collaboration and communication.

6. Order Formation

Number of Participants: 5+ Objective: Teamwork and problem solving Time: 5 to 20 minutes Materials: None

While verbal communication is important in an organization, nonverbal communication is just as necessary. In this team-building exercise, participants attempt to line themselves up in various orders — by height, age, name, birthday, or other factors — without speaking. Teams must grow their nonverbal communication skills to successfully complete this task.

7. Blind Drawing

Number of Participants: 2+ (even numbers work best) Objective: Communication and teamwork Time: 30 minutes Materials: Simple printed or emailed images

Art isn’t easy for everyone, and it can be especially difficult if you’re trying to create something without a guiding image. In this exercise, pairs work together to create one cohesive image. Participant A attempts to draw the image assigned to them by their manager, but they can only draw using verbal instructions from Participant B. This team-building idea builds communication skills and patience.

8. Sneak-a-Peek

Number of Participants: 4 to 20 Objective: Teamwork and communication Time: 30 minutes Materials: Building blocks

In this team-building activity, participants are separated into two groups. A pre-made, replicable structure is hidden and a team member is selected to be the first direction provider. This person takes a sneak peak of the structure for 10 seconds, gives building directions for 30 seconds, and allows their teammates to build part of the structure for one minute. Repeat this so every team member can take a sneak peek and offer directions, and the first team to build the structure wins.

9. Two Truths and a Lie

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Communication, icebreaking, and bonding Time: 20 minutes Materials: None

To encourage participants to open up and bond with each other, set up a game of Two Truths and a Lie. Each participant will choose two truths about themselves and think up one lie, and then they will say all three to their team (without telling the team which is which). Team members then guess which statement is the lie. Remember that these statements don’t have to be extremely deep or personal in order for this team-building idea to be a success.

10. Count to 20

Number of Participants: 3+ Objective: Bonding Time: 10 minutes Materials: None

For this activity, your team will sit in a circle. The goal is to count to 20 as a group — without repeating numbers. Anyone can start the game at one and continue the count forward, but if two participants jump in at the same time, it’s game over. You can continue playing this game until you successfully reach 20 or you need to move on to a new activity.

11. Show and Tell

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Motivation and appreciation Time: 10 to 30 minutes Materials: None

Team members have lives outside of their jobs, but they don’t often have the opportunity to speak about their other passions at work. Invite your team to bring photos, prizes, and stories to a time of show and tell where they can brag about their accomplishments and talk about the things they love.

12. Lunch and Learn

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Creativity, bonding, and entertainment Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour Materials: Depends on the topic

Do you have team members with cool skills — both personal and professional? If so, facilitate a lunch-and-learn session. These are short, educational talks during a team’s lunch break where participants can learn new skills. For example, you may have team members who want to lead talks about houseplants, design tools, watercolors, role playing games, or other unique skills.

13. Scavenger Hunt

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Bonding, icebreaking, and entertainment Time: Any Materials: Depends on activities

Download a Scavenger Hunt Template — Adobe PDF

Encourage your team members to leave their desks — and maybe the office — with a scavenger hunt. This can be a great hands-on approach for showing new hires around a company, introducing team members to managers and other departments, and educating participants about where supplies are, a company’s history, and more.

14. Tied Together

Number of Participants: 4 to 16 Objective: Teamwork, communication, and bonding Time: 30 minutes Materials: Long piece of rope or other tie

Similar to a three-legged race, this team-building activity is designed to test participants' teamwork and communication skills. Team members stand side by side and gather into a large circle where they are tied together at either the wrist or ankle. Once the whole team is connected as a single unit, they’re given small tasks to complete. To be successful, participants must be willing to assist others and accept help.

15. Collaborative Brainstorming

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Teamwork, leadership, and motivation Time: 30 minutes Materials: Notepad or note-taking application

While team building can be entertaining, it’s sometimes necessary to invest in team-building ideas that are business focused. Team brainstorms allow participants to communicate ideas, lead and facilitate discussions, and move projects forward in a collaborative manner.

16. Personality Tests

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Bonding, team values, and trust Time: Any Materials: Personality tests of choice and results

You may have heard of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, DISC assessment, Enneagram, or any number of other popular personality tests. Many professional teams are investing in these types of indicators because they help identify individual strengths and weaknesses, inspire communication and confidence, and offer insights into personal motivators — all of which can reinforce values and build trusting teams.

17. Hack Days

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Team values, creativity, and motivation Time: 1 work day Materials: Depends on the project

If you have a work day to spare, consider setting up a hack day for your team. This is a day specifically devoted to a project that benefits their team or company. These can be collaborative work days across all departments, or they can be smaller days set aside for a particular team. No matter the size of the hack day, the goal is simple: Elevate work processes or products in a single work day on a limited budget.

18. Code of Conduct

Number of Participants: 10 to 30 Objective: Team values and trust Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour Materials: Whiteboard, sticky notes, and writing utensils

This team-building idea is best suited for specific events, but it can be adapted for general use within a team. On a whiteboard, write the words “meaningful” and “pleasant.” Give your team members the opportunity to write ideas on how an event — or team — can be meaningful and pleasant, and stick them to the whiteboard. This mind map can then facilitate discussions on best practices, team values, and participant expectations.

19. Shark Tank

Number of Participants: 2 to 24 Objective: Creativity and teamwork Time: 1 to 2 hours Materials: Pitch presentations

This team-building idea is an ode to the television show. Assign participants to the roles of sharks or presenters, and then give presenters time to formulate a presentation for their proposal. These proposal ideas can be true team ideas they need help funding and organizing, or they can be mock ideas just for fun. Allow presenters to pitch their ideas and sharks to bid on ideas or offer tips on how to elevate a presentation.

20. Escape Room

Number of Participants: Up to 6 players per room Objective: Problem solving, teamwork, and communication Time: 1 hour Materials: Escape room of your choice

Test your team’s problem-solving, teamwork, and communication skills with an escape room. You can create your own or take your team to a professional operation with a variety of escape room options. You can even increase this activity’s incentive by setting time goals or prizes for the fastest escape.

