Team Building Activities for Work, Indoor and Outdoor

The short answer

Team building is any game or shared task that helps coworkers trust each other and work better together. Quick games take 5 to 30 minutes and fit inside a meeting. Longer events take 1 to 4 hours and need a room, a park or an afternoon off.

Choose by your goal first, then by headcount and space. Corporate team activities work when they match the problem the team has. A new team needs to learn names and habits. A team that has worked together for years needs a real problem to solve, or the game feels like a waste of time.

What team building actually changes

Every new group goes through a rough start, and a good activity makes it shorter.

Psychologist Bruce Tuckman described the stages in 1965: forming, storming, norming and performing. In 1977 he and Mary Ann Jensen added a fifth, adjourning. A team building exercise gives people a low-stakes version of the storming stage. They argue about a spaghetti tower instead of a deadline.

A 2009 review by Klein and colleagues found that work on goals and roles had the strongest effect on teams. So start with a question. Do people need to know each other, agree on a goal, or understand who does what? Pick the format that answers it.

Quick team building games for work

Team meeting ice breakers need no budget and take a few minutes. Use one at a time, not five in a row.

• Two truths and a lie. Each person says three things about themselves. The group guesses which one is false. It works best when people are still learning names, so it suits new hires.
• Weekend in a word. Everyone describes their weekend in one word, then explains it in one sentence. It takes about five minutes and makes a calm start for a Monday call.
• Rose, bud, thorn. Each person names a win, an idea that's just starting and a problem. Use it after a project or before a planning session.
• Desert island. The group agrees on a short list of items to take to an island. People have to argue, trade and decide, which shows how the team makes choices.
• Human knot. Everyone stands in a circle and grabs the hands of two people across from them. The group must untangle without letting go. Skip it if your team doesn't like close contact.

The marshmallow team building challenge

This one takes 18 minutes and shows who plans and who builds. Each small group gets 20 sticks of spaghetti, a yard of masking tape, a yard of string and one marshmallow. The tallest free-standing tower with the marshmallow on top wins.

Watch how the groups work. Some talk until the last minute and build once. Others build, fail and rebuild. The debrief after the clock stops is where the lesson is.

Team building questions for work

Good questions get people talking about something other than the project. Ask one per meeting and let everyone answer in a sentence.

• What was your first job, and what did it teach you?
• Which skill do you have that nobody here knows about?
• What's the best advice a manager ever gave you?
• If you could swap roles with anyone on the team for a day, who would it be?

Keep funny team building questions light. Nobody should have to share something private at work.

Indoor team building activities for the office

Indoor events don't depend on the weather, and your office is the easiest room to book.

• Escape rooms. A group has a fixed time to solve a chain of puzzles and open the last lock. You don't have to travel: we bring escape room team building kits to your office or venue.
• Racing challenge. Colleagues race the same track on simulators, and the best laps go up on a shared screen. At a Capital Group racing challenge, the organizer set ten prize places, and each race took about three minutes. That's the simulator team building format.
• Trivia and game shows. Teams compete with buzzers and a host. Mix departments on purpose, so finance and sales sit at one table. It's easy to run over lunch.
• Cooking class. Small groups cook one dish together and eat the result. It suits one department better than a whole floor.

An office event has its own rules. Buildings set loading hours, ask for a certificate of insurance and limit the freight elevator. Ask your facilities manager about these before you choose.

Outdoor team building games

Outdoor games use space your office doesn't have, and people move instead of sitting.

• Scavenger hunt. Teams solve clues around a park, campus or neighborhood and send photo proof.
• Field day. Relay races, tug of war and sack races, with points on one board. It also works on a beach.
• Volunteer day. The team builds, plants or packs for a local charity. A day like this lets people see each other do real work.
• Surf and sports stations. At Capital Group's employee summer social, guests rode a surf simulator and played VR baseball and VR hockey.

Plan shade, power and a rain backup. More ideas are on our outdoor team building page.

Team building for large groups

With a large group, the line is the risk. If a handful of people play and everyone else checks their phones, the event fails.

Run several stations at once and keep each turn short. At a Capital Group employee social, four racing stations fed one leaderboard, and each guest took about two and a half minutes including instructions. Put the scores on a big screen, so the people waiting have something to watch and cheer. The same setup fits a team night around a big trade show, such as IAAPA Expo in November or the PGA Show in January at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando.

At the Parker Aerospace employee open house, about 500 guests were expected. Our operator shortened each flight simulator attempt when the queue grew, so more employees and family members got a turn.

Small group team building ideas

A small group can do things a large one can't: talk, cook, build or solve one puzzle together. For a team of four to ten, an escape room, a cooking class or a paint night works well. Problem-solving games like the marshmallow challenge also work better when every person has a job.

Team building for remote employees

Team building activities for remote workers need shorter sessions and a reason to turn the camera on.

• Arm's reach show and tell. Each person shows an object they can reach from their desk and tells its story.
• Online trivia. A host runs rounds, teams answer in breakout rooms.
• Online games. A short tournament in a browser game, with a shared scoreboard.
• Shipped kits. Everyone gets the same box and builds, tastes or solves together on Zoom.

For hosted options, see virtual team building. For a hybrid team, run the event in the office and stream the scoreboard to people at home.

How to choose the right team building activity

Ask these questions before you book anything.

• What should change? New hires need names. A team after a reorg needs roles. A sales team before a launch needs one goal.
• How long do you have? Fifteen minutes in a meeting, an afternoon or a full retreat day.
• Who will come? Count heads, ages and mobility. Plan for people who'd rather watch than play.
• Where will it happen? Office, venue, park or online. Each has its own rules.

Make playing optional. Trust exercises fail when people feel pushed. A good game draws people in because they can see the score, not because a manager told them to.