# Need a Team-building Exercise for work **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 18, 2011, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363 "2011-11-18T17:15:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jake\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Jake\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake_Jones)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363/21 "2011-11-19T02:07:22Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > You should be able to play a full round of soggy biscuit in 10 minutes. I very rarely genuinely laugh out loud at things I read, but holy shit, that was funny. I hate these exercises so, so much. I would have to quit too, if I were repeatedly subjected to them. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363/22 "2011-11-19T03:56:54Z")
Figure out a way to prank the Boss in a manner that doesn’t get you all fired. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363/23 "2011-11-19T04:08:55Z")
M&M Game has been done. **Dangerosa** , I’m going to try your game, I think. My boss is very big on communicating effectively, so it’ll make her happy. StG ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363/24 "2011-11-19T04:19:20Z")
Announce “Bring Your Favorite Automatic Rifle To Work Day” and head out back behind the dumpsters with a box of dynamite for some quality bonding time that no one will soon forget. Remember, when the Special Tactics Teams show up, take shelter behind concrete or cinder brick walls, set out a defensive perimeter of booby traps, and lay in a supply of food, water, and most importantly, toilet paper for the long siege. Also, have a list of prepared demands; there is nothing so embarrassing being caught up in the action and then having to make up some random ass shit about fighting for your Shining Path brothers and sisters languishing in prison in Peru. Attica! Attica! Attica! Stranger ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363/25 "2011-11-19T04:54:43Z")
Let me join in the team building stuff is just asine. Only good team building is “open bar” How about bring in a cappucino maker and whip up some espresso drinks for everyone. ---
**Author:** ![ProbablyProcrastinating](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/57b2e6/32.png) [@ProbablyProcrastinating](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ProbablyProcrastinating)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363/26 "2011-11-19T05:01:43Z")
You could call a meeting and pretend to have a medical emergency and see what they all do, as a team. They might not like it but it wouldn’t be boring. The best team-building I ever did was overseas. There were several groups and we had to build the tallest structure out of bendy straws. Structures were inevitably phallic, and also leaning over, so in the end we changed the contest to which one could stay up the longest. Then we had drinks at 10 a.m. I think we all felt a lot more intimate after that. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363/27 "2011-11-19T14:21:52Z")
Something I’ve had some fun with is to give everyone a piece of paper with the same single sentence or paragraph at the top. Then each participant adds to the story for two minutes or so, then they fold the paper to reveal only the last sentence, pass the folded page to the left and then they all continue their story from the previous stopping point. Do this a few times, then you read the hilarious tales. Add good bagels and cream cheese and no one ever bitches that they have real work to do. Just the bagels and gossiping about the office food thief is team building too. IMO ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363/28 "2011-11-19T14:53:04Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Here’s one that I actually liked, but it was for way more than 8 people, and we needed more like an hour. Maybe you can taylor it to suit your situation. > > We were split into teams of 4 or 5. Each team got an empty paper box. Inside was a big sheet of paper (like from those easels), 3 coffee stirrers, a roll of tape, a pair of scissors, and three paper plates. Or something like that. Each team had an hour to build a free-standing tower using nothing but the contents of the box. The box itself couldn’t be used. The team that built the tallest tower won some sort of prize. We had a similar game imposed on us during a team building hour at an internal conference. Four games of increasing stupidity leading to the tower build. My team was way behind on time. As we were giving up two guys on the team opened the paper bag, stood it on its opening, and put a couple of the objects we were supposed to use to build the tower on top. It all stood up long enough for the judging. Once it was decided we could use the bag and not just its contents,we came in 3rd or 4th in that round. I thought those guys’ solution was genius! In contrast to the industrial grade stupidity of the whole exercise. I work for a big company. To me the point of team building exercises is for people to get to know each other. When someone has to write a proposal they need to be able to say “I’ll call Typo to work on Section 4”. I consider the stupid four round game team building exercise a failure because I never learned the names of my team, and they probably only remember me as the guy who was really bad at business buzzword pictionary. I wish I was making that up. My advice - go with basic “getting to know you” stuff. Saves the games for baby showers. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363/29 "2011-11-19T14:58:48Z")
Adding: the M&M game looks good. Simple, quick, easily ended, introduces people to each other. And you get candy! ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363/30 "2011-11-19T15:37:27Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Announce “Bring Your Favorite Automatic Rifle To Work Day” and head out back behind the dumpsters with a box of dynamite for some quality bonding time that no one will soon forget. Remember, when the Special Tactics Teams show up, take shelter behind concrete or cinder brick walls, set out a defensive perimeter of booby traps, and lay in a supply of food, water, and most importantly, toilet paper for the long siege. Also, have a list of prepared demands; there is nothing so embarrassing being caught up in the action and then having to make up some random ass shit about fighting for your Shining Path brothers and sisters languishing in prison in Peru. > > Attica! Attica! Attica! > > Stranger I had a group together from all over the world. We had a morning free and I was going to take them out “team building.” We were in a place where they had fully automatic firing ranges, and that’s what they wanted to do. I was game (I’m not big on guns, but I am big on keeping people I’m dependent on happy), until it was pointed out that some of us were flying out later that afternoon, several participants were Muslim from overseas, and gun reside tends to freak out TSA agents. Its the “I didn’t set my team up to be strip searched” trust building exercise. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363/31 "2011-11-19T15:50:25Z")
That should be “gunpowder residue” - but I can’t type on limited coffee and leave out letters and even entire parts of words. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![aesop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f8ce5/32.png) [@aesop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aesop)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363/32 "2011-11-19T15:52:19Z")
I helped organize one of the annual social events at our office, and among other things we had teams play the [human knot game](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR9NhosZO90). It was a huge hit. It requires close interaction and problem solving, and it’s also great fun. Even the most misanthropic wet blankets (like some in this thread) got a kick out of it. Of course we’re in Europe, and people don’t freak out and threaten lawsuits over playing a game in the office that involves actually touching each other. You can find a good description of it [here](http://wilderdom.com/games/descriptions/HumanKnot.html). ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363/33 "2011-11-21T18:53:31Z")
Team meeting is done and **Dangerosa’s** game was a success. I pulled a picture of a schoolhouse with a bell, flying a flag, and with a tree beside it, on a hill with a path leading to it. (I searched for preschool coloring pages to get the pic) First off , my boss says “let’s each take a different aspect of the picture to describe”, eliminating everyone yelling out instructions. The first person told the drawer to draw in the center of the page a building like the church on Little House on the Prairie, which was also used by kids Mon-Fri. The next person said to add the thing that would call the people to church, an so on. The pic was completed and looked remarkably like the sample. Everyone declared it a successful teambuilding exercise. StG [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-team-building-exercise-for-work/603363.md?page=1)