What is the Point of Team Building Using Obstacle Courses?

The basis of an obstacle course is to create a physical challenge where you have to use strength, agility and often brains to get past the obstacles in your path.
Sometimes competing against the clock, sometimes as a team, obstacle courses come in many forms. They range from the sack races at a school sports day, to something big like Total Wipeout on the TV. The military use assault courses to test the ability and endurance of personnel. Army assault courses have gained notoriety with the public, especially the Royal Marines assault course with its notorious Sheep Dip, and consequently events such as the Tough Mudder, and the Dirty Dash have become great events to take part in.

Obstacle Course Races

Obstacle course races such as the Tough Mudder have events organised all over the world. Every obstacle course race has a new type of obstacle created that will encourage obstacle course race teams to enter. Fire, water, mud, crawling under barbed wire, swimming and lots of thoroughly exhausting challenges await you.

You will need to train hard to be in with a chance to successfully complete the Tough Mudder or Spartan Run. Some competitors are so dedicated they even have special Tough Mudder running clothing. Basically, you want to be wearing something that will cope with lots of wet mud and freezing cold temperatures.

Every year, the Royal Marines open up the Royal Marine training course at Woodbury Common, Exeter in Devon to anyone over 16.

In early October, there is the 4km fun run through the obstacles on the Royal Marine Training Course. This includes the infamous Sheep Dip, where you go fully submerged through a muddy tunnel full of water. There is also the 10km Marine Challenge, which still has the obstacles, but includes road runs.

How to Make Your Own Obstacle Course

An obstacle course is a challenging outdoor personal development and team building activity which usually consists of high and or low elements. Low elements take place on the ground or only a few feet above the ground. And yes, you guessed it high elements can be constructed in trees and require a belay for safety.

Depending on your own skill, qualifications and experience, you can be quite adventurous with the obstacle course you create. If you are going to include some higher elements, you will need to consider whether climbing harnesses and belay equipment is needed. Safety first.

Belay systems are used to secure climbers on the higher parts of the course as you move through the course. This means that you have to explore the fundamentals of trust, craftsmanship, and coaching. The lower parts of the course are most often designed to explore group interaction, problem-solving, and leadership.

Types of Obstacles

For the most part, you can create some great obstacles on the ground. Tyres spread on the ground to hop from one to the next, tunnels, poles to jump over or crawl under. Planks can be used to walk along.

Bucket on a Rope

One simple yet challenging obstacle course I set up is the bucket on the rope. You string a series of ropes around a course that goes under nets, through bushes and up trees. The team then has to insert the end of the rope through the handle of a bucket full of water. They team then has to move the bucket along the length of the rope as quickly as possible without spilling any of the water. Good teamwork is needed to get the bucket through the branches of the tree, possible needing a human tower to reach. It is simple but very effective.

Water Slides

If it is summer, a water slide is usually a great way to end. You will need a long sheet of tarpaulin, a slight slope, and some way of keeping the tarp wet. Usually, you can do this with a hosepipe.

Slack Lines

Slack lines are very cheap to buy and are a brilliant obstacle that will test everyone. You set them up as a low rope not far off the ground. They are particularly challenging to cross, but this means that good teamwork is needed. You can even use them blindfolded as long as you have two other members of the team holding the slackline walker’s hands. Perfect for trust building, motivation and communication.
Modern adventure courses meet a number of educational, developmental, and recreational goals by focusing on personal achievements and ask participants to confront their personal fears and anxieties. Challenges are usually physical and or emotional – although not too emotional I hope!

If you don’t have the resources or time to create your own obstacle course and want to try one, then why not pay a visit to one of the many outdoor obstacle courses around the world. You can find them at adventure camps, Go Ape Treetop Adventures in the UK and US, or for those who love a challenge, you can enter an obstacle course race like Tough Mudder.
So if you think you have got what it takes, get your team toughest and sign up for the Tough Mudder or Spartan Run. There are several places all over the world you can now go to try outdoor obstacle courses and assault courses

Quick Physical Challenge Ideas

Human Pyramids and Towers

How high can the team build a human pyramid or tower? Make sure you have a way to measure the height and how long the tower lasts for. You can give the team a focus by seeing if they can reach an object suspended from a rope.