Number of Participants: Any Objective: Bonding, teamwork, trust, and entertainment Time: 20 to 30 minutes Materials: Trivia questions

Trivia is a team-oriented activity, designed for participants to work together and trust each other. Find a bar, restaurant, or other establishment that offers team trivia nights, and take your team on a team-building outing. If in-house trivia is more your style, you can create your own questions or use an online trivia game to entertain your team members.

22. Improvisation Class

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Icebreaking and communication Time: 30 minutes to 1 hours Materials: Improv class of your choice

Improvisation is more than just a theater term. Improv classes teach individuals how to communicate in unexpected situations, and they can be icebreakers for teams who feel uncomfortable around each other. These classes can push a team’s comfort zone to new heights, and it’s even possible to find both virtual and in-person classes.

23. Volunteer

Number of Participants: Any Objective: Bonding and team values Time: Any Materials: Depends on volunteer service

Encourage your team to give back to their community by setting up a time to volunteer together. This type of team-building exercise helps align team values and allows team members to bond while helping others. Plus, you and your team can choose an organization to volunteer at together, which can further spur communication and teamwork.

24. Book Club

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Bonding, communication, and entertainment Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour for meetings and additional time for reading Materials: Club’s book pick or access to electronic books

Book clubs are great spaces for bonding, entertainment, and communication. Your team can pick any book — fiction or nonfiction, industry-specific or not — and set aside some time to read and discuss it. If you choose an industry-specific book, you can assign team members to present their findings, questions, or confusions to the group, and if you choose an entertaining read, you can simply gather together to discuss the plot, characters, or themes.

Many employees stay with their companies because of collaboration and supportive teams.

Virtual Team-Building Ideas

Even if your team is unable to meet in person, it’s important to foster an open and collaborative remote company culture . By incorporating virtual games and experiences into your team’s activities, you can build strong, collaborative teams across time zones.

25. Online Games

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Bonding and communication Time: Any Materials: Online game options

While you may not be able to sit around a physical table and move game pieces around a tangible board with a remote team, you can still play a variety of online games — including board games that have been adapted for the screen. Online games can help build team camaraderie and communication in a fun, safe environment.

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Entertainment and bonding Time: 10 to 30 minutes Materials: Bingo cards and bingo number generator

Four corners, blackout, regular old bingo — you name it! This classic game is easy to understand and play, plus your team members can bond over a simple game of luck. You can even create your own bingo sheets themed around your participants’ favorite sports teams, an important project they’re currently involved in, and more.

27. Communication Channels

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Communication Time: Any Materials: Communication channel of choice

Remote teams often have team members living or working in different time zones. Instead of trying to meet with each other outside of general working hours, communication channels can encourage asynchronous communication , and fun polls, challenges, and industry-specific learning opportunities can turn a simple remote collaboration tool into an exciting team building opportunity.

28. MTV Cribs

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Bonding and entertainment Time: 5 minutes Materials: Camera

Just because your team works in different places doesn’t mean they aren’t hospitable. In honor of the classic ‘90s show, encourage your team members to film short videos of their offices — or homes, if they’re comfortable — to give their coworkers a look into their personalities and everyday lives. These can be as simple as a tour of a participant’s desk accessories or as detailed as a full home walk-through.

29. Storytelling Workshops

Number of Participants: Any Objective: Team values, creativity, and motivation Time: 1+ hours Materials: Workshop of your choice

Encourage your team’s creativity with storytelling workshops. These workshops can be short, single visits from industry experts, or they can be longer, more involved processes. Storytelling can encourage team members to think of creative, out-of-the-box solutions to team problems, and an expert-led workshop is a great place to start.

30. Remote Debates

Number of Participants: 6+ Objective: Communication, teamwork, and problem solving Time: 30 minutes Materials: None

Disagreements and differing opinions are bound to occur within any team. Remote office debates can help teams learn how to handle these differences and prepare participants for future public speaking engagements. Before engaging in debates about hot topics, designate a moderator — or take on the role yourself — to ensure each side of the dispute is heard and treated with respect.

31. Coffee Chats

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Bonding, communication, and entertainment Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour Materials: Drink of choice

Virtual team members may never meet face-to-face, but they can still get together in a stress- and expectation-free environment. Coffee chats are designed for team members to grab a cup of their favorite beverage — coffee or not — hop on a video call, and socialize. These meet and greets can be scheduled across time zones , grouped by city, region, and interests, or open to everyone in a virtual team.

Coffee chats can reinforce relationships and bonding in remote teams.

32. Virtual Happy Hour

Number of Participants: Any Objective: Bonding and entertainment Time: 1 hour Materials: Drink of choice

Virtual happy hours are similar to coffee chats. These get-togethers are perfect for after working hours, and they can be a place for open chats about different topics. Incorporate trivia questions or other fun activities into your virtual happy hours to encourage team members to relax, bond, and have fun.

33. Craft Challenge

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Creativity Time: 30 minutes Materials: Depends on the craft

For this activity, you need the element of surprise. Send your team a message or an email at a random time and challenge them to a craft-off. This team-building activity requires participants to use whatever materials they already have to create a one-of-a-kind craft. You can even have participants submit photos of their masterpieces for a team vote where the favorite creation earns a prize.

34. Remote Coworking

Number of Participants: 2+ Objective: Bonding, communication, and teamwork Time: Any Materials: None

Your team doesn’t have to live in the same place to be able to work together. Instead, encourage team members to engage in live remote coworking. This can spur productivity, strengthen professional and personal relationships, and inspire different types of remote collaboration .

Why Are Team-Building Activities Important?

Team-building activities are incredibly important for every team because they help identify team challenges while simultaneously encouraging individual strengths and relationships. No matter where a team is located, whether it’s in person or remote, or how many members a team consists of, team-building activities also do following:

Encourage company networking and team socializing
Boost team performance
Motivate celebrations and team spirit
Inspire innovative solutions to team challenges
Enhance company culture
Align individual, team, and company goals and values
Revitalize fun in the workplace
Show employee appreciation
Build cross-departmental connections
Enhance employee engagement and morale
Stimulate team-building questions that can boost team cohesiveness

Researchers have even recently found that virtual team building can improve team communication and morale by more than 60 percent. So, the results are in: Team-building activities are vital to the success of professional teams — and their companies.

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20 fun virtual team building activities for remote employees

With remote and hybrid work taking over, virtual team building is growing more important by the day. As distributed teams become commonplace, so do the challenges that come with them – loneliness and communication issues being among the most pronounced ones.

