Business games team building activities

Because these rounds are fairly short, you can conduct a number of them throughout the day. You can keep the same teams all day and calculate the total score at the end to determine the winning team. Or you can treat each session as its own game and mix and match the teams every time.

This may be one of the greatest quick team-building activities ever. If possible, get four controllers so you can involve more players at a time. If you have four controllers, divide your employees into teams of two and pit one team against another. Alternatively, you can have each employee play for himself. Answering trivia questions is a fun and challenging way to promote team unity. This quick team-building activity can be played in many different ways, but all you really need is a bunch of trivia questions to make it work.

To play the game, divide employees into two teams. Ask the question and give team A one minute to answer. Then reverse roles and give team B a new question. If you can get hold of some type of buzzer, you can have a head-to-head trivia face off where both teams can answer! The team that buzzes in first gets to answer. If they get it wrong, the other team has the opportunity to steal. Get creative with how you play the game and your employees will have the time of their life. Group meditation is a great way to give your employees a break from their busy work day while building a more cohesive team and the benefits of meditation are significant.

Meditation helps reduces stress, improves concentration, increases happiness, and benefits cardiovascular and immune health. All great things for keeping your employees happy and healthy. If possible, get enough yoga mats so that everyone can lie on the floor.

You may also need to bring in someone who is familiar with running a meditation session so your employees get the most out of this quick team-building activity. The Fact Or Fiction game is another great way to get to know your team members better, and help them get to know each other.

At the beginning of the workday, have your employees write their name on one side of a note card. Then, have them write two facts and one fiction two truths and one lie about themselves. Make sure they label which are true and which are false. Later in the day, gather everyone together in a circle and then choose someone to reveal the three pieces of information about themselves.

It might even be a good idea for you to start the process. Then allow the rest of the group to decide what is fact and what is fiction. Give time for questions if the facts are really unique. This team-building activity is both practical and fun. It encourages fast typing a good business skill to have and a spirit of competition. To set it up, print a copy of a fairly long news story. Then give each employee a minute to correctly type as much of the news story as possible.

Alternatively, you can use a typing test website like TypingTest. If all your team members are close together, you can conduct this competition with everyone typing at the same time. You could even do it two or three times throughout the day then average the scores together.

The team member who types the most, or has the fastest speed, wins. Get two of the same object— empty carafes or pans work well. Hide these objects in the workplace either together or apart. Gather your employees together and divide them into team A and team B.

First one to hand the object to you wins. Take some time out of your busy schedule , gather the troops together, and watch a hilarious viral video. This quick and easy team-building activity is a great way to refresh and engage those who are feeling drained or stressed. It gives them time away from their task s to think about something else for a while. Flip a coin to see which team goes first. Then, either give them a minute to study the opposite line, or just make them turn around face away from the opposite line right away.

Now give the other line a minute or so to change ten things about themselves. They can change whatever they want, but simple ideas include:. When time runs out for making changes, instruct the first line to turn around and find the things that are different. Give the guessing team a certain amount of time to add to the suspense of the game.

Once all changes have been discovered, or when time runs out, switch roles and go again. This one is simple: keep three balloons in the air. For a truly chaotic and fun time, get enough balloons so that all your team member can have three. Goal: Teams must retrieve a ping pong ball from the pipe by filling it up with water and floating the ball to the top.

This game can get a little messy, so it's recommended for outside. Leaky Pipe is a highly interactive activity that requires groups to work fast and efficiently together. You'll need water, buckets, several cups, 2 pipes with holes drilled in them, and 2 ping pong balls.

To win, teams must retrieve a ping pong ball from the pipe by filling it up with water and floating the ball to the top. Participants will need to work together using the cups to carry the water from the bucket to the pipe, relay race style with cups of water to fill it. The pipe has holes drilled in it, so they will have to plug the holes as the water gets higher. To complete the challenge, each team will receive a bucket of water which is placed 10 metres away from the pipe and several cups.

Remember to set a countdown, so they are racing against the clock. Items Needed: Ball Goal: Have every participant say their name. For new groups, check out an icebreaker and memory game called Group Juggle. Participants form a large circle facing each other.

If you have a large group, break into groups so there are no more than 20 people in each. Throw a ball to one person. They will throw it to someone else, but must say that person's name first. The ball goes around the group like that until a pattern starts. Once the group seems comfortable, throw in more balls to increase the difficulty. Time: 50 Minutes. Items Needed: Bags, Random objects.

Goal: Create a 10 minute skit based on random items in a bag. Acting and improv exercises can be a humorous and energizing way to bring your team together. Grab Bag Skits is a short activity in which teams will get out of their comfort zones by creating fun skits. Split the group into teams of 3 to 8 and have each team choose a bag.

They don't know what is inside, but it is stuffed with unrelated and random objects. Each team is given 10 minutes to put together a 2 to 3 minutes skit that uses each of the items.

