Organizing team building games is a great idea to make your team stronger. It help you create a strong bond and bring your employees together. It is not sure that all team building trainings that you execute may work out well. There are chances that your team might feel them boring, ineffective or simply a kiddish game to play. On Minterapp, we’ve shared few of the best team building games which have helped in developing better exchanges and have forced employees to communicate clearly with each other to improve productivity.

    1. Barter Puzzle

      Barter Puzzle works best if you want to strengthen your sales team or help them to sharpen negotiating skills and strategizing their plans. It requires 5-7 different jigsaw puzzles (depending on the team size). Let the team have a look at the solved puzzles first. Secondly, you need to mix all the puzzles, and share it with the team. Make sure each team has same number of members. Each team will get mixed set of puzzles at random. Now the  interesting part is, members have to form up a strategy and assign roles and barter with other teams to get pieces they need to complete their puzzle first. Once you execute this game, you will notice that they change in the market every 10 minutes. The leader will offer teams to have a quick look at the puzzle image or throw another curve ball which keeps the other teams re-think on their feet.

    2. Electric Fence

      Please note that this activity will have a hypothetical electric fence.It can be created by tying a rope or shoelace to two chairs or any other objects noting that it should be elevated above the waist – height of the team.

      i.) Game is, that they need to cross the fence without touching the rope.

      ii.) The other condition is they cannot cross it from under the fence.

      iii.) Teammates have to hold the other member with one hand throughout the game

      Check out the interesting video

       

    3. What’s my name?

      You will love this game if you play it once. The game starts with creating set of famous names of celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emma Watson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt etc. You can write their names on small slips of paper and tape it. Place them on each person’s forehead. Make sure that they do not know which celebrity name is labeled on their forehead.

      Now the game starts. Players need to roam around in the room and ask different persons Yes/No type questions which can help in guessing the celebrity name tagged on their forehead within the allotted time. It leads them to communicate with everyone. Even those with whom they have not interacted at any point of time.

      For leaders or game organizers, you’ll come to know more of stereotypes and categorizing others based on certain characteristics.

    4. Hole Trap

      You can do Hole Trap with a circular trap or plastic sheet and few tennis balls. Here the team will stand with the trap having hole exactly in the middle.

      This game will be great fun for sure. The team then starts shaking the trap so that it moves around like a wave. Once it starts moving, throw in a ball. The trick here is, you need to keep the ball rolling, as you do it for business. Even if one of your team members stops, the ball will drop down from the hole in the center.

      Try out today. It would be the best team building game. Good Luck!

    5. Lava Flow

      Team members need to consider that floor is lava! If you can recall this game that you played in your childhood, then definitely playing this again would be a mesmerizing experience for you.

      Many people also name it as “River Crossing Game”. Here the player needs to cross the Lava River by jumping and maneuvering on the different objects kept in between. The game organizer will limit the objects to two or three so that there comes a perfect team coordinating by sharing each time when former crosses. The players need to keep in mind that if they touch the floor, they will get burnt and will have to start the game again. Similarly, the team who crosses the river tactfully, will be the winner. Here they will learn how to work in a group and manage the team as well.

    6. Group Jungle

      This game works best for freshers. It would be an icebreaker and memory game for them. Group Jungle will have participants forming a large circle facing each other. If you have a large group, break them into 20 – 20. Each circle should not have more than 20 people in it.

      Now each one has to introduce themselves first. The teammates should remember the names throughout the game. Throw in a soft ball to any one of the team member. Now that person has to throw the ball to anyone else in the group. But the twist is, the person who throws the ball will have to speak out the name of the person in the group to whom they are throwing the ball. The ball goes around the group until a certain pattern sets. Once the team is comfortable with the names, throw in another ball to raise the level one step up.

    7. Grab Bag Skits

      Skits and improv exercises can be a humorous and energetic way to bring team closer. Grab Bag Skits is a short activity in which you need to keep a team of 3-8 members.

      Each team is provided with a bag filled with random and unrelated objects. They are given 10 minutes each to think on what they will perform. The rule is, each person in the group should play a speaking role. You need to encourage them to be as creative as possible. Say for eg. if their bag contains an apple, they can showcase it can be used as a Meteor. Or if they have a paint brush, it can be used as witch’s broom.

      This game will motivate the introvert personalities in your organization. It will push them to go out of their comfort zone and connect with their colleagues. 

    8. Tied Up

      Tied up requires division of group into 2 to 4. They need to form circles facing each other. Now their hands will be tied together with a shoe string.

      The task allocated to them will be done with their tied hands only. The tasks could be like

      • Making a sandwich
      • Tie a knot to ribbon
      • Navigate your friend to an obstacle course
      • Or simply complete the Jigsaw puzzle

      As each of the teammates hands would be tied, it will require the effort of each person to complete the task. When the team is put with constraints, it can increase the level of creativity as they will be pushed to think outside-the-box.

    9. Conducted Story

      Here your teammates are storytellers. Stories are powerful. But it is the talent, how you communicate it. In many ways, it is your story that makes people connect with your business.

      To execute the conducted story, team members need to stand in a straight line. One of the member will act as the conductor. He will be responsible to move the story along. Here’s how it goes

      Team Member 1: Paul went to the supermarket because…

      Team Member 2: he needed eggs to bake the cake for…

      Team Member 3: his mother to surprise her for the birthday..

      Team Member 4: the story continues until the last person in the group.

      This game is best for listening exercise as it requires every member to pay keen attention to what the others have said. It also stresses the importance of telling a seamless story and creates unity along with strong communication to win the game.

    10. Reverse Charades

      In the normal game of Charades, team member general stands up and acts out the word or phrase while the other team members needs to guess it. Whereas, in reverse charades, the sequence is flipped. One team member has to guess while the other team members have to act it out.

      In this game, it is compulsory  that each team member has to act and make a plan to communicate it together because, here one person is guessing and everyone else is acting. If you analyse, here everyone is involved throughout the entire game. No one can sit back and only few take on the challenge.


      Ending Notes:

      These activities will give you the inspiration and motivation to build stronger and more successful teams. Do note that there are other opportunities to bond your team as well. So don’t stress too much in planning out the exact team building games in detail. It could be as simple as holding the team with a smile and maintaining happy hours in MinteraApp. Simply focus on creating a shared memory and finding out mutual interests.