Folding up a Pop Up Tent, With One Hand

This may not be quick! You can buy pop up tents that unfold and are up in sconds. However, it can be quite a challenge to fold it up again. Challenge the teams to see how quickly they can fold the tents up and get it back in its bag.
Once they have master that, get them to work in pairs, where each person is only allowed to use one hand. The pair now has to work together and communicate well to fold up that tent. Much hilarity wil follow.

Egg Tossing

What is the furthest distance pairs of players can throw a raw egg to each other and successfully catch it?

Water Balloon Launchers

How far can the team launch a water balloon or other projectile using a bungee launcher? For added difficulty, give them a target to aim for.

Multi-Legged Race

How many people can you have in a multi-legged running race and still have a reasonable chance of finishing? The teams can create a graph showing the number of people tied together vs the time taken to complete a given course.

Obstacle Course Races

These can be as quick as you like. Weaving around chairs and going over or under tables is an easy way to set up an obstacle course. The more equipment you have, the more complex the course but also it will take more time to set up.

Sitting Against the Wall

This quick physical challenge is a great display of physical ability and determination. The members of the team have to stand with their backs against a wall and then slide down until they are in a sitting position (but without any chair). They are then timed to see how long they can hold that position. It tests leg strength, but a key apsect to lasting longer is motivation and determination.

If you arrange everyone present into their teams, then get them to compete as a team. The time recorded is for the last person in the team who remains up against the wall. This encourages team members to support each other by yelling support and motivation.

You can adapt the rules depending on the people you have. You could make it that the time is recorded for how long all of the team stay against the wall at the same time. As soon as one drops, the whole team is out. This will motivate weaker members, but may also bring scorn from other team members who feel they have been let down, so beware.

Rope climb

How far up a rope can team members climb, or how quick can they get to the top? You could also suspend a rope between two posts and see how quickly they casn get across. You could also use a slack line.

Team Skipping

How many consecutive skips can the team complete. Or you could find out how many team members can skip at once using a long skiping rope.

Targets

Using a bucket and bean bags, how far away can you stand and still get be able to throw the bean bag into the bucket?
You can adapt this quick physical challenge to be any form of target or thing to throw.

Brick Balance

How many people can you get to balance on a single house brick?

Car Crush

How many people can you get into a small car and close the doors?

Bike Balance

How many people can ride on a bike at once? Think about safety with this one.

Circle Lap Sit

Work out how to get everyone to sit on someone else’s lap at the same time. Start off by everyone standing in a circle. Then eveyone turns to face the person to their left. Then at the same time, everyone sits on the lap of the person behind them. You end up with everyone sitting in a circle.

Human Knots

As a team, stand in a circle. Cross your arms and then hold the hands of the people standing to either side of you. The challenge is to rearrange yourselves so that you no longer have your arms crossed, but you musn’t let go of the hands you are hlding while you do it. There is a technique.

First Aid Lifts

There are a few ways to carry a patient for first aid rescue. There is the fireman’s lift over the shoulders, the two handed seat, or the four handed seat. Using one of these lift techniques, carry a casualty around a course racing against another team.

Big Blow Football

Using drinking straws and a table tennis ball, have a game of blow football.

More Physical Team Building Challenges and Activities

If you want more ideas for physical challenges but don’t need them to be quick, you’ll find some good ideas in the page on physical team building activities.

I learned the hard way that joining a company and conforming to the status quo quickly can lead to your downfall. You become invisible, and if you aren’t then you will be noticed for not delivering to meet expectations of a MBA graduate.  I am going to share my experiences with you so that you don’t make the same mistakes and take for granted that your MBA will get you to keep your dream job once you get it.

So What do You Have to do?

You have to relate to customers and other staff, understand what is important to them, and then see which problems you can solve to make their lives so much easier. You then have to make sure that somebody of relevance becomes aware of what you are doing, and it is so much better if others sing your praises as well as just you. There is an art to growing your virtual team of colleagues though, and it requires observation, analysis and action using those all important skills you developed on your MBA. The hard part is working out how.

Demonstrating Value

It’s all about making life easier for others. By doing so you demonstrate value and make a difference that will be rewarded as long as the right people notice the importance of what you ave achieved.