Every person in the group must take on a speaking role. Encourage groups to be as creative as possible. For example, they can use an apple as a meteor or a paintbrush as a witch's broom. Each team will preform their skit for the group. Although some individuals may be more introverted, Grab Bag Skits can encourage them to get out of their comfort zone and connect with colleagues.

Goal: Have the team correctly line up in order of a specific criteria. Ask the group to line themselves in order based on certain criteria. Make it more challenging by setting a rule that members can't speak to each other. You can do this as a get-to-know-you-better activity. Some examples are by:. As members move around the room to organize themselves in order, you'll notice how they communicate to complete the task and who takes on the role of organizers or leaders.

Follow Up Questions. Time: 25 minutes to an hour. Items Needed: Smart phone one per each participant. Goal: To make others laugh while collecting 7 cards to win the game. Evil Apples is a mobile app inspired by the party game, Cards Against Humanity. Other players submit cards anonymously to fill in the blank. The person with the game card chooses the best, and often the funniest response.

Players will bond over laughs and may appreciate the creativity of other group members. You will need to be cautious how you use it some cards can be considered inappropriate or offensive which for many is the fun of the game.

However, you can download different decks that are more work-appropriate or use other card apps to create your own decks. Number of Participants: Players. Items Needed: Smart phone or tablet, Jackbox games , video calling software. Goal: Every player will make a drawing based on a prompt. Players then submit a title for these drawings and try to pick out the real title from the fake ones. Drawful is the perfect solution for remote teams. It can easily be played over Zoom or other video calling software, as well as in person.

In Drawful, each player receives an unusual prompt they need to try and draw on their phone in a limited amount time. After someone finishes and submits their drawing, everyone else submits a title anonymously that could fit the other player's drawing. These titles can be humorous or serious, it's up to each player. The goal is to find the correct drawing prompt while fooling others into selecting decoy answer. Bonus points are awarded to the decoys that are particularly clever or funny.

Create a video meeting with team members and share your screen. Start the game! Every player uses their phone or tablet as a controller, so it's important that everyone has access to a device. The game will run everyone through the instructions before playing so everyone viewing the screen share will get the gist. Items Needed: Each participant needs a mobile device.

Goal: Work together to save the world from a growing pandemic. Based on the cooperative board game, the Pandemic mobile app centres around teams working together to fight and cure deadly diseases. Each player has a specific role that they must fill in order to succeed. Roles can be anything from an engineer building satellites so the CDC can communicate to a scientist collecting data and samples to test for a cure. The premise for the game is the perfect setup to teach risk management and foster teamwork.

It shows that every role is needed to reach the long-term and tough goals. Goal: Score the highest number of points while laying tiles. Another board game turned mobile app, Carcassonne focuses on laying tile to strategically gain control of map's cities, fields and other terrain with the end goal of earning the most points. The game is best played in groups of four players and as a pass-and-play for teams.

Everyone can also play together or remotely on their own device. With each new tile that is laid, individuals must adjust their strategy. It can get people thinking about how to formulate strategies and use logic to reach long-term goals. Goal: To complete all tasks before being killed by the imposter. Among Us is a multiplayer game that combines strategy with sci-fi.

Individuals are assigned roles: either as one of the crew members on a spaceship whose goal is to complete their assigned tasks or an imposter who poses as a crew member and whose goal is to kill the majority of the crew members while sabotage the mission. Similar to games like Mafia and Werewolf, the crew will gather after a dead body is fond to discuss who everyone believes may be the imposter.

At the end of these gatherings, someone will be voted off the spaceship. Players will find there's a strategy to sticking together with other crew members and collaboration is necessary to complete all tasks and find the imposter. Communication is also key to winning the game. Number of Participants: 2-Unlimited. Goal: Team up and go on quests. It can be download on Android or iOS devices. People can communicate, barter, form alliances and show what they are capable of when they work as a team.

Playing a fantasy multiplayer RPG game may seem like an unconventional way to build your business team, but it can foster real-world teamwork. It also taps into the imagination of your members and their ability to communicate. Team building games and activities for teams with more time available. All activities should take between minutes of participants time.

Items Needed: Anything they could use to build a bridge. Some suggestions: tape, paper, marshmallows, straws, Legos, popsicle sticks or Jenga blocks. Goal: Have two groups independently build bridge halves that must fit together. To tap into your team's creativity and communication skills, try bridge build.

Divide into two different teams. Each must build half of a bridge with the materials provided. The goal is for the two bridges to have similar or identical design and be able to fit together when finished. The challenge is that the teams must be separated so that they can't see the other team or what they are building. But, they are allowed to communicate verbally or through chat e.

Depending on what you use, you may want to also supply them with tape, paper and pens. This exercise is good for developing communication, creative thinking, and leaderships skills. What was the hardest part of this challenge?