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Sure, working from home lets you avoid commuting, have a flexible work schedule, and spend more time with family, but these clearly come at a cost, particularly for those of us who have gotten used to spending 8 hours a day side-by-side with our colleagues.

After all, the office is a social environment, whereas the same can’t really be said for a virtual workspace. This makes it difficult to develop a company culture and camaraderie between teammates that collaborate day-in and day-out.

That’s why more and more companies are putting in a conscious effort into virtual team building.

The importance of virtual team building

Welcoming newcomers, making individuals feel like they’re part of a team, fostering camaraderie – not only will these things help keep loneliness at bay, but they’ll also help develop friendships between colleagues, which leads to greater work satisfaction and improved performance .

With water-cooler chats replaced by…, well, nothing, it’s important to actively provide an environment where teammates can come together and spend some time socializing. Just having Slack or a WhatsApp group is not enough, although they certainly help.

One way to provide this environment is with remote team building activities. Remote team activities encourage everyone to come together and interact. Whether it’s to get to know each other better or have a small competition – it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, it’s about spending quality time with colleagues, sharing some laughs, and facilitating conversations.

Without further ado, let’s dive into some team building games for remote teams.

20 virtual team building ideas to try out

In this list, you’ll find online games for remote teams, bonding activity ideas, and on-going virtual event ideas that will make remote socializing with colleagues fun, valuable, and something to be looked forward to.

VIRTUAL ACTIVITIES

VIRTUAL GAMES

VIRTUAL EVENTS

Fitness goals
PowerPoint Karaoke
We’re alike
Fashion devastation
Photo competition
Virtual happy hour
MTV Cribs: Remote edition
Remote Pictionary
Association game
Aliens have landed
Online game tournaments
Personal quiz
Unleash your inner writer
Coffee time
Donut conversation
Regular retrospectives
Friday wind-down
BONUS: further ideas

Virtual team building activities for work

One of the best ways to approach team building is through collaborative activities. Be it a team goal you all work towards together, or some wholesome discussions that help you get to know your colleagues better, there are all sorts of activities for remote teams that will help you bond.

1. Team fitness goals

Rules: Create a shared fitness goal that the team must complete during a limited time period, e.g. 1,000,000 steps over a month or a certain distance cycled/ran.

It’s best to create a challenge that can be tracked by phones or smartwatches to ensure the authenticity of the results, however, you can also simply ask to self-report things like sit-ups, push-ups, and other exercises that might be harder to track digitally.

Objective: First and foremost, this will get the team moving. Not having to commute is great, but now we spend more time than ever sitting . Having a shared team fitness goal can, for example, be the defining push for people to go for walks, as nobody will want to let the team down.

A healthier team is a more productive team. More than that, having everyone working together on a single tangible goal is a rare occurrence in the modern company where everyone is split into divisions and departments. A shared fitness goal can foster a sentiment of togetherness with more than just your immediate colleagues, and it’s one of the more popular remote team building activities.

2. PowerPoint karaoke

PowerPoint karaoke is one of the best virtual team building activities

Rules: In PowerPoint Karaoke, an improvisation game and an office classic, one team member has to do a PowerPoint presentation, without knowing what’s on the slides they’re handed.

Have each employee prepare 4-5 weird/funny slides and then distribute them to whoever’s up next!

Objective: Honestly, it’s just really funny to see what people come up with. Sure, there are some benefits regarding improved presentation skills and being quick on your feet, but, at the end of the day, this game is primarily and chiefly about having a good time.

3. We’re alike

Rules: Split your team into groups of 2-4 people. Each group’s task is to find 5 things that its members have in common and create a list. Once that’s done, groups come together and share and compare the lists they’ve created.

The next goal is to find common things between the lists created and discover things that many people in the company have in common.

We suggest using a randomizer when forming the teams to encourage communication between people that might not otherwise talk.

Objective: The main objective is to make friends. The typical work environment rarely gives you the option to discover what other people are into, particularly if you’re a shy person. This activity can also be a manager’s secret weapon for learning more about the team and discovering what things are universally liked, which help plan future on-site or remote team building activities.

4. Fashion devastation

Rules: This quick game takes only 5 minutes, but it will stay with you forever. The rules are simple:

Everyone turns off their camera;
Everyone has 3 minutes to get dressed in the most ridiculous outfit possible;
Once done, everyone must turn their cameras back on at the same time.

Let the hilarity ensue and make sure to take a screenshot!

Objective: Beyond just lightening the mood, this activity gives you a team picture that will make any teammate smile when looking at it. If you decide to share it on social media, it’s sure to stand out among the bland seas of faces that other companies post.

5. Fire!

Rules: There’s a fire! You have 3 minutes to grab 3 things that you would save first in the case of an emergency.

Once the team has collected the things they’d save, it’s time to do the rounds and hear the story behind each item – one of my personal favorite team building games for remote workers as it’s personal and fun.

Objective : This activity is the best for bonding. Lots of wholesome stories end up being shared, you learn about what your colleagues value, and you can get real personal, without it being weird. You’ll always discover something new and unexpected about someone and this activity will remind everyone that there’s a person just like you on the other side of that Slack conversation.

6. Photo competition

Photo competition is one the most fun virtual team building games

Rules : Give your team a theme. Give them a deadline (it can be 30 minutes, or it can be 2 weeks – up to you). Have them send in the best thematic picture they’ve taken. Hold an anonymous vote to determine the winner. Crown the champion!

Then, set a new theme and you’re ready for round two!

Objective : This is one of the more creative remote team building activities and it enables people to showcase their talents and abilities and simply have some fun.

7. Virtual happy hour

Rules: Just grab a drink and unwind with colleagues over a video call.

Objective: An activity best saved for a Friday afternoon, the virtual happy hour can serve as a casual socializing space without the requirement of jumping through hoops or doing other silly activities. Colleagues can have an open environment where they can just catch up about work or non-work stuff and spend quality time together just being themselves.

8. MTV Cribs: Remote edition

Rules: Take turns pretending to be the guest star on MTV Cribs and give a tour of your place – or even just workspace.

Objective: A little bit of silliness goes a long way. However, there’s also a productive aspect to this activity, namely, by seeing the various workstations and setups of colleagues, others might get inspired to improve theirs. That said, this is an activity that should be run by the team before doing it, as some people might be hesitant to show off their living space.