Although I have a Masters Degree in electronic engineering with business administration, it didn’t answer my questions about how to get from where a company is to where it needs to be. I just kept being told by “experts” that you just have to implement the framework. I even encountered consultants getting paid huge amounts of money to sell template quality assurance documentation that never actually reflected the company it was for. The very company I was in was highly embarrassed by buying one of these schemes and then failing all subsequent quality audits from external bodies. Even to this day I see a lot of frameworks detailing how a company should operate, but not providing a roadmap for how to transform a company from where they are to become that idealistic model. Working this out and demonstrating the value of changes I had successfully instigated was the path to developing my career to the benefit of myself and my company.

Be Adaptable and Solve Company Efficiency Issues

I learned a lot about working in industry from both direct experience and observation of what happened to colleagues. Whilst working for a bespoke computer manufacturer, a new production manager was employed specifically because he had a degree in production management. The current production supervisor was sidelined, which immediately caused friction. Unfortunately for the graduate, he had no practical experience in running a technology manufacturing operation. He began making changes according to what he had learned in his degree to make it the same as the model he was taught. He made several key mistakes that led to his dismissal a few months later:

1. He didn’t take time to observe and understand current working practices. This meant that he had no sight of the impact his changes would make. He also didn’t measure the before and after.
2. He used his authority to boss staff about without earning their respect. Working out what makes people want to do things for you is critical in business and life.
3. He seek to understand the expertise and skills that his staff had. It is vital that you find out what your team is good at and what roles suit individuals.

Make a Difference for Staff Before You Blow Your Own Trumpet

In that very same company, I observed that there was a huge waste of time and money in the various historical business processes. I began to ask those stupid questions that everyone doesn’t ask that relate to why things are done the way they are.

For example, the stores staff hated the production staff because they were always being hassled to pick parts for the next production run without any prior notice.  After a bit of investigation into the business process, I suggested to the production staff that perhaps the reason the stores staff were so unbelievably grumpy and obstructive was because they weren’t given enough notice of what parts were needed and when.  The production supervisor went off to the business administrator to get the parts pick lists given to the stores staff a week ahead of when they were needed.

Suddenly, the stores staff became a lot happier, parts appeared when they were needed, and production teams were able to build products quicker.  Also, faulty or missing parts were identified in advance and the issues resolved in good time.

I kept facilitating these “tweaks” to the business processes, and without claiming credit, the Financial Director came to find out why productivity had suddenly improved and overhead costs due to replacing faulty or damaged parts had reduced.  He asked me to put a plan together to see how much of the “Cost of Quality” I could reduce.  After gaining the company ISO9001 accredited by Underwriters Laboratories (UL), I received a nice little handshake from the Finance Director and Chief Executive.  It certainly pays to demonstrate that your ideas are impacting company profits in a positive and visible way.

How to Make That Difference Using Your MBA

So, how do you use your MBA to make that difference?  You will have learned about various aspects of business during your MBA and now you have to work out how to use them to good effect.

Before you make any changes, you need to  understand the current situation, what works well and what doesn’t.  Talk to staff to find out what their jobs entail.  If you show genuine interest in their roles, before you know it they will be moaning about the issues they face.  By using the 5 Whys technique (asking why to each response to elicit the root cause of the problem), you can work out the key issue they are facing.  By talking to a variety of staff you can quickly identify areas where change can have a positive impact.  This is where your intelligence and skill comes into play.  You have to work out a solution and artfully implement it.  It works particularly well if you use Dale Carnegie’s techniques for getting the other person to believe they came up with the idea.  They will be only too eager to get on with things.  You have to be seen to be observing the outcomes.  If it works, congratulate your team.  They will know it was you who facilitated it, and this will pay dividends in the future.

You have to learn by your mistakes as to when is best to claim credit for what you have done and when to keep quiet.  It is all about using your emotional intelligence and using the key characteristics for leading effective teams, but more of that another time.

I have developed and used these military team building activities for army cadet and scout team building. Some of the team building activities simply have a military theme, whilst others are specifically aimed at skills useful for military personnel.

The team building activities are suitable for all arms of the military, cadet forces, scouts and also civilians and students.

