Team Building Ideas

Team Building Ice Breakers

Team building ice breakers are those activities that ensure people working within a team come on a mutual ground and focus their efforts in a collective manner. These activities could range from a simple name memorizing game to a sophisticated paintball adventure; the primary intention is to get the members of the team to know each other and work in unison.

Most team building icebreakers are spontaneously created. When new teams are brought together for a meeting, ideas pop up on the spot. However, a bit of preplanning has never hurt anyone. Here are some team building ice breakers that can be used in all kinds of setups, from cooking classes to corporate workplaces, and in all parts of the world, from Madrid to Mumbai!

1. Filling in Bingo Cards This is a good game for starter teams where people need to get acquainted with each other. Each player is given a blank bingo card. They are supposed to fill in the cards with names of other members of the team in a random order just as a numbered bingo card would have. The person who fills out the card first becomes a winner. This game can be taken one step ahead and an actual bingo game can be played where someone would call out the names of the members in the team from random cards rather than calling out numbers from the traditional bingo balls.

2. Truth or Dare Games Truth or Dare can be both an adventurous way of knowing a person as well as a whole lot of fun and that is why it acts as a wonderful team building ice breaker. This game can be played in various ways for the office setup, but one interesting way is to have each person write down two facts about themselves and one lie on a small card. Then these cards are all collected, shuffled, picked one at a time and read aloud. The people have to guess who the person is from the matter that is read out, and they also have to guess which of the three statements read out is the falsity.

3. Scavenger Hunts These are used as icebreaker activities in most workplaces in California. Different small teams of members are made and they are given a list of things that they have to hunt. These could be strewn all over the office or even somewhere in the city. Depending on that, the activity could be wound up within an hour or can take the whole weekend. The teams are meant to hunt for these objects and bring them to the point of origin in as little time as possible. Looking for something together can help people to associate with one another quite well, even if they are total strangers at the outset.

4. Participating in an Improvement Course Many workplaces are now trying to add something constructive to their teambuilding efforts. One evident effort is in making teams take up some courses that could be good for their qualifications as well as be beneficial to the company. Small groups of employees are encouraged to take up some online course together so that it doesn't take much of their time. The team members bond with each other pretty well while learning the material and attending seminars. Effective team bonding should never be taken for granted and does not always occur spontaneously.

These were four practical team building ice breakers that can be used quite effectively in all kinds of setups, but mostly in workplaces. You can search on the Internet for more ideas. There's virtually no end to them.

Team Building Ideas Privacy Policy