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Virtual team building games

Online games for remote teams are a fantastic way to get your team involved, without having to awkwardly share personal details or sit silently for an hour as everyone does the rounds talking about themselves. Competition helps people get over their inhibitions and before you know it – everyone’s passionately fighting for the victory.

9. Remote Pictionary

Rules : One person has to draw something and others have to guess what it is. The person drawing isn’t allowed to write words or numbers, nor are they allowed to talk.

Remote Pictionary is even more fun than its paper/whiteboard-based counterpart because the person drawing must screen share and use some digital drawing tool like MS Paint or Paintbrush, resulting in some hilariously awful drawings.

Plus, since you’re all already at your computers, you can use tools like the Pictionary Word Generator for easy ideas. With all these tools at your disposal, you need no prep time to get started!

Objective : Pictionary is a staple among team building activities and can serve as a simple and fun exercise to lighten the mood and have some laughs. More than that, when done regularly, Pictionary can significantly improve communication, as your teammates learn to better communicate on a conceptual level and gain a deeper understanding of how each other thinks.

10. Association game

The association game is perfect if you're all out of virtual team building ideas

Rules : Select someone from the team who’s going to be the first judge and have them offer a word or a theme. It can be nearly anything, e.g. childhood, music, animal – the more creative the better. Then everyone else has 3 minutes to find something nearby that they associate with the theme.

Once the time is up, everyone takes turns explaining why they chose that item. The person with the best story, as judged by the person in charge, gets 1 point. The judge changes every round. The first person to get 3 points wins the game!

The game is best for teams of 5-15 people, however, if there are more of you, you can skip the point awarding part and simply use the association game to get to know each other better.

Objective : This rapid-fire association game is fantastic for getting a deeper peek into who your colleagues are. You’re going to hear some heartwarming and some downright hilarious stories that you might never otherwise learn about your colleagues. Gamifying the whole process allows for people to really dig for those stories and share things everyone will find enjoyable.

11. Aliens have landed

Rules : Split up into teams of 3-5 people. Each team has to explain what your company is and does to aliens that have just arrived on earth and who, contrary to what movies would have you believe, don’t speak your language. Teams have to use 5 symbols/pictures to try and get the message across.

Once a team has settled on the images, they must copy them together in a single file and then each team takes turns showing their results to others who have to try and interpret the message.

Objective : Beyond just having some laughs and seeing all the creative things people come up with, this fun remote team building activity is a collaborative effort and can help initiate discussions between people that might not usually talk as much. This effect can be manufactured by purposely creating teams with people that might not communicate much in their day-to-day activities.

An added benefit is that it can help determine how employees view the company. By finding some commonalities among the answers, managers can identify what values and features of the company stand out most.

12. Online game tournaments

Rules : Decide with your team on a 1v1 game that can be played online. It can be anything from Battleships to Chess, to Pool, to any other online games for remote teams. Once people have signed up, create a tournament bracket, fill it out with participants, and off you go!

Objective : Tournaments tend to take a longer time to complete and can create an on-going and healthy competition and intrigue among teammates as people get eliminated and winners emerge. Plus, online games like Battleships and Pool don’t take too long, so they can serve as a quick break from on-going tasks.

Once the tournament is over and the champion crowned, start planning for season 2 – having a fun activity always running in the background will help your remote team feel more involved.

Taboo is a classic among remote team building activities

Rules: Another classic party game, Taboo is a word guessing game that needs at least 2 teams. Each team takes turns to have one participant explain words to a teammate without using the words themselves or 5 other related words. The guesser has 1 minute to guess as many words as possible. The team that gets the most words right wins the round.

You can use this Taboo game to generate the cards with words.

Objective: Taboo is a perfect ice-breaker game since it throws people into a high-pressure situation where they don’t have the time to mince words or give in to shyness. Opening up any remote team activity evening with this will help get people fired up and ready for whatever comes next. Plus, efficient and creative communication between teammates is key to victory and any team can benefit from improvements in this area.

14. Personal quiz

Rules: The manager gathers some interesting and obscure facts about the individuals on their team and creates a quiz.

The quiz can then be conducted with pen and paper, however using digital quiz tools can feel more rewarding, as they tend to have real-time ranking features and immediate answer reveals, among other things.

While a personal quiz doesn’t necessarily have to be a game, making it one encourages people to participate more actively.

Objective: The objective is to get to know your remote team better. Bonding helps keep loneliness at bay and it is not uncommon to discover you share more with your teammates than you initially thought, be it things like playing in a band, or a passion for cooking shows.

15. Unleash your inner writer

Rules : Pop on over to the self-declared most dangerous writing app . Here’s how it works – you need to keep typing for a certain amount of time. If you stop, all your progress disappears. If you complete the challenge, you can download the result.

Before starting, the manager should give everyone a prompt. But it has to be something unusual to ensure nobody has an advantage.

Objective: The very nature of the app encourages to put down words in a state-of-flow. You don’t have time to think or self-edit – just write. This often leads to uniquely creative and weirdly hilarious texts that the team is certain to get a laugh out of. Of course, a winner needs to be crowned, but you can choose the criteria, be it the best written piece or, conversely, the worst one.

Other virtual team building events

While activities and online games for remote teams can help people interact more and have a lot of fun, chances are you won’t be playing them every day. For this reason, it’s essential to have some on-going remote activities or events that can regularly bring the team together.

16. Coffee time

Coffee time is perfect for virtual team building events

Coffee time is one of the more mellow virtual team building events and is simply a daily or weekly 20-minute virtual call where your team is encouraged to take a break together and have a chat, without feeling guilty about not working. Taking a breather is important for productivity , and if you can combine it with some socializing, it becomes doubly valuable.

You can swap out coffee time for lunchtime, but since everyone tends to eat at different times and it’s harder to talk with your mouth full, then coffee tends to be the more lively event.

17. Donut chats

Particularly useful for larger teams, the Slack plug-in Donut can be a wonderful socializing tool. It pairs up participants in a separate chat and encourages them to get to know each other better. This can spark conversation between people that might not otherwise ever talk and helps make for a friendlier team environment.

