Free Team Building Activities

Tied Up In Knots

Objective: To provide an interactive way to help people see that their work is interconnected and that although a task may look impossible to start with, there is a way to work through it if we work together.

Materials:

One piece of 6-ft rope for every 2 people in your team

Process:

1. Place everyone in a circle facing each other.
2. Have each person hold a 6-foot length of rope in each hand.
3. Take the other end of each rope and hand it to someone else in the circle in such a way that the ropes criss-cross in a tangled web between all members.
4. Tell the members they have to uncross the ropes without letting go of the ends of the rope.

Time:

It takes about 5 minutes. They will end up with everyone untangled so that the person immediately to their left and right will be holding the other end of the rope.

Ideal City

Objective:

To create an opportunity for the team dynamics to unfold in a new, unfamiliar, and somewhat challenging task.

Materials:

Large roll paper

Colored water-soluble markers, 1 or 2 fewer than the number of people in your group.

Process:

1. This is a non-verbal exercise -- so no talking at all.
2. Ask the participants to plan their ideal city on the paper.
3. They will have 10 minutes to complete their city.
4. As the facilitator, watch for team behaviors such as who is sharing or who is NOT sharing the resources, how people are or are not communicating their ideas and who is "talking" to who, who draws their ideas big (leaving less room for others), who has to stay within the "rules" (ex: only using a green marker for grass or trees), who comes up with untypical ideas, who pays attention to infrastructure (ex: garbage removal or water service or transportation), how they differentiate between planning and creating, how they did or did not get buy-in to their concepts etc.

• What did you see happening as this activity progressed?
• Did those things make your overall goal easier or harder to reach?
• What were some of the dynamics you observed between team members?
• How did these dynamics influence the outcome?
• Was the team successful?
• Why do you say that?
• What things did you see happen in this exercise that describes teams who are effective?
• What things did you see that hampered your team’s effectiveness?

Allow 25 minutes for set up, conducting the activity