Military Themed Team Building Activities

Projectiles

Lobbing and launching objects is always great fun, especially if it is aimed at another team. Each team is given a selection of materials so that they can build a catapult, trebuchet, sling or other launching device to fling water balloon or eggs at a target. At Halloween, pumpkins can be used for a bit of seasonal fun.
If you want some detailed plans on how to make effective catapults, the book “Plans for catapults and balistas” shows you step by step instructions on how to make several different designs.
Amazon also has plenty of potato cannons and other launchers made from plumbing pipes using bike pumps to create the air pressure and valves to fire the potato.

Firing Blind

Firing Blind is a very successful military team building activity that I created based upon military artillery fire teams and field observers. At one end of a playing field you lay out a large paper target on the ground. At the other end of the field, you suspend a tarpaulin upright using paracord to act as a screen to block the team’s view of the target area. The team is given a water bomb launcher and a large supply of water bombs.

The team has a time limit to get as many water bombs to hit the target, even though they cannot see it because they are behind the tarp. One member of the team acts as an observer and is located between the tarp and the target. They direct the fire team to get the water bombs onto target.

You can adapt the exercise by using walkie talkies for the observer to communicate with the fire team. Or the observer can sit with the fire team and use a pocket sized quadcopter drone to provide a video feed of the target to see where the water bombs land.

This team building activity is really effective at developing team cohesion, leadership, strategy, communication and also coordination. This exercise can also be used by military personnel for a fun way to practise what they do for real which is quick and easy to set up and can be deployed on any open piece of ground.

River Crossings and Bridge Building

Obstacle or river crossings are something that the military will have to deal with on a campaign. It takes teamwork to plan and build the construction of a bridge to get across the river.

You can make your own river defined by two ropes laid out on the grass, or if you are able, use a real river that they have to cross.

Work out in advance how they can use the equipment you provide to make a bridge. It has to be feasible, and it is better if you give them enough equipment to create a variety of different designs. This allows their teamwork and creativity the scope to develop.

Bridge building is one of the best team building activities for teaching and developing leadership skills. The team leader has to recognise individual’s skills and allocate roles accordingly. No team member should be left out.

Depending on the team members, you can make this activity very physical and very mentally challenging. You can really push their engineering skills to the limit. Do they understand how to build a cantilever bridge? This type of bridge doesn’t require you to cross the river first to build it. The simplest form of cantilever bridge is a skewed cross, where the upright beam is placed in the river with the cross member attached to it just above bank height. You can then use ropes to rotate the upright beam and swing the bridge out over the river.

Dodgy Jeep or Landrover

This team building activity creates the military scenario where the team has to get an abandoned vehicle working to escape from the enemy.

I have tried several different versions of this activity, creating faults with the vehicle that have to be fixed such as removing the wheel nuts from one of the wheels. The solution is to remove just one wheel nut from each of the other wheels so that all four wheels are attached using only three nuts instead of four. Other faults you can introduce should relate to stopping the engine from starting. Do not create faults with the brakes!

Another variation is to put the vehicle into a postion that requires the team to lift it manually out of a ditch. Think carefully what equipment you will let them have to do this and also it is better to use an old vehicle you don’t mind getting damaged.

Aerial Observation and Reconnaisance

This military themed team building activity involves using an aerial observation platform to perform recconaisance on an area of interest and take action on what is seen.

The aerial platform could be a Go Pro camera suspended from a kite, or a quadcopter. You could also use several helium balloons with a suspended Go Pro camera and fishing line to control their position. If you want more control, you can get the teams to lash four poles together to get the height they need. This will challenge their knot skills.

The area of interest has to be created so that the information you want can only be seen from the air. This could be a message attached to the top of a tent. You could write a message and suspend it from the top of a flag pole. You could also fence of an area and put the message on the ground.

Capture the Flag

Capture the flag is basically a game where two teams compete against each other to retrieve a flag or object from the opposition’s base and return it to their own. A variation of this is to have just one base with one team guarding and another team aiming to get in and take the object.