With discussion partners being switched up every 1-4 weeks, you’re always meeting new people and forming new relationships.

18. Regular retrospectives

Most teams already have remote weekly meetings. While they’re valuable for understanding what everyone’s up to, they’re not particularly social nor are they intended to be.

Having monthly retrospectives (a look back at everything that was achieved over the month) and framing them as celebrations can help combine work with pleasure. Think of it as a monthly work meeting with drinks.

Retrospectives can help with tackling big issues — the kind you don’t usually have time for in the rushed weekly meetings — and do so in a casual atmosphere. Plus, they can involve multiple teams, which would serve to catch everyone up on what is happening in the company and foster a sense of camaraderie.

19. Friday wind-down

Looking for virtual team building activities for work? Try a Friday wind-down.

A common issue cited by remote workers is difficulty in switching off after work. A Friday wind-down could help solve that. Schedule a virtual call for every Friday 30 minutes before the end of the workday, to just unwind with colleagues.

It’s an open setting and people are encouraged to talk about anything from weekend plans to work stuff. Friday afternoons tend to be slow anyway, and people will be happy that work technically ends half an hour earlier and be glad to spend those 30 minutes with colleagues in a relaxed atmosphere. Perhaps you can combine Friday wind-down with the Virtual happy hour for a fun start to the weekend?

20. BONUS: further ideas

Here are 51 further ideas for team building activities . Admittedly, they’re not specifically for remote or virtual teams, but if you ever run out of ideas, or if you’re OK with outdoorsy team building events – these can be a fantastic source of inspiration for your team’s next fun activity.

5 things to keep in mind for virtual team building activity organizers

Organizing remote activities isn’t easy and can be a draining experience. That said, it’s for a great cause. The team will grow to appreciate the effort and it can be the difference-maker between a happy and unhappy team.

Here are 5 principles that will help make your remote activities a success:

Ensure regularity – it’s not a one and done thing, but rather an on-going effort that will only bear fruit with time. Having weekly or biweekly online team building games for remote employees will signal to the team that you actually care.
Lead by example – If you’re a manager, you have to be there for your team. Since it’s likely to be the first encounter with remote activities for much of your team, take charge and show people how it’s done, be it a game or virtual coffee time.
Make memories – Like with regular team building activities, take pictures (and/or screenshots). Having a gallery of all the fun and silly stuff you get up to will help make these events memorable and produce some real gems.
Have prizes – Prizes are great as they can motivate people to compete. Material rewards are always nice, but even a self-made certificate can be enough to give people something to fight for.
Be ready to invest – schedule (most) activities during working hours. Don’t look at remote team building games and activities as doing your team a favor – it’s an investment in their wellbeing and happiness, which is likely to lead to better business performance.

Nothing beats a good offsite event

At the end of the day, while all these activities ARE important and CAN make a significant positive impact, they don’t always scratch that itch for some face-to-face bonding.

That’s why off-sites are growing in popularity – they’re events where remote and hybrid companies fly out their entire team to a destination for several days of fun (and work) with the goal of getting everyone in the same room. They’re usually held no more often than once a year, given the hefty price tag that comes with organizing such a retreat.

The best team building for remote workers is when you all come together

Nevertheless, companies see value in it. Though collaborating and connecting with colleagues is a major part of it, offsites also tend to be focused around strategic development and company vision setting. Having a dedicated space and location is a significant help in addressing the questions that typically get postponed during the rush of day-to-day operations.

Teamwork makes the dream work

Hopefully, at least one of the virtual team building ideas on this list has caught your attention and you’re gearing up to try it out! Team building for remote employees is the cornerstone of any modern distributed company. Just remember that this isn’t a one-and-done kind of deal. If you want to reap the benefits of a close-knit team, you need to put in the effort.

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12 Superb Team-Building Games and Activities You Won’t be Ashamed of

How many times have you faked an illness before team building games? Calm down, I won’t force you to reveal this horrible truth. Let’s just admit that the majority of team-building activities suck. Those egg-dropping and hot dog eating contests… Yuck.

On the other hand, team building activities are essential for the company’s success. In fact, the personal bonds between teammates give businesses a competitive edge. A team that can collaborate and communicate effectively is more productive, happier, and pleasant to work with. How does this work? It’s all about engagement.

Studies show that close work friendships boost employee satisfaction by 50 percent. At the same time, people are seven times more likely to be fully engaged if they have a best friend at work. Another report claims that engaged teams outperform competitors in terms of performance and profits.

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Team-building games and activities your team should try

It’s recommended not to stay in front of your screen the whole working day—you will be surprised to know that spending 7 hours per day looking at the screen equals 3 months per year!

Here come team-building games and activities to keep teams engaged and connected . They help colleagues learn more about each other—how the person sitting right next to you thinks, performs tasks, solves issues, and has fun.

Do your coworkers roll their eyes when you mention team games? The good news is that team-building activities don’t have to be embarrassing and dull. We’ve put together a list of fantastic team games and activities for you to enjoy. And none of them involve eggs being dropped into the stream.

“The floor is lava!” Remember that? Lava Flow, also called River Crossing, is a game where teams should cross the river of lava using a limited number of objects to move safely. If anyone touches the floor, they will get “burned,” and they should start from the very beginning. The first team to cross the lava river with all members on the board is the winner.

Murder mystery dinner

grandecaymanresort.com

The Murder Mystery Dinner is an interactive team game that usually repeats the most famous detective stories. Your colleagues will team up around the key goal—solving the mystery and finding the murderer. I bet there are some companies in your city that will design a murder mystery for your team. You can also host your own mystery party to achieve a more intimate atmosphere. Either way, this team game is ideal for building problem-solving and critical-thinking skills within your squad. And for posting cool pics to Instagram afterward, for sure.

PowerPoint karaoke

This is a famous one when it comes to virtual team building games.

If you want to check your employees for how they react in high-pressure situations, test out PowerPoint Karaoke, also called PowerPoint roulette. The rules are simple: each player gets a set of slides they haven’t seen before. Based on those slides, a player should give a presentation to an audience. This team building game also improves the skill of shrinking from rotten vegetables. *Joking*

There is a team version of PowerPoint Karaoke. Allow a few minutes before the presentation for a group of colleagues to review the slides and prepare. Under the circumstances, they will be forced to think quickly and collaborate closely to perform a difficult task. To make it easier to get started, you can grab free PowerPoint templates that are available, which will help you save time instead of preparing the presentation from scratch.

