Team building activities:

Communication and Icebreakers

Two Truths and a Lie

Time Required: 15-30 minutes

Start out by having every team member secretly write down two truths
about themselves and one lie on a small piece of paper. Do not reveal to
anyone what you wrote down! Once each person has completed this step,
allow 10-15 minutes for open conversation – much like a cocktail party –
where everyone quizzes each other on their three questions. The idea is to
convince others that your lie is actually a truth while, on the other hand, you
try to guess other people’s truths/lies by asking them questions. Don’t
reveal your truths or lie to anyone – even if the majority of the office already
has it figured out! After the conversational period, gather in a circle and –
one by one – repeat each of your three statements and have the group
vote on which one they think is the lie. You can play this game
competitively and award points for each lie you guess or for stumping other
players on your own lie. This game not only helps to encourage better
communication in the office; it also lets you get to know your coworkers
better.

Life Highlights Game

Time Required: 30 minutes

This is an excellent icebreaker activity that’s perfect for small

groups and large groups alike. Begin by asking each participant to close
their eyes for one minute and consider the best moments of their lives. This
can include moments they’ve had alone or shared with family and friends;
they can pertain to professional successes, personal revelations or exciting
life adventures. After the participants have had a moment to run through
highlights of their lives, inform them that their search is about to be
narrowed. Keeping their eyes closed, ask each participant to take a
moment to decide what 30 seconds of their life they would want to relive if
they only had thirty seconds left to live. The first part of the activity enables
participants to reflect back on their lives, while the second part (which we’ll
discuss in a moment) enables them to get to know their coworkers on a
more intimate level. The second portion of the game is the “review” section.
The leader of the activity will ask each participant what their 30 seconds
entailed and why they chose it, which will allow participants to get a feel for
each other’s passions, loves, and personalities.

Coin Logo
Time Required: 5-10 minutes

Begin by asking all participants to empty their pockets, purses, and wallets
of any coins they may have and place them on the table in front of them. If
someone doesn’t have any coins or only has very few, others in the room
can share their coins with them. Instruct each person to create their own
personal logo using the coins in front of them in just one minute. Other
materials they may have on them, such as pens, notebooks, wallets, etc.
can also be used in creation of the logo. If there is a particularly large
group, people can be broken up into teams of 3-6 people and instructed to
create a logo that represents them as a team or the whole room can gather
to use the coins to create a logo for the organization/group/department/etc.
Each solitary participant can explain their logo to the group; or, if the room
was split into groups, the leader can have each group discuss what led to
the team logo and what it says about them. Not only does this
activity promote self and mutual awareness, but it also enables participants
to get to know each other better.

The One Question Ice Breaker Activity

Time Required: 15-20 minutes

This icebreaker not only gets coworkers talking to each other, but it also
gets them working with one another. It’s quite simple: the leader gets to
decide the situation the question will pertain to. Example situations include
babysitting, leading the company, or being married. After pairing
participants into teams, the leader will pose this question: If you could ask
just one question to discover a person’s suitability for (insert topic here),
what would your question be? Say the leader chose to go with a marriage
situation. That means each person in a two-person team would come up
with one question that would help them discover whether or not their
partner was suitable to be married to them. If the topic was babysitting,
each team member would have to come up with just one question whose
answer would help them determine whether or not the person was suitable
to babysit their child. This icebreaking activity can also get mixed up by
issuing one situation for the entire group or allocating a different situation to
each team member or pair to work on. This activity can be very fun while
also helping your colleagues to develop their communication and
questioning skills. 

Classification Game
Time Required: 10-15 minutes

The classification game can be a quick icebreaker or a more complex

activity. For the purposes of this example, we will treat this activity as a
quick icebreaker. Before splitting the room into teams of four, explain the
concept of “pigeon-holing someone,” which means classifying someone as
something or stereotyping someone. It should be made clear that this type
of classification is subjective and unhelpfully judgmental. Instruct the
participants to introduce themselves to those in their team and quickly
discuss some of their likes and dislikes. After the introductions, reveal to
the teams that it will be their job to discover how they should classify
themselves – as a team – into two or three subgroups by using criteria that
contains no negative, prejudicial, or discriminatory judgments. Examples of
these subgroups can include night owls and morning people, pineapple
pizza lovers and sushi lovers, etc. This activity encourages coworkers to
get to know each other better and enables them to consider the interests of
their colleagues. 

Problem Solving
Picture Pieces Game
Time Required: 30 minutes

This problem solving activity requires that the leader choose a well known

picture or cartoon that is full of detail. The picture needs to be cut into as
many equal squares as there are participants in the activity. Each
participant should be given one of the "puzzle pieces" and instructed to
create an exact copy of their piece of the puzzle five times bigger than its
original size. They are posed with the problem of not knowing why or how
their own work affects the larger picture. The leader can pass out pencils,
markers, paper, and rulers in order to make the process simpler and run
more smoothly. When all the participants have completed their
enlargements, ask them to assemble their pieces into a giant copy of the
original picture on a table. This problem solving activity will teach
participants how to work in a team and demonstrates divisionalized
‘departmental’ working, which is the understanding that each person
working on their own part contributes to an overall group result.

Sneak a Peek Game

Time Required: 10 minutes

This problem solving activity requires little more than a couple of sets of

children’s building blocks. The instructor will build a small sculpture with
some of the building blocks and hide it from the group. The participants
should then be divided into small teams of four. Each team should be given
enough building material so that they can duplicate the structure you’ve
already created. The instructor should then place their sculpture in an area
that is an equal distance from all the groups. One member from each team
can come up at the same time to look at the sculpture for ten seconds and
try to memorize it before returning to their team. After they return to their
teams, they have twenty-five seconds to instruct their teams about how to
build an exact replica of the instructor’s sculpture. After one minute of trying
to recreate the sculpture, another member from each team can come up for
a “sneak a peek” before returning to their team and trying to recreate the
sculpture. The game should be continued in this pattern until one of the
team’s successfully duplicates the original sculpture. This game will teach
participants how to problem solve in a group and communicate effectively.

Zoom
Time Required: 30 minutes

This creative problem solving activity requires the wordless, picture book

entitled, “Zoom” by Istvan Banyai. This book features 30 sequential pictures
that work together to form a narrative. The book should be fairly easy to
find, as it’s been published in over 18 countries. The pictures can even be
laminated to prolong their usage. Hand out one picture to each participant,
making sure a continuous sequence is being used. Explain to the
participants that they can only look at their own pictures and must keep
their picture hidden from other participants. Time should be given for the
participants to study their pictures because each picture will contain
important information that will help the participants solve the problem of
putting them into order. The ultimate goal is for the group to place the
pictures in sequential order without looking at one another’s pictures. The
participants can talk to each other and discuss what is featured in their
picture. This activity brings coworkers together and gets them
communicating with the common goal of solving a problem, but it also
allows for leaders to emerge and take control of the task.

The Great Egg Drop

Time Required: 2 hours

This messy, yet classic and engaging problem solving activity requires

splitting the room into two large groups with the task of building an egg
package that can sustain an eight foot drop. A variety of tools and other
materials should be provided to the teams. After the packages have been
built, each team must also present a 30-second advert for their package,
highlighting why it’s unique and how it works. At the conclusion of the
presentations, each group will have to drop their egg using their package to
see if it really works. Aside from teaching the groups to work together and
communicate, it also brings them together with the common goal of both
winning the egg drop and successfully creating an egg package.