This is a very flexible team building activity, but you have to carefully lay down what the ground rules are. How can a guard stop an enemy from getting into their base? Is contact enough to class the attacker as being caught and having to return to the start, or does a guard have to physically restrain them to capture them? Using Tag Rugby Tails is a simple way of clearly defining someone as being caught. Each play attaches two tails using Velcro to a waistband and if a tail is removed then they have been caught.

Also, you will have to decide what happens if someone is caught. Do they have to return to their own base to start again, or are they out of the game until someone rescues them?

You can buy a glow in the dark capture the flag game from Amazon to play at night, which is usually the favourite time for the game to be played.

Paintball

Paintball is the most one of the most obvious military themed team building activities. Firing paint pellets at each other at a designated paintball place is easy to do. Just pay and turn up. They provide all of the equipment and instruction. The key consideration is whether your players are happy to participate. I have been to several kids paintball parties where children under 13 have been invited and both boys and girls can find it a bit scary because they don’t know what to expect. Or, it may just not be their thing. If you aren’t happy getting hit with a paint pellet that stings then you won’t want to play, and you shouldn’t be forced to either.

Paintball games include Capture the Flag, Storm the Fort, VIP Escort, Hostage Rescue and Free For All.

Laser Tag or Nerf Wars

Laser Tag is similar to paintball but you hit your opponent with a laser beam instead of a paint pellet. This can be played indoors or outdoors. If you plan on organising this team building game frequently, it is well worth investing in your own laser tag equipment.

Airsoft

If you want to make your military team building activities even more realistic, airsoft is similar to paintball but uses replica weapons that fire plastic pellets. Airsoft is played on private land in organised gaming areas. There are a huge range of different weapons to choose from.

Once again, for younger players consider whether this is appropriate. Also, check out the minimum legal age allowed for playing airsoft in your state.

Drops

Drops are a combination of navigation exercises and physical endurance. Each team is dropped of at a location five miles from a visible landmark such as a church or hilltop. The first team to reach the landmark wins. However, each team has to first work out where they are so that they can find the quickest route to their destination.

Depending on how you want to play this game, there are several ways to make it easier or more difficult. You can blindfold the teams as you transport them to their start points so that it is harder to work out where they are at the start. If there are four teams, you can say that each team has to meet up before they reach the destination. This requires communication, leadership and coordination because each team won’t want to wait too long for the others to arrive. You can make it easier by allowing the teams to use public transport. You could also make them collect items from a list on their way, like a scavenger hunt.

Team Building Activities for Military Personnel Training

CASEVAC

This is a vital military team building activity that the Army have to get right. I have seen many videos of soldiers not correctly getting casualties out of dangerous situations properly. In recent conflicts, there was even a case where a team of soldiers evacuated a wounded team member to a place of safety and then just left them at the side of the road instead of carrying them to the rescue vehicle that awaited. They had expected the medics to take over, whilst the medics expected the soldiers to care enough about their own man to make sure they were safely on their way.

This physical team building activity is for both military and civilians alike. The exercise is to rescue a non-walking casualty and transport them over a distance to safety. This can be done using a stretcher, an improvised stretcher (coats and poles) or just by carrying using a two handed or four handed seat method. You can add to the challenge by ensuring that the evacuation route includes hills, ditches or fences as obstacles. It requires some serious teamwork to keep a stretcher level whilst getting it over a fence.

Pole Bearers

This is a common team building activity used by the military. Each team has to carry a telegraph pole or railway sleeper across an obstacle course. The sheer weight of the pole requires everyone in the team to work together. Sometimes it is used purely as a military team building physical activity to see how the team work together when they are physically exhausted. This requires physical strength, coordination, and strong leadership to maintain team morale.

Cannon Run

One of the military teamwork challenges that is done for competitions is to race across a course with a full sized gun. And I don’t mean a rifle, I mean a gun carriage or cannon. To get it across some of the obstacles, the wheels have to be taken off and the entire gun dismantled. At the other end it has to be reassembled and fired to show the winner.
You might not have access to a cannon, but you can do a similar exercise with a bike or car. Anything that can be dismantled, taken across a course and reassembled and used to show it works.

Obstacle Courses

The military assault course is a popular one for teams, but you need to arrange it so that the team has to work together. Getting the team to climb over 10 foot walls is a great show of teamwork.