12 Superb Team-Building Games and Activities You Won’t be Ashamed of Click To Tweet

Slideshow for team building

Slideshow is a PowerPoint Karaoke alternative. This is also one of the virtual team building games. In this game, one player presents a story that describes an adventure or process in detail, anything from traveling to building a birdhouse (or traveling in a birdhouse). Other teammates should act as the slide show for the presentation, repeating the story in motion. The Slideshow game boosts creativity and motivates participants to think on the go. It also demonstrates how teammates can support each other during difficult tasks.

Truth and lie

icebreakerideas.com

This activity fits into the “get to know each other” category. Each player comes up with three true facts and one lie about themselves. The lie should be believable (for instance, not something like “Chris Hemsworth followed me on Instagram”). After a teammate tells their facts, the players should discuss which one is a lie.

The Truth and Lie game gives both introverts and extraverts equal opportunities to reveal some information about themselves and get to know each other better.

GPS adventure

smartphones.gadgethacks.com

The GPS Adventure game relies on following clues to find a hidden item with the help of GPS coordinates. Each group of teammates needs to have a GPS device that will help in searches. A moderator sets a period of time in which all participating groups must return to “base.” The clues hidden in specific geographic locations can be part of a larger puzzle that the teams should solve. As an alternative to GPS coordinates, you can also use QR codes placed around the office or neighborhood.

What’s my name

appadvice.com

This has to be one of my favorite team building games.

Write down the name of a famous person or people of that type (nerd, football fan, rock star, etc.) on sticker paper. Then, place these tags on a team member so that they cannot see who they are. For a set amount of time, this person should ask the group leading questions to figure out what is written on the tag. What’s My Name is a great ice-breaker game for those companies where team members don’t know each other well yet.

This is also a great one for virtual team building games.

Blind wine waiter

lilesnet.com

Not without reason, numerous scientific studies show that nothing bonds people like sharing a bottle of red. The Blind Wine Waiter is a real treat for teams that face communication issues at the workplace and want to loosen up with each other.

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In this game, a team of six should find, uncork, and pour a bottle of wine into a glass, with one person acting as the leader and the rest as waiters. The team gets one wine bottle, one glass and one corkscrew. Each waiter carries out no more than one element of the challenge and all of them are blindfolded. All elements are hidden in the room and should be discovered by the waiters. The challenge is that each team member can perform only one task with just one hand. For instance, if someone has found the bottle, they can’t go and find the glass too. The game is over when the leader drinks the served wine from the glass.

Let us guess

This game is a version of the classic game of charades and one of the best for virtual team building games. All participants are divided into small teams of 5–7 people. One person should demonstrate a random object to their group that doesn’t know what this object is, without speaking. The group guesses the name of the object and gets a point for each right answer. The team with the highest score wins.

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“turn over” for a fun team building.

Place a large sheet on the floor and have everyone stand on it. The goal is to flip the sheet without stepping off and dragging other participants.

Circle of questions

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All participants form two circles, one inside the other. As the circles rotate in opposite directions, teammates face each other, responding to different questions. The questions should be open and introduced by a moderator. The questions become more difficult with each round. The ultimate role of the Circle of Questions activity is to connect employers on a personal level and bring together colleagues from different departments. And keep in mind that there is no wrong answer (forget about an electric exam atmosphere).

Do you like role-playing? No, you won’t have to repeat the Fifty Shades of Grey scenario at the workplace because this is one of the “team building games.” Just imagine that you are Arctic explorers who got caught in a storm. The team’s leader is suffering from frostbite in both hands and is unable to help the team physically. At the same time, the rest of the team is suffering from snow blindness.

The challenge is to build the tent within the allotted time. Speaking of equipment, at this game you will need a tent and blindfolds for each team. The motionless leader should assist the rest of the team verbally. Make sure to give each participant the ability to play the leader’s role.

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To sum up, team building games are a good way to get your team to connect, stay productive, and work better together. The best part is that the majority of these games can be played anywhere with little or no equipment, making them ideal for on-the-go virtual team building games.

Now you’re ready to engage your team in fun team building games without being hated. Below are some no-brainer team games that can boost teamwork, enhance problem-solving skills, and keep your teammates connected:

Murder Mystery Dinner
PowerPoint Karaoke
Truth and Lie
GPS Adventure
What’s My Name
Outdoor activities (paintballing, sumo wrestling, etc.)
Blind Wine Waiter
Let Us Guess
Circle of Questions

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Try experimenting to find the activity that works best for you. Which one to choose depends on your goal, the number of participants, and your preparation time. Feel free to combine serious team-building games with fun activities for the best results.

What about you? What other team games have we missed from our list?

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Thanks for sharing the amazing ideas!! Everyone Get out of that video game truck, get into Lasertag sports bubbleball, nerf, and lasertag. Challenging, fun , physically active team building experience. Corporate, school, organizations or private.

Glad you enjoyed it:) We are with you – let’s have less screen time and more time having fun and getting to know people we are working with. Human relationships is the most important thing in life, this is what makes people happy, not money or fame. Let’s take care of it!

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Team Building Activities for Small Groups: 15 Super Fun Ideas

By: Grace He | Updated: April 30, 2024

Here is our list of fun team building activities for small groups at work or school.

Team building activities for small groups are fun-filled exercises, games and ideas designed to enhance team collaboration. For example, the broken telephone and the tower of babel are good activities for students and adults. The purpose of these exercises is to strengthen relationships and encourage team participation in small groups.

These ideas are a subset of office team building exercises and fun group activities , and are similar to small group icebreaker games . You can use these ideas as trust-building exercises , community-building activities and for team building events .

This list includes:

team building activities for small groups
team building exercises for small groups
team building ideas for small groups
small group team building activities for adults

Here are the ideas.

List of team building activities for small groups

When choosing team building exercises for small groups, it is best to select activities that allow everyone to participate. You can adopt these quick small group team building activities for your students or colleagues.

1. The Great Guac Off™️ (Team Favorite)

The Great Guac Off is a friendly competition that showcases your team’s guacamole-making skills! This lively avocado-themed celebration lets colleagues work together and enhance their teamwork.

