We know that what takes a team from a group of people to a well functioning team can be explained by Kirkpatrick’s Forming, Storming, Norming Performing Model AND the GRPI Model. What make a good team a high performing team can be explained by examining the 5 dysfunctions of teams (amongst other things). But what…
A twist on the classic Desert Survival Exercise. Useful for exploring communication, decision making and teamwork. In this activity, participants must pretend that they’ve been shipwrecked and are stranded in a life boat. Each team has a box of matches, and a number of items that they’ve salvaged from the sinking ship. Members must agree which…
A really powerful exercise that can be run face to face (or with slight modification) virtually to explore how our beliefs about/attitude to others affects our behaviour, which in terms affects relationships and outcomes. It can also fit very nicely into a session exploring diversity, unconscious bias or team working/ collaboration. Thanks to Annette Cairns…
A simple problem-solving/information sharing exercise that can be used to explore leadership, communication, collaboration and (of course) problem solving. DOWNLOAD NOW
A classic (physical) exercise which can be used to explore collaboration, teamwork, problem-solving, negotiation and achieving objectives. You’ll need some children’s jigsaws and around 15-30 minutes for this exercise, depending on complexity of jigsaw and level of debrief. DOWNLOAD NOW
A classic (physical) exercise explores communication, collaboration, teamwork, problem-solving and achieving objectives. With large groups, a variation can be run to explore leadership – especially collaborative or servant leadership. There is a little preparation to do, but it isn’t too difficult or time consuming. DOWNLOAD HERE
So many resources on team-working focus on the role of the team leader, or rely on personality-type assessments. Belbin is very specialised, and perhaps best saved for project teams, rather than teams of people who work together doing a similar (if not the same) role. Team Player Styles were defined by Glenn Parker in his…
This exercise can be used to illustrate the problems with multi-tasking and introduce a topic of careful time management, diary planning and saying no! It can be run virtually or face-to-face and can easily be adapted for teams (see variation at the end). The actual activities don’t matter (choose those that are relevant to your…
A classic exercise that is incredibly versatile and can use used to introduce or explore a number of themes including teamwork, problem solving, communication, team roles and accountability. You can even run a scavenger hunt virtually with only small adaptations. DOWNLOAD NOW
This is an in-person group exercise that explores communication. team work, and accountability. Created by Teampedia and shared on SessionLab it is one of those simple exercises that has hidden depths! No equipment needed other than a reasonable space so people can form a circle and walk about easily. DOWNLOAD NOW
