Teamwork vs Teamplay

Planning for an Effective Team Building Event

When planning for a team building event, it is extremely important to know what your goals are.  Is the program meant to be a stand-alone team energizer, or does your group have serious goals and critical outcomes?  Is the goal teamwork or teamplay?

Yesterday I ran a short team building event for 90 members of a local sorority.  The event was part of their yearly kick-off, and the group had a great time with the activities.  The sisters had broad goals of ‘getting to know one another better,’ ‘working as a team,’ and ‘having fun.’  In addition, they had an extremely small budget ($10 per person), very little time (2 hours), and very limited space (one room – 25×43 feet).  And yet, when the program was over, many of the girls remarked that “it was one of the best events they had ever held,” and “so much fun!”

So how did they do it?  Planning, planning, planning!

The limitations placed on us in planning this event actually freed us to tailor an event that met their needs and would be useful for similar groups.  The outcome is the evolving Mini-Challenge – a self-led rotational team building program.  Here is how we did it:

Pre-planning:

• Made sure the client knew this is ‘just for fun’ and would not be a facilitator-driven team development program.
• Presented descriptions for a large number of participatory team activities that are less-intense (emotional safety), less-risky (physical safety) and easily adaptable for the particular group.  The client selected 2 or 3 activities that she thought would be a good fit for her participants.
• Mapped out the space in which to place the equipment for each activity, and presented this to aid the client in setting up the room.
• Typed up and edited an instruction booklet that provided detailed instructions for how to play each activity
• Provided the necessary equipment for each activity, plus additional activities in the event that a group moved quickly through the events.
• Had the client assign small teams, each with their own ‘team leader.’
• Got buy-in from the ‘team leaders’ in order to have them run the activities for their small teams.

On the day of the event:

• Provided one facilitator to setup, train the team leaders and disassemble the equipment.
• Setup the room, according to the map that was created for the team leaders.
• Trained the team leaders, allowing them to briefly participate in order to gain a complete understanding of each activity.
• Read through the instruction booklets and answered any questions or clarified any details.
• The facilitator kicked-off the event with a warm-up exercise and a quick description of the program.
• Made sure that everything was running smoothly, shot video and pictures for the clients, and ended the event with a final large group challenge.
• Broke down equipment and cleared the room.

Voila!  The group had an excellent time, lots of fun, lots of leadership, and renewed enthusiasm for their sorority and its members.

For groups whose goal is simply to have fun in a participatory team event, a self-led rotational teambuilding program gives you a huge return on your investment.