Best office team games

This could be done individually, or in small groups if desired. Discuss, as a group, which products were successfully sold and why. Purpose: For marketing and design teams, this exercise presents the challenge of seeing old things in a new light.

When combined with groups working together to sell a common object, you introduce teamwork and crunch-time brainstorming.

It promotes creativity and problem solving, too. Come up with several scenarios in which a person would be chosen to do something. For example, it might be a new job hire, marriage, leading an organization, or commanding an army. Have each team member write their question down. When all scenarios have been covered, discuss the questions as a group and see what each team member thinks would be the perfect question.

Purpose: Team members quickly learn how each other thinks differently. The perfect question that each comes up with will reflect their motives and what they think matters the most.

This is an excellent way to lead into a discussion on how team members determine who is capable and who they will follow or trust. Collect a variety of objects and put them in the center of a table. The broader the variety, the better e. The goal is to collect items that, at first glance, have no apparent connection.

Break the team into groups, giving each group a sheet of paper and pen. Make sure they have a clear view of all the objects. Instruct them to classify the objects into four groups, writing down the groupings on their sheet of paper. They should not let the team groups hear what they are doing.

When the time is up, have a spokesperson for each group reveal how they classified the objects, and why. Reasons might vary, from the function of the object to how it looks, or the material it is made of. Purpose: This exercise promotes teamwork and creative thinking, but it also encourages your team to rethink how they view everyday objects. They are forced to look for commonalities in otherwise unconnected objects.

This leads to a discussion on how to work outside the box for solutions to problems that seem wholly unrelated. Bring in four objects or multiple sets of four objects of the same type e. Write up a conversational scenario for each set that outlines what the perfect item would be, in the order of preference.

While none of the four objects is an exact match, each have qualities that reflect that perfect list. Read this scenario to your team, and instruct them to order the objects from best fit to worst fit.

When all object sets are done, have team members explain why they ordered the objects that way. Purpose: This exercise helps your team break down a scenario or problem and figure out which things are the best fit. This dovetails directly into discussion on current projects or challenges facing the group, in which you can, as a group, write a scenario for an actual project you are working on and decide which solutions are the best fit.

Bring the team into the room, and divide evenly into groups of at least two. Tell them they have thirty minutes to come up with a group problem-solving challenge that would make use of: teamwork, creativity, communication. When the thirty minutes is complete, the team will choose from one of the problem-solving challenges and actually do the activity.

A variation is to use all of the challenges over a period of time so that your team-building activities come directly from your team itself. Purpose: This team building exercise puts leadership responsibilities back on your team, showing them that they have the potential to come up with solutions, too.

It also gives your team a chance to challenge other team members in ways they might not otherwise find the opportunity to do so in regular workday activity. Bring your team in for what they think is just another staff meeting.

Have a long document filled with mind-numbing but coherent jargon-filled speech that talks vaguely about sales and marketing goals. Sprinkled in the document are sentences which say something else entirely. These sentences should contain instructions or information that they will be quizzed on after you are finished. Begin reading it to your team in monotone.

The goal is to get them to tune you out. When you are finished, hand out paper to each team member. Then, ask them to write down what they thought you talked about. If your real sentences contained random information, quiz them on that.

Discuss who heard what, and see who was able to actively listen. It shows the importance of listening to verbal communication, but also non-verbal communication. They can discuss why they tuned you out, and what you could have done to keep them tuned in. Create a card deck that has images or words related to your company or brand. It might be logos, products, photos of your team, and so on. Whatever route you go, keep the images related. For example, use all photos of your team, or all photos of your products.

Divide up into teams and see which team can match the most pairs in the least amount of time. You might set additional rules, such as requiring the name of the person to be said aloud when the card is flipped over, or some other related bit of information connected to the image on the card.

Purpose: To learn the names, information, and visuals associated with your company. This is particularly effective if you have a lot of new team members and you want everyone to learn their name and something about them.

Teams can get a point for matching up cards, but they can get two points if they choose to successfully debate and argue why the two cards the turned over are associated. If the majority of the room agrees with their reasoning, they receive the points. If not, they lose a point. It also forces them to decide what is worth debating or not, as well as whether or not someone has provided a good argument.

Place the name stickers in a container, and have each team member draw a name sticker out without being able to see the adjective. Have them stick the name tag on their shirt and wear it for a specific period of time, instructing them that all of their responses and interaction for that time must reflect the adjective on their name tag.

You can use this in several ways. Your team could wear them during a typical meeting or brainstorming session to show how good and bad attitudes affect outcomes.

They could wear them for a typical work day and then discuss how they felt. Or, you could have them wear a name tag half of the day, and switch with someone for the second half. If they switch name tags, they will see how behavior and action often defines feeling, and not the other way around. Give each team member a piece of paper. Have them draw a simple drawing on the paper, without talking to anyone else.