The Great Guac Off includes the following:

a 90-minute session guided by talented hosts
interactive avocado icebreakers, mini-games, and trivia
delicious guacamole ingredients and chips for dipping
an optional secret ingredient to add excitement to the competition
a guacamole mash-off followed by a judging round to determine the winner

We can host this experience at any venue you choose, and we will meet you there with all the supplies. To foster stronger bonds and improve communication skills within your teams, look no further than The Great Guac Off!

Learn more about The Great Guac Off .

2. Quick-Fire Trivia

This quick succession question-and-answer activity tests coordination, speed, and teamwork.

Required: Divide your team into smaller groups of two to four people. Each subgroup will choose a representative. The facilitator will then read the questions drawn from different disciplines. For example, the questions could range from history to art or science.

The goal is to get the most points within each two-minute round. For each correct answer, the team earns a point.

Here are the rules:

The team members can discuss the questions, but only the rep will answer.
The answers should be short – a word or a list but not descriptions.
The reader can only repeat a question once.
The team cannot answer before the facilitator finishes reading the question.
The representative’s answer is final.
The team can express differing opinions; however, the rep has the final say in deciding the answer.

At the end of the exercise, the members will discuss the performance and strategize ways to improve. This exercise aims at educating members about consultation and decision-making.

Here is a list of more problem-solving games and a collection of starter questions for trivia .

Get our free team building toolbox

icebreaker games
bingo cards

3. The Clueless

The Clueless is one of the best small group activities for adults that nurtures problem-solving and communication skills. Your team will enjoy this fun and straightforward exercise.

Required: Divide your group into smaller teams. Each team receives a sealed written problem. These problems should be possible case scenarios at work, home, or school. Before reading, the team will select one member to temporarily exclude from the group. You shall refer to this member as ‘the clueless,’ This member will need to decipher and solve the problem.

The team building leader will assess the activity on a scale of five points.

The groups will have five minutes to read and discuss the main issues. The leader can give more time to younger students.
The groups should develop up to three keywords that best describe the issue. Once done, the clueless rejoin the groups.
The clueless have three minutes to figure out the issue using the keywords as clues. Then, the clueless can only ask two follow-up questions to clarify.
The rest of the members must remain mute and only communicate through facial expressions and cues. It is up to the members to guide their teammates without speaking or writing.
The clueless members will then identify the problem and describe the method for tackling the scenario.
The leader awards points based on the problem’s accuracy and the solution’s relevance. The leader may award up to two points for the problem and three for the solution.

This activity helps members to identify and appreciate nonverbal cues. These signals include reading moods and unexpressed concerns from customers, colleagues, and fellow students in real life.

4. The Tower of Babel

This activity is one of small group team building ideas drawn from ancient history. The idea mocks the Babylonian tower story and seeks to build the tallest, longest-standing tower.

Required: Divide members into smaller groups of three or four. Each group should make a tower by stacking provided supplies.

Each group will use similar building materials. Some good ideas for the materials include pens, toothpicks, and toy building blocks.
Each mini-group will get an equal amount of building supplies.
There is no restriction on arranging the building materials. Team creativity is of the essence.
The towers must remain standing for the duration of the judging.
The members should use all the building materials.

At the end of a session, group members will measure the tower’s height and compare notes with other groups. The idea is to promote creative thinking and collaboration.

5. The Swallowship

The Swallowship is a fellowship exercise that promotes bonding. Members help each other identify secret ingredients in food. Among the best quick small group team building activities, The Swallowship tests memory and discussion skills.

Required: The leaders assign each team a main ingredient. The members will then develop a secret recipe using the core ingredient. For example, the secret ingredient could include spices, essence, or herbs. Depending on the setup, participants may cook on-site or prepare the food before the activity.

Different teams should taste each other’s food.
Each member is only allowed one bite-size sample.
Members may use other senses like sight and smell to identify the ingredients.
After swallowing the sample, the teams will discuss the ingredients and list possibilities. The members may list as many ingredients as they can identify or remember.
The correct secret ingredient earns the team one point. Yet, for every wrong ingredient, teams lose a point.

The goal of the game is to collect as many points as possible.

Note: Ask if members have food allergies before starting the exercise. Common allergens to watch out for include gluten, egg, milk, and nuts.

6. Back-to-School PE

Physical activities provide a great way to bond during small group team building activities for adults. In Back-to-school PE, members will engage in a series of cardiovascular exercises.

Based on the needs of the group members, the team-building leader will select appropriate exercises. Examples of small group team building activities for students may include relay running, frog jumping, star jumps, and push-ups. Older people can do stretches and other suitable exercises. The important thing is to select and balance appropriate high to low energy options.

Physical exercises improve mood and mental health, promoting morale and productivity in teams.

For similar ideas, here is a list of team workouts .

7. The Broken Telephone

The Broken Telephone is a communication exercise and one of the best team building activities for small groups. The aim of the game is to pass a message without altering its meaning.

Required: Members will line up in a circle, keeping a distance of at least one and a half meters from each other. The first player will share a message by whispering the phrase into the second person’s ear. Next, the second person will do the same to the third. The pattern repeats until the message reaches the last person in line.

Team members must whisper the message.
Members should cover their mouths while speaking to prevent lip reading.
The last person will speak the phrase out loud, and the first member will reveal how closely the statement matches the original message.
If the message is wildly incorrect, the group will have to diagnose the problem with the telephone line. Each member will say the message they passed. The member who distorts a message moves to the end of the line.

The goal of the exercise is to encourage attentive listening.

8. Tell My Story

This creativity exercise engages all team members. If you need small group team building ideas for introverted and shy members, then Tell My Story is a good option. The game grants silent group members a chance to speak.

Required: Have all group members sit or stand in a circle. The facilitator will have a pre-written short story. The leader reads the first sentence of the script, and the members will continue the story.

Each member will input one sentence at a time.
You cannot pass your turn.
You cannot skip a member before they speak.
You cannot start a new story unless it continues the original. The story must flow and relate to the previous sentences.
The story ends only when the facilitator says, “The end.” After that, he will read the original script.

It is interesting how a story can deviate. Since everyone is narrating from their imagination, the story is entirely unpredictable. Therefore, members end up practicing attentiveness and creativity.