How did you overcome that? Did you miscommunicate at any point? How did you fix miscommunications and get back on track? Time: 40 minutes. Items Needed: cue cards, post-its or scraps of paper, pens. Goal: Participants must guess the name on their forehead using only yes or no questions.

Create a set of names, which can be celebrities and icons like Beyonce or Mickey Mouse or types of professions like actor, football player or doctor.

You can use Post-It notes or tape and small slips of paper. Have each person place a name on their forehead. Make sure that they can't see who it is. Set a timer and instruct everyone to move around the room asking different people yes or no questions until they guess correctly or time runs out.

This gets people to move around the room and interact with people they may not spoken with before. It also makes them more aware of stereotypes and categorizing others based on certain characteristics.

Number of Participants: Unlimited. Items Needed: Cue or index cards. Goal: Find pairs. Similar to "Concentration", in which you flip over cards two at a time to try to find matching pairs, this activity focuses on learning and memory. You can create cards with photos and names of team members or with company information like products, logos, and values. Face these cards down on a table and then break into teams. Each team must find the pairs in the cards while only facing 2 cards up at a time.

Time each group and whichever finds all the matches the fastest is declared the winner. Company concentration teaches employees more about your business while playing a fun game. Items Needed: Flip cart or white board, Markers. Goal: Come up with newspaper headlines that describe company or department achievements in the future.

With this team-building exercise, you can boost creativity and get an inside look at how your employees see the future of your business. To do All the News, you just need a few newspapers, whiteboards, markers, pens and paper. Each team is given a newspaper and asked to come up with different headlines that cover what the company or department will be doing in the near future.

They can create as many as they want and as far in the future as they want. Groups share their headline ideas with the rest of the team and get feedback. All the News is useful for entrepreneurs and business owners that want to get an idea of the company's future direction and start setting some new goals.

Toggl Track is the time tracker that can slot into any team's workflow. Get crystal-clear insights into what your team members do with their time and see which team members are overworked, and which ones can take on more.

Items Needed: Character descriptions, Clues, Dinner. Goal: Work together to find who the murderer was. A Murder Mystery Dinner is an interactive activity that will require everyone to get involved.

There are several companies that will design murder mystery dinners specifically for business groups. Actors will provide an entertaining story and set clues in place for your team to decipher. But, you can also host your own murder mystery dinner party which may be more cost-effective and intimate. Learn more about Murder Mystery Dinners here. It's ideal for problem-solving and critical thinking. Items Needed: Powerpoint karaoke slides, projector or screen.

Goal: Create a presentation on the spot from slides participants have never seen. If you want to test your team's presentation skills and see how they react in fast-paced or high-pressure situations, play PowerPoint Karaoke also called Powerpoint Roulette or Battledecks. Groups are given a set of slides that they haven't seen before and must give a presentation based on those slides.

This is a more intense version, but you can adjust it so that groups are given a few minutes to view the slides and prepare before giving the presentation. It requires groups to think quickly and work together to pull off a difficult task with a short time to plan. Was this more difficult than a regular presentation? Why or why not? Goal: Act out a impromptu slideshow. Similar to Power Point Karaoke, slide show is a improv game which involves a group presentation.

One person in a team will tell a story of an adventure or process. This could be anything from traveling through the jungle or navigating around a city to building a house or planning a large dinner party. The other team members must act as the slideshow or visuals for the presentation. With each section that the presenter says they must demonstrate the scene. Add in random props to make it more exciting. Slideshow sparks creativity and pushes members to think on their feet.

It also shows how they support each other throughout the process. Time: Long Term. Items Needed: Notebook, Pens. Goal: Get to know employees over a long term period of time.

Some businesses may do team-building activities once for new employee orientation or once or twice a year for a company retreat.

Although team-building activities help to bring your group together, you don't have to limit them to only one time a year. Doing team-building games more often prevents your team from drifting apart over time.

Companies like Zappos have incorporated a culture book. It is a long-running team-building activity that can be done every day. In a common area like a break room, leave a book with markers or pens. On each page, you can leave a prompt or ask a question for each day. Encourage employees to leave quotes from movies they are watching or books they have recently read. This can also be done virtually in work chat apps like Slack by using Geekbot's Pizza Toppings preset, which brings up a fun question for your team to answer once a week.

Items Needed: Team Brief, scoring sheet. Goal: Rank items given based on a hypothetical scenario. Want to see how your team makes decisions? Set up a hypothetical scenario, in which an accident strands the group in a body of water. The traditional team brief in All Adrift is that your boat catches on fire and you have to abandon it.

You only have a few minutes to grab items. Some examples are: First Aid Kit, rope, canned food, water, a bucket, a knife, a compass and a blanket.