Each person then passes the paper to their right. Each team member looks at the drawing they now have, fold the paper in half, and write at the top what they think the picture is of. The paper is passed to the right again. Each person reads the description, folds the paper over to hide the words, and draws a picture of that. This continues, where each pass alternates between determining what the picture was and drawing what was described. It is important that each turn only reveals the words or picture from the previous round.

Separate sheets or pads of paper may be used if that is easier than one sheet of paper, but they should be passed together.

Purpose: This activity tends to create a lot of laughter and is an excellent ice-breaker at parties or before long meetings where you want people to be comfortable with each other.

The drawings and interpretations tend to bring out discussion and jokes. Give each member of your team three cards with the same number on them so that every team member has a set of numbers different from every other player. The goal is to accomplish the tasks in a set amount of time so that whoever is left will get a prize based on the total value of the tasks completed. And once a team member has used up all their cards, they are taken out of the game and out of the running for the prize.

Ideally, there are more tasks and values than can be fulfilled by the cards your team possesses. They must determine which tasks to do, and which cards to use up.

Ultimately, not every task can be completed, and not everyone can be a winner. The goal is to get the highest total task value for the best prize , and work together to achieve it knowing that in order to do so, some will miss out.

Purpose: This rather painful game helps your team work together, understanding both strategy and self-sacrifice.

Instruct them to write down, at the top of the sheet, a problem they have at work. Next, have them write below that, leaving a slight space, two things they think causes that problem again, not mentioning specific people but finding a way to focus on systems, ideology, or procedures that people use. Draw a line from the two ideas up to the main problem, much like a family tree structure. Then have them break down those two ideas further, two for each, as far as they can go.

The idea is to figure out what small things have led to the big things. The exercise could stop here, allowing the team members to simply enjoy personal discovery, or they results could be discussed as a group to see if there were small underlying problems that popped up on multiple problem family trees. Purpose: To help team members to see the real problems they deal with, and what causes them, not as specific people who cause trouble, but as often seemingly small issues that mix with other small issues to create larger problems.

Assemble all but one of your team members in the shape of a triangle. Once the time is up, evaluate which team completed the most activities and has the highest points.

A team building activity outdoor that inspires collaboration, problem solving, teamwork, and is very fun. Laser tag is a recreational team sport where players attempt to score points by shooting infrared-sensitive targets usually with an infrared-emitting targeting device. It is entirely safe and will provide a fun-filled bonding for the employees.

Each player gets their laser tag gear and enters the arena. Employees will begin to work together to create new strategies in an attempt to win. Let your employees race around the track at up to 45 mph and experience the thrill and adrenaline of go-karting! How to play: Book a go-kart track beforehand.

Upon arrival, all participants will be briefed on the safety procedures and details about racing and the go-karts. You can try a warm-up classification race and then do a Grand Prix with 10 laps and see who races to the finish first.

Prepare a trophy or a prize for the winners. Go-karting is easy to learn, fun, and thrilling. It will also introduce a bit of friendly competition among employees. Since the game involves throwing balls, this quick team building activity is best for outdoors, although you can play it in the office as well. Great for playing at the beginning of any team event. How to play: Have all players stand in a circle. Increase the difficulty by increasing speed and the number of balls in the circle.

This activity breaks the ice, helps learn names, exercises memorization skills. A ropes course is a team building activity outdoors that includes high constructed in trees and low take place on the ground elements.

Rope courses are sometimes challenging on a personal level, as they may involve confronting fears and anxieties. How to play: Book a rope course venue for this activity. A rope course usually includes obstacles like a foot wall the participants must get over, a tightrope walk, as well as swinging ropes. Keep in mind the physical abilities of your team so that the course is not too difficult or too easy. A great team building activity to test teamwork skills, determination, and patience.

Explores leadership and communication concepts, as well as involves problem-solving. How to play: Divide the players into two or more teams. The players must all cross the imaginary river by jumping and maneuvering different objects. Whoever touches the floor, gets burnt and must start the course from the beginning.

The first team to get over the river with all team members are declared the winners. This team building game tests coordination, promotes communication and teamwork. Instead of playing basketball, baseball, or soccer, where some people might have more experience than others, opt for kickball. Number of players: Kickball is usually played with teams of people. How to play: Kickball also known as kick baseball is similar to baseball in terms of field, rules , and scoring points.

The main difference is that you kick the ball instead of hitting it with a bat. The ball is also made out of rubber and is much larger than in baseball — closer to the size of a football in soccer. Eventually, you can even form your own company kickball league and play with other local businesses and form productive partnerships.

Kickball is growing in popularity, especially in the United States. GPS-based team building games are great fun for the whole team and usually involve following clues to find hidden objects by using GPS coordinates.