Tank Paintball

Experience Tank paintball at Armourgeddon in Leicestershire UK

If you want some more team building ideas, check out my outdoor team building activities.

This guide gives you 40 easy to setup outdoor team building activities that will get everyone working together to accomplish a common goal. Some of the team building activities are physical, but all of them require ingenuity, leadership, coordination and teamwork.

I’ll give you some quick outdoor team building tips that will ensure that your activity planning is thorough, leading to a more successful outcome for all. Then I describe some of my favourite outdoor team building activities that I have taken part in and run. Running a team building activity really gives you a sense of how the team works, because people can be unpredictable and their ingenuity for coming up with radical approaches will always surprise you. Expecting rulebreakers and apathy is also something that should definitely be planned for.

Why Have Outdoor Team Building Activities?

Team building activities aim to get teams working better together and can take place absolutely anywhere, but the choice of venue will constrain your choice of activity. Team building activities in the classroom or conference room are good when the weather is bad outside, but limit the scale of the task you set and the degree of separation between teams.

Benefits of Outdoor Team Building Activities

Outdoor team building activities have the benefits of:

1. enabling people to focus on the specific teamwork skills being developed rather than being distracted by work or specific peers because it takes place on neutral ground away from the working environment.
2. Lots more space for bigger and better team building activities
3. Using natural features in the landscape to provide key elements of the team building activity. Water for raft building or bridge building, open fields for projectile launching and construction, trees for height, or open countryside for navigation and scavenger hunts.

Quick Tips for Successful Outdoor Team Building Activities

Define the Purpose of the Team Building Activity

The team building challenge that you set should have a clearly defined goal to strive for. To be worth doing, the goal should be challenging but achievable. If the goal seems too impossible, it stops being challenging and becomes demoralising.

Make sure that the team building activities are relevant to the team and allow them to develop teamwork skills. Are you developing leadership, communication, cooperation, trust or just helping the team to bond?

Motivation

This is not the question of how to motivate your staff, but the incentive you give as the reason why they shuld bother to participate in your team building activity. Entice them with a reward, a prize, the thrill of doing it (fun stuff and adventure), or the satisfaction from achievement and winning.

Fun

Fun should be a primary factor in all team building activities for teens and adults. These free fun team building ideas are proven to develop teamwork. Some team building courses focus on taking people out of their comfort zone to see how they perform under stress. They end up alienating people who then disengage from the team building process.
A lot of people need an incentive or motivation to participate in a team building game. Some are shy, or just not outdoors people. Not everyone enjoys physical exercise, especially if it exposes your weaknesses.

Work to Your Strengths

These outdoor team building activities will help your participants to identify their strengths and also how they can improve. If there are problems in the team, then the team should be mentored to demonstrate how things could be done, rather than point out mistakes and weaknesses, advice and guidance should be given.

40 Ideas for Outdoor Team Building Activities, Games and Challenges

Here are a few example ideas for some outdor team building activities that I have used and adapted over the years. If you read these and want some more ideas, you should read my list of over 50 tried and tested team building activities for teens.

Water Barrel Swap

The aim is to swap the positions of two water barrels or buckets without entering an exclusion area.

Tie a pulley to a tree branch and pass a rope through it. Tie a barrel to each end of the rope. Fill one barrel with water. Then fence off an area around the barrels. The challenge is to swap positions of the barrels without anyone touching the floor inside the fenced off area, or touch the barrels.

The solution is to make the empty barrel heavier than the full one. This could be done by moving the water, adding weight to the empty barrel, or by using poles to force the empty barrel down onto the ground. You can even get someone into the area without touching the ground and have them stand on the empty barrel to make it heavier.

Decide what equipment you want to give the team and decide what solutions you will or won’t allow. then give them the rules that forces them towards something ingenious and to develop the specific aspect of teamwork you are aiming to develop.

Swamp or River Crossing

Create a swamp, and then the teams have to cross it without going in it. They can be provided with a variety of useful and unuseful equipment. Planks and bricks are commonly used. You can also get the teams to make a bridge.

You can even buy ready made kits that provide all of the equipment you need.