9. Office Thief

The Office Thief is a fun small group activity that promotes conversation and socialization among team members.

Required: The facilitator will organize a heist and remove personal items from each member’s desk or locker. The leader will disguise these items in similar boxes. Finally, members will pick the items, make their guesses, and write on sticky notes.

The leader will put the disguised items in a central place.
Each member should select one item. Once selected, you cannot change your mind.
Members may use senses like weight and sound to determine the item.
Each member will guess the item and write the guess on a sticky note alongside their names.
Without opening the boxes, members will interact. The goal is to find the owner of the item.
Members will reassemble and write the name of the suspected owner without opening the boxes.
In pairs, players will exchange the boxes. One by one, members will read the written guesses and finally unveil the items.
Finally, owners will confirm possession and claim their items

The game’s goal is to guess the item and return the object to its rightful owner. This activity uses conversations to solve problems, and members will learn more about each other.

Check out more get to know you games .

10. Water Balloon

This water balloon exercise involves carrying a balloon filled with water to a designated place without using hands.

Required: Have smaller teams of 3 to 5 members each. Each subgroup will fill a large balloon with water and place the balloon on a marked starting point.

Each team must carry the balloon to the designated place.
You cannot touch the balloon with your hands. The team should figure out how to carry the balloon.
You must lift the balloon to move it.
The water balloon must not touch the floor between the starting and finish points.
Ensure that the balloon does not burst.
The team that violates the rules must return to the starting point. The exercise stops when the last team arrives at the finish line.

Water Balloon is one of the most practical games for sharpening critical thinking and problem-solving skills and is one of the best small group team building activities for students.

11. The Diplomat

The Diplomat is an activity that helps team members identify and appreciate each others’ strengths and weaknesses.

Required: Divide the team into groups of three members. The members will share their interests and fears in their mini-groups.

Team members should be at least one meter apart and must not face each other.
The facilitator will provide case scenarios. He will then ask the team, “Choose your most suitable diplomat for this mission.”
The three team members cannot discuss their answers. Instead, they will write the answers on whiteboards.
When signaled, each person will display the member’s name they chose as the diplomat. At this point, group members may look at each other’s answers.

The goal of the game is to agree on a unanimous answer. The diplomat is one of the quick small group team building activities where teams interact more personally.

12. Back-to-Back Drawing

The Back-to-back Drawing exercise is a communication activity that tests members’ speaking and listening skills.

Required: Members will work in pairs. The team building leader will give each duo a picture and writing materials like paper and marker pens. Then, one team member will hold a picture and describe the image, and the other player must draw the object exactly as described.

The partners must remain back-to-back throughout the exercise.
Neither partner should peek at the other’s picture.

The game aims for each pair to draw similar or identical pictures.

Example objects might include cartoon characters, emojis, landscapes, or other fun shapes.

Back-to-back Drawing is an in-person version of Can You Hear Me Now .

13. Guess the Logo

Guess the Logo is an exercise that helps eye-brain coordination.

Required: The coordinator will subdivide the team and display a part of a logo. Each team should identify the logo using the given clue.

The logo should refer to familiar brands, for example, popular eateries, institutions, and superstores.
The leader will display part of the logo. For example, part of text, colors, or images with the rest of the background blocked.
Members can discuss and figure out the brand’s name in the least time possible.

The activity’s goal is to match the logos to their brands. This exercise will give great insights into branding for workplace teams and marketing students.

14. Blind Snake and Apples

Blind Snake and Apples is a memory-sharpening exercise.

Required: Team members will have a chance to see the position of each apple before they start the activity. Players will then put on blindfolds and pick as many apples as possible.

Each member moves one step at a time. The coordinator will signal the members when it is time to move, and each player will take a step.
Upon each step, players may bend, sit or kneel to pick apples. The feet must remain on the same spot.
The players can pick fruit from any part and move in any direction.
Players decide whether to take a big or small step.
Each member is allowed an equal number of steps.

At the end of the activity, members can check each other’s performance. The group with the most fruits becomes the memory champion.

15. The Collection Board

This exercise seeks to find qualities members have in common. The game also helps members to get comfortable with each other.

How to conduct: The team-building leader will ask the members to bring items from the office, class, or home. The items can be everyday objects, yet each object should have a remarkable story. The leader will provide glue and Manila papers, and members will stick their items onto the paper.

The group makes a collage with the assorted items. The collection may involve items similar in color, shape, texture. During the activity, members need to find out the story attached to each item. At the end of the session, the members can share lessons they learned from each other’s stories.

Team building activities for small groups are fun ways to empowering teams. These exercises range widely in energy level, variety and application. There are indoor or outdoor activities suitable for every small group. When choosing an activity, it helps to consider participants’ demographics like age and physical capability before selecting the most appropriate one.

Team building activities and exercises are essential to your team. Apart from breaking the monotony of work and strengthening the team spirit, these exercises enhance physical and mental health. In addition, problem-solving techniques, collaboration, and communication are skills you can obtain from such activities and exercises.

Next, check out these lists of get to know you games and relationship-building activities .

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FAQ: Team Building Activities for Small Groups

Here are answers to common questions about small group team building activities.

What are small group team building activities?

Team building activities are playful indoor or outdoor exercises that small teams use to promote team spirit. These can range from high to low energy activities like back-to-school PE and the collection board, respectively.

What are some good small group team building activities for work?

A good team building activity allows each employee to participate enthusiastically. In choosing the most appropriate activity for work, it is important to consider your team’s demographics, such as age and health status. This mindfulness will enhance the effectiveness of the team building activities you select.

Some of the most all-around options include,

quick-fire trivia
the broken telephone
the diplomat
the water balloon

How do you improve teamwork on small teams?

To achieve a productive team, you need to influence the members to collaborate and make tasks interesting. Some of the tips that work effectively for small teams include:

Enhancing bonding through social activities like swallowship
promoting conversations through activities like Tell my story
Promoting creativity and problem-solving through activities like the water balloon
Acknowledging and appreciating leadership skills through exercises like The Diplomat
Enhancing staff motivation and morale through participation in ice breakers

Author: Grace He

People & Culture Director at teambuilding.com. Grace is the Director of People & Culture at TeamBuilding. She studied Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, Information Science at East China Normal University and earned an MBA at Washington State University.

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