How to play: The employees are split into teams before the start of the race. Each group of teammates needs to have a GPS device on to help them with searching. The kind of team building activities for work that motivates employees to collaborate, promotes problem-solving and will make them feel as if on an Indiana Jones-like adventure mission.

Sometimes, an effective team building activity is just to kick back and relax — especially so if your company has been going through a demanding and busy period. So why not take the team out for an engaging sports game where the athletes do all of the work? How it works: Do a survey to find out what kind of sporting event your employees would like to attend. A good idea is to pick an event where a local team or athlete participates. The result? Attending a sports event is the perfect way to get your mind off things and will help employees to socialize in a relaxed atmosphere.

How to play: Each player is blindfolded and positioned in the area where the game takes place. The challenge is to take a length of rope and lay it out on the ground to make a perfect square. This physical team building activity will engage the entire team and get people to relax and collaborate while also promoting leadership and planning.

How to play: The goal of the game is for your team to create letters and words with their bodies alone. You need to have a wide open area without any obstacles. Divide participants into teams of people and ask them to select a leader. Think of words that contain one letter less than the number of people in each team. Write the words down on index cards. Each team then picks a word at random, and they have to display the word with their bodies alone.

The team that makes the word the fastest wins. This team building game promotes planning, leadership, creative thinking, and cooperation. This team building game involves two teams, a flag, and lots of running. How to play: Divide the players up in two teams.

When the flag is located, they must try to bring it back to their home zone but have to avoid getting caught and tagged by the opposite team. Promotes teamwork, planning, strategy, leadership.

It also involves a great deal of running and is great is you have a large outdoor space. Well, have you looked into the souls of your teammates? This team building game will allow you to! How to play: The group forms a circle, either sitting or standing. On the count of three, each member of the group has to look at someone else in the circle.

If two people in the group look at each other, they are eliminated from the game. This quick team building activity will get the participants to loosen up. A great game to play at the beginning of any event. A golf-based team building activity provides positive reinforcement of teamwork and lets the employees build interpersonal relationships. How to play: Book a location for your outing. Best golf locations for team building events are municipal golf courses or small private courses.

When starting the activity, select the style of play. If skill levels vary among your team members, play Scramble as it will require team members to hit each shot. The players then decide which is the best shot and all team members hit the next shot from that spot.

The game continues until the ball is in the hole. In this type of golf play, each time the team hits the ball counts as 1 point. The team with the lowest total score wins. Golf will get your employees out of the office into the fresh air, encourages communication, the competitive element of the activity increases motivation. Beach Olympics is a collection of team building games and activities for outdoors where each team gets to play an individual game against each other.

Beach Olympics is a great way for the whole team to unwind and get to know each other. How to play: Pick a beachy location or book a Beach Olympics activity through an event planning agency that will plan all the activities. Some of the activities include beach relay races, volleyball, hula hoop hurl, sandcastle contest, and frisbee golf.

Beach Olympics provide the perfect opportunity for even larger corporate groups to get competitive with one another, get to know each other, and build the spirit of camaraderie.

This simple, yet powerful team building exercise is a great way of learning how to work together as a team and communicate in small to medium-sized groups in order to complete a shared goal. How to play: Organize your group into small groups. Take a dowel rod as thin as possible and hold it horizontally about chest height.

The players need to hold the stick onto their index fingers and lower it to the ground as a team. An effective ice-breaker activity that will help you make lots of conclusions about the level of verbal vs. Improves leadership, collaboration, concentration, and creative thinking. This no-prop team building exercise requires a high degree of focus, integrity, and the whole team has to be in sync.

How to play: Mark a straight line using bright paint or use a bright-colored rope. The team has to walk from start to finish, maintaining contact of the ankles.

If anyone from the group loses contact, they have to start over. If you want to create extra limitations, let the participants know they must remain silent beside one or two of the players. These types of team building activities promote communication, leadership skill, and boosts teamwork. Want to take team building to the next level? Create your own version of the popular TV show Survivor and put each member to the test in a refreshing and adrenaline-rushing team building outing.

How to play: The team is divided into teams — or tribes. Throughout Survivor, the teams are tested and challenged with a series of physical and problem-solving activities that are based on survival skills.

In this team building activity, each challenge requires a different skill, so everyone gets an opportunity to shine. This is one of those fun team building games that will have your team bouncing around with laughter — literally! Number of players: 10 players divided into two teams more people can play if you organize a tournament.

How to play: The recreational activity is similar to a regular soccer game — except each player is half-encased inside a giant bubble. The game is typically played in teams in large indoor spaces or outdoor fields. Develops skills like collaboration, communication, and strategic thinking.