First, individuals should write down the items that they would grab from in the order of most important. Then as a team, they have to decide and agree on which 10 are the top priorities.

Groups should have about 30 minutes to complete the entire activity and come to a consensus. There is also a scoring sheet that they should use to rate their decisions. All Adrift helps you see that you can often make smarter decisions as a team with combined knowledge than on your own.

These activities may give you the inspiration and motivation to build stronger and more successful company teams. If you want to do multiple rounds then you can make the virtual activity more challenging by removing broad categories like movies, books and food. Here are more icebreaker games for work. Two Truths and One Lie is one of the most common virtual team building games. The activity is conference call friendly, since all you need is a reliable WiFi connection and a little cunning deceit.

For the remote work version, give each participant two minutes to prepare two truths and one lie. For example:. Have each participant share three facts, and guess which one is the lie.

Two Truths and One Lie is a fun virtual game to play with drinks. Here are more online drinking games that are work friendly. A monthly Healthy Lifestyle Challenge is even more important during quarantine. You can track progress of your Healthy Lifestyle Challenge with this free tracking tool , which helps add an element of accountability. Really everyone wins, because everyone that participates gets a little healthier and has fun with the challenge.

Your coworkers will love engaging in a Typing Speed Race. The race is a way to show off your lightning fingers, and also a great way to develop one of the most important remote work skills: typing quickly and accurately. Your team members can participate in the typing test and post scores to Slack, email or other communication channels.

You can also do a Typing Speed Relay, where you add up team totals. Try the 1-Minute challenge on typingtest. Here are more virtual minute-to-win-it activities. Here is a guide on how to play chubby bunny by Icebreaker Ideas. This post has more fun workplace competitions for virtual teams. Murder in Ancient Egypt is one of three virtual murder mystery activities we run. The game uses mechanics of escape rooms, puzzles and problem solving to bring your people together in a race against the clock.

Murder in Ancient Egypt is an exciting and challenging virtual team building event, and culminates in the big reveal: this was an actual murder mystery from history. Your team will hear the story from an expert storyteller, and learn about what really happened.

Learn more: Murder in Ancient Egypt. War of the Wizards is a simple storytelling game designed as a team building activity for conference calls. The background of this game is that a group of wizards have been at war since ages past, and at this point nobody quite remembers why. War of the Wizards is a 90 minute virtual team building activity played on Zoom. Your event includes an expert host to guide the game through to a successful conclusion.

This community building activity is perfect for anyone that loves role playing games, storytelling, or is otherwise down to get a little nerdy. Learn more: War of the Wizards. Having each of your team members share something about their lives also builds meaningful connections. We recommend the latter option, as it encourages quick and creative thinking.

Here are more fun improv games that work for team building virtually. Personality tests are a common element of job applications and on-boarding. You can use personality tests for remote team building too. Here is a list of personality tests to try.

Not only does What Would You Do? Here is a list of would you rather questions to start with. One of the best ways to quickly build team morale is to throw spontaneous dance parties during video calls.

We have a few recommendations for these virtual activities:. Here is a longer playlist from The Bash. Here is a list of virtual murder mystery games to try. Virtual Escape Rooms are popular online team building activities during quarantine because they include social elements, problem solving skills and teamwork. For example, your team may have to figure out how to pull of an art heist and escape, or break out of a jail cell. The virtual activities are fun and interactive, and feel good when you win.

Here is a list of virtual escape rooms with both free and paid options. Ten quiet minutes during an otherwise busy day can be an effective way to bring your people together and build strong remote teams.

You can achieve these results with a guided meditation session. Here is a 10 minute guided meditation on YouTube. You can snap a screenshot of your most frequently used emojis and upload it for your team to see. If you are looking for ways to make a virtual meeting fun or engage a virtual team in ways that are not lame, then a quick round of emoji ranking can help.

Each member of your team will likely fit into one of the above categories. However, one thing will secretly unify your people regardless of category: they love getting praise. Start a praise train where each person compliments each others work in succession and watch the employee engagement take off.

For example, you could praise someone on their work ethic, and that person could praise a colleague on a successful client call, and that person could praise someone for writing a great blog article and so on. Mister Rogers Calls are one of the best virtual team building activities during quarantine.

The name comes from the goal: to get to know your remote work neighbors. We have been doing Mister Rogers Calls for years, and follow a simple format. First, we use the Donut app to randomly assign conversation partners every two weeks. The call itself should be 30 minutes, over video, and avoid work topics.

Encourage your coworkers to talk about hobbies and interests outside of the job. For example, you can talk about how long you can keep a houseplant alive. This post has themes and topics for virtual coffee chats. Minesweeper is a virtual game you can play on online via Google.

Challenge your remote employees to a cutthroat round of the classic online game, and time your scores to see if you can beat each other and me. You can organize an epic Minesweeper tournament for your people and see who can race through the game quickest.