Going Blind

There are a range of team building activities for teens that involve blindfolds. The challenge could involve every team member being blindfolded and having to complete a challenge, or for everyone apart from the team leader to be blindfolded and to have the team leader direct the rest of the team without physically helping them.

Blindfolded team building activities could include putting up a tent, cross an obstacle course, complete a maze, find something, or team herding. Team herding is where the team leader is the shepherd, and has to use voice commands alone to direct his blindfolded sheep from random places to get them inside a circle on the ground (the pen). The fastest team wins. To add confusion, get all teams to do it at the same time. The combined shouts of all of the team leaders can totally confuse everyone.

Blindfold mazes can be created using carpet tiles or ropes. The team get directed around the maze to find their way out.

Film Canister Retrieval from Tube Using Water

Mount a length of plastic drainpipe vertically. Seal off the bottom. Drop in a plastic film canister. The team then has to use their initiative to get the canister out. It will of course be too narrow to get your hand in, and the use of a stick will not work. The solution is to pour in water to make the canister float to the top of the drainpipe.

Drops

Drop of the team two miles from a landmark such as a church with a spire. They then have to find their way on foot without maps to the landmark. Make sure the team has a cell phone.

Wide Games

Games played over a wide area, usually at night. The most common one is capture the flag. This is where a flag is placed in each team’s base. The bases are located a good 500 metres apart. The teams have to guard their own base whilst sneaking in and taking the flag from the other base. Rules are similar to touch rugby in that there should be no rough stuff.

You can buy a glow in the dark Capture the Flag kit from Amazon so you can see who has the flags.

Carry Bucket of Water Along Rope Over Obstacle course

Make an obstacle course and string a rope along it. Then put the rope through the handle of a bucket of water. The team then has to work together to get the bucket along the length of rope over the obstacles without spilling any water.

The Wall

As a team, get over a ten foot wall.

First Aid

Using make up and a good bit of acting, you can set up a first aid practice incident. I have often run a mountain biking incident, where the team is hiking on the trail and come across an injured mountain biker. They have to assess the situation, and then are told by the facilitator that an ambuance cannot reach the patient, so they will have to make a stretcher to carry the casualty to the road.

Get Container from Fenced Area

Place a container inside a fenced off area. The teams are then given a range of equipment to reach and remove the container with it or the equipment touching the ground. Poles and ropes are the main bits of kit. If the canister is light, then the use of an elastic band and four pieces of string are a quick extraction solution.

Stretcher Bearers

Taking the first aid incident further, you can create an obstacle course and have teams race to get their casualty on a stretcher across the hazards. I have in the past had the casualty being a member of the team, but incase your team are a bit careless, you could always use something else to represent a person.

Obstacle courses

Using obstacle courses for outdoor team building activities can be great fun. You will need to consider whether you are just using it as a team game in relays, or whether the obstacles require team cooperation to traverse, such as a ten foot wall.

Raft Building

Make sure you use life jackets for this one! Make a raft using materials given, and paddle across some still water such as a lake or canal. It is best not to do it on moving water as if someone falls in you may not be able to get to them. Take all necessary precautions. If you don’t know what they are, ask a teambuilding expert.

Go karting

There are quite a few outdoor go karting tracks about, and these can be used for team building by racing as a team rather than individuals. You can all race at once, or as a relay with drivers swapping after two laps.

Soap box gravity racer

Give the team some time to build a soap box kart gravity racer. Using bike or pram wheels, bits of wood and metal, create a vehicle that rolls downhill just using the power of gravity No pedals or motors allowed. Which team has the fastest kart?

Geocaching or Orienteering

Geocaching is like a treasure hunt where you use a gps or cell phone to find a hidden cache of goodies. Geocaching.com has geocaches registered all over the world. All you have to do is use the search map to find the location of a geocache near you, and then get the coordinates. Enter this into your GPS and off the teams go to find it. You can also get an app for your cell phone which allows you to see where you are and which way to go to find the geocache.

Its not quite that easy though. When you get to the loction, the goecache will not be easy to find. It will be hidden in undergrowth, under rocks, or up a tree.

Car crusher

Nice and simple, how many people can you fit in a car? You can also use other confined spaces such as a telehpone call box. Consider safety before you start though.