Be prepared to get wet! In this team building activity, the team has to immerse an inflated balloon underwater and hold it there for at least 5 seconds, using only the materials provided. You can make the experience more collaborative by doing a Typing Speed Relay, which requires forming your people into teams and then adding the cumulative score from each person to create a team total.

With the Typing Speed Race, everyone wins because typing quickly is an important skill for remote work. Chair Up! The game is played over email, messenger or conference call, and is specifically meant to counter the doom and gloom that sometimes guides conversations.

For example, you could do yoga sun-salutations, clap your hands, laugh or have a small dance party. When you work from home, taking care of your health and fitness is especially important.

You can do squats and eat well, and also make sure you drink enough water. Water Shots is a game meant to fortify your team around healthy hydration. Virtual team building games that focus on building healthy habits are a great way to support company culture and development with remote teams.

Charades is one of those games that nearly everyone plays at school or home while growing up. With this proliferation of Charades, Virtual Charades has the advantages of being fairly familiar while also being fun. To play Virtual Charades, prepare a set of links that go to Google Image pages or use a random image generator.

Rinse and repeat until you are all out of fun. Here is a random charades word generator you can use for your game:. Instead, you can play with at least two teams, a series of trivia questions, and positive attitudes. Playing pub-style trivia online is similar to the in-the-pub version, with one crucial difference: you need an easy way for people to communicate. Instead of mumbling across a table, we recommend using virtual breakout rooms so that each team can discuss the answers openly.

Each team can then submit the answers via a web-form and the host can award points as needed. Here are more instructions on how to play virtual happy hour trivia , and a list of team trivia questions. Pro tip: Playing virtual happy hour games like pub-style trivia give you a unique opportunity to include wildly different clues in the game. The internet is your oyster for virtual group games. Werewolf is one of the best remote team building games, as it is full of cunning deceit and tactful manipulation.

The game relies primarily on the spoken word, which makes it perfect for remote teams. To play this game virtually, nominate one person as the narrator and then randomly distribute the following roles to players:. To play, first distribute the roles via private message or email the players in advance.

For a group of five people, you should have 1 werewolf, 1 medic and 3 villagers. For each additional five people add 1 werewolf, 1 special role, and 3 villagers. The ratios are flexible, so can modify them to suit your needs. The narrator then puts the werewolves back to sleep and has the medic and seer wake up in sequence.

If the medic selects the same player as the werewolf, then nobody dies during the night. When the seer points to a player, the narrator can answer yes or no to whether that player is a werewolf. All players can open their eyes, and then debate on who the werewolf might be. To end the round, all players vote on one player to eliminate from the game or can pass and wait until the next round. Any player that is eliminated either by the werewolves or by vote becomes a friendly ghost that is not allowed to speak for the rest of the game but may observe it in quiet frustration.

To play, divide the attendees of your virtual conference call into groups of four or five people and then give the groups 15 minutes of prep time. After the 15 minute breakout session, bring everyone back to the main virtual meeting and have the teams present their creation.

Vote on the best one with thumbs up and cheers. Spreadsheet Wars is one of my favorite virtual team building games to play with coworkers. Like other games on this list, Spreadsheet Wars is a combination of fun and skill-building, which makes it perfect for remote teams and offices. The best tool wins, and really everyone wins because you are getting better at using one of the most powerful free tools on the internet. Growing up, one of my favorite games to play was Risk, the game of global domination that meshes perfectly with my own aspirations.

Risk is a game of cutthroat collaboration, friendly competition, resource management and other strategic dynamics that make it perfect for team building online. The most flexible way to play Risk-like team games online is to use one of the many clones, for example Conquer Club , which provides a free browser based game. Here are more online board games to play at work. In the early s, Sudoku took the world by storm; inspiring nerds everywhere to complete numerical logic games instead of the daily crossword.

Today, you can play a version of Sudoku for online team building called Sudoku Throw-down. For Sudoku Throw-down, you can easily up the competitive spirit by including prizes for the top three finishers.

I recommend nerd-friendly prizes like more Sudoku puzzles, science kits and white boards. Here are more problem solving games.

Something in common is an icebreaker game that works on video conference calls and similar. To play, first organize your attendees into manageable sized groups of four or five people and gently push them into breakout rooms. Each group has the goal of finding three similarities they have in common with other members of that group.

For the round after that, remove pets and preferences. The goal is to make the game increasingly difficult and encourage your remote team to deep dive into what they may have in common.

Check out our list of icebreaker games for large groups for more ideas. Pictionary is a fun game where some people draw while other people guess what the drawing could be. The game includes elements of improv, creative thinking, competition and more. You can play Quick Draw over Zoom, Webex and other virtual conference call platforms. You can also mix up the game and rules by varying the number of clues each person draws, and drawing verbs instead of nouns.

Truth or Dare: Remote Work Edition takes those popular game mechanics and optimizes for team building online.