Be it an offsite or inside the conference room of your office, corporate events can become so much more entertaining and exciting with group activities. Often used as icebreakers or with the purpose to impart key learnings and educate the gathered group on certain professional aspects of working, these group activities can be successful only when people participate with open minds.
Here we list out a few great group activities that are fun and educational too: -
Description: The activity starts with the group being divided into smaller sub-groups. The objective is to make a working model of an F1 car, by each sub-group, in the stipulated time and using the raw supplies provided on each table. An important point to note here is that the constructed car will finally have to race with the cars of the other sub-groups on a makeshift F1 track.
Since the team building activity involves making a functioning prototype that must work and win a race, it requires lots of dedicated work from each individual team members. They need to design and execute following honestly all the steps in the lifecycle of building up a car. It is a mini project in hand where the work is complex and demands a serious understanding of how project management works. The winning team is the one whose car reaches the finishing line first.
Key learnings: This hardcore technical activity needs lots of collaborative effort from the team members. Technical and non-technical people in the sub-groups need to use their core strengths to make the model functional. Team effort is of prime importance. Communication needs to be transparent, precise and concise. Helps the groups to work in a focused manner, just like they are expected to work on a live project, start it from scratch and deliver the output in the desired condition.
Description: A result-oriented team activity where small groups of people are provided with a heap of junk like plastic bottles and other items meant for recycling. The team must rake their brains to convert the trash into some interesting and innovative that can be sold in the market. This means that the said product cannot be just about anything – it needs to be saleable and have a practical use.
Once the products are made in the given time period, each team must then convince a group of potential investors to invest their money in commercializing the product.
Key Learnings: Being innovative and creative, teams need to come up with novel ideas, that look good not only on paper but also is realistic and useful. The activity also teaches participants on how to strategize optimally, on brainstorming for ideas and aspects of decision-making where the best idea is chosen to get implemented.
Description: This is an interesting corporate team game that involves physical activity too. As the name suggests, it’s a game of volleyball. There is a net in between and two groups on either side. The difference is that the ball here is balloons filled with water and participants are made to use satin sheets of cloth to catch and swing the ball or the balloons across the net. An activity where you get instant results for your karma – the team that cannot catch the ball will have the balloon bursting on them with water splashing them up and down. This game is fun, keeps tempos high and takes you back to your childhood days.
Key Learnings: How to work as a team in a coordinated and synchronized manner. The activity is all about collaboration between members. They need to think smartly and work intelligently to escape the water splashes whilst having the opponent get drowned in the same.
Description: This team activity demands the presence of mind and physical aptitude of participants. The group is provided with pipes that have been flipped open from the top. Members need to stand in a line and hold pieces of this cut pipes in a way so that a ball can travel through the entire length, from start till finish before finally falling off in a bucket. The aim is to not let the ball fall midway.
Key Learnings: Coordination, planning, scheduling, leadership, teamwork and complete focus are a few key pointers that participants can look forward to picking up from this activity.
Description: This session uses the Djembe or the goblet drum from West Africa. In the activity, every team member is handed over a drum that is meant to be played or struck in sync with a live band. In the beginning, the music may not be quite coordinated but eventually, the rhythm and the beat catches up and participants strike the Djembe with their bare hands in perfect harmony with the background music.
While it enables even a non-musical participant to give it his best try, the high spirits of the group that rises with each beat are best for making the energy levels in the room reach the zenith.
Key Learnings: Other than being fun, this musical activity is focused on enhancing the energy and passion levels of participants. Since music is universally appealing and one of the best icebreakers and stress busters, the activity enables the team to form strong and healthy bonds that result in the overall enhancement of productivity and performance levels.
Description: Race the Picture - Treasure Hunt With a Difference. An interesting team building activity that starts with a simple routine treasure hunt with riddles, clues and anagrams and codes, goes on to get more and more exhilarating and exciting. At the end of each leg, the teams would be handed with supplementary tasks to make the game more intricate and interesting. The end goal remains the same, but the way gets more complicated and sophisticated, more nerve-racking and exciting. The result is to for the team to crack the codes and the riddles in the fastest and the most effective manner.
Key Learnings: Other than team building, the activity also leads to better understanding, trust, inculcating leadership and communication skills. It also enables teams to strategize and execute better.
