Team Building Games and Ice Breakers for Fun Meetings

Here are some team building games you can adapt and use:

Source: Team Building Exercises and Ice Breakers

The World’s Best Place to Work Team Building Exercise

OBJECTIVES:

To help participants to begin thinking and interacting as a group
To illustrate when a person thinks they have nothing more to offer, when stretched, the best work or best ideas come out

PROCEDURE:

Divide attendees into manageable groups of three to six people. Each group is given a poster and some yellow Post-It notes. Also, each team selects a recorder to capture the team’s ideas on the poster.

When the signal is given, the participants get two minutes to write down everything they would include in the “World’s Best Place to Work.” After two minutes, the groups are told to stop and instructed to draw a line under all of the ideas that have been captured on the poster.

Then the groups are told they are going to be given one additional minute to create even more ideas regarding what they would include in the World’s Best Place to Work.

After this minute has passed, the groups are told to stop and draw a line under what has been written during the second brainstorm. They are given yet another minute to list their attributes for the World’s Best Place to Work.

Go about the room picking out some of the more interesting or unusual ideas to read aloud to the rest of the participants.

Frequently, a group has a funny entry or two on their poster and will share a quick quip about their idea and how they came up with it. If the groups don’t offer, encourage them and give the opportunity to share.

RESULTS:

Often some of the best team building ideas come in the second and third sessions. Teams learn when they have exhausted most of the run of the mill ideas, they must begin thinking outside the box.

TIME REQUIRED: 15-20 minutes

The Car

OBJECTIVE:

Get to know people in the organization and understand each other’s particular role and responsibilities.

PROCEDURE:

The facilitator asks each attendee to describe their organization/department/team in terms of a “car” and their role in the organization in terms of a particular part in the car.

SUBSTITUTIONS:

Instead of a car, you may use any type of vehicle ~ airplane, tank, etc.

TIME REQUIRED:

Depending on the group size, five to ten minutes

Managing Change Team Building Exercise

OBJECTIVE:

To provide participants with an opportunity to analyze the change process and decide how to make future changes more readily acceptable

PROCEDURE:

Form groups of four to five people from different organizations/ divisions.

Ask them to discuss the following with their group members:

A recent situation in which some type of change was introduced

Was this change was resisted?
Why or why not?
What could have been done to make the change easier?

Ask one representative from each group to present the findings from their discussion.

TIME REQUIRED: 20-30 minutes

A Bag Full of Money

OBJECTIVE:

To allow the group to do creative thinking without fiscal restraints

MATERIAL:

Paper or yellow Post-It notes
Pens or pencils

PROCEDURE:

Introduce the scenario that an unknown person just dropped off a bag containing $1,000,000, which can only be spent on items, tools, or equipment to improve the organization.