Dragon boat racing

Dragon boat racing is great for outdoor team building because the entire team has to work together to beat the opposition. They all have to listen and respond to the team leader beating the drum.

Ropes Courses

Treetop adventures like Go Ape offer outdoor team building days. They are good for getting the team to show support for each other and bond, but sometimes the team is so spread out across the course that the entire team is not together. Good for a shared experience for new teams.

Bridge Building

Bridge building is brilliant for pioneering. Using ropes and spars you can build all sorts of bridge designs. I have built drawbridges and cantilever bridges on ooutdoor team building activities over rivers and the entire team get a big sense of achievement from it.

Part of the challenge is working out how to get parts of the bridge onto the other side without getting wet. Not a problem if you build a swing bridge.

Watch Tower

Another pioneering project. The challenge is for the each team to build the highest platform to safely support a person. Much better than the marshmallow and spaghetti tower challenge.

Human towers and pyramid

If you don’t have the equipment, you can always challenge the teams to make a tallest human pyramid or tower.

Crate Stuff

Plastic crates can be used to see who can build the tallest stack. they can also be used for steeping stones with planks for swamp crossing challenges.

Scavenger Hunts

A scavenger hunt is a very popular outdoor team building activity. You give each team a list of items to collect and return with within a time limit. Some items could be actions, such as visit a location, or take a photo of a cat. Photographic evidence will be required of course.

Some items could be crpytic, such as get a picture of a US president. Then you just need to produce some money.

Single Handed Tent Pitch

This activity requires each person to only use one hand to pitch a tent as a team. Their other hand has to be tied behind their back or tucked under their shirt. This really makes team members cooperate.
The task can be any physical activity that involves moving things about.

Sailing

Sailing is ideal for outdoor team building because the entire team has to work together to get the yacht to go where you want. You can rent a boat and instructor for a session specifically for this purpose. If you have enough people, sailing companies offer two boats so that you can learn how to sail during the day and then have a race between teams. Great for an team day out of the office.

Sedan Chair Race or Chariot Race

A sedan chair can be easily made using two broom handles placed under a chair so that four people holding the ends of the broom handles can carry a person sitting on the chair. You can make it harder by introducing and obstacle course.

Big Builders Sack Race

I love this one because it is so simple but effective. Get some of the huge 1 ton builders bags used for delivering sand. Each team stands inside one bag and has to get themselves to the other end of the field. Not as easy as it sounds, because everyone has to jump and move the bag at the same time.

Bucket on a Rope

Get a long peice of rope and thread it through bushes and over a few tree branches. then feed the end through the handle of a bucket of water. The team is then timed to see how long it tkes to get the bucket of water to the other end of the rope. They will have to work together to get it over the tree branches. Time penalties are given for losing water.

Parachute games

You can buy parachute canopies that have handles attached all around the edge. You can then play various games where the team has to work together. One game is to flip a ball high into the air. This involves the team lifting their edge of the parachute at the same time as everyone else.

Plank Walk Skis

Each team has two planks laid parallel on the ground like skis. Their are loops of rope attached to the plank where each team member places a foot. The team has to work together to use the ropes to lift each plank in turn to walk forwards like walking on skis. Coordination and communication are the key, along with a bit of leadership.

Big Seesaw

This requires a bit of construction first. You have to make a big seesaw that can support the weight of the entire team. You then set challenges for the team to stand on different sides of the seesaw to get it balanced.

Water Rockets

I ran this outdoor team building activity for PhD students at the National Physics Laboratory. they achieved a good 100m with their designs. Using water and air pressure, you can make water rockets from drinks bottles and card fins. You then fill the rocket with water, place it on the pump and increase the pressure until the rocket takes off. The air pressure forces the water out of the back, propelling the rocket forwards. Team science.

Bike Transfer

This outdoor team building activity is based on the military gun carriage races. Each team has to dismantle a bicycle and take it across an obstacle course one piece at a time. At the other end, they ahve to reassemble it and ride it to the finish line.

Egg Toss

This is for teams of two. How far can you throw a raw egg for the other person to successfuly catch it?

Five Legged Race

Expand on the three legged race by using the entire team. They then have to race to the finish line. A simple outdoor team building activity to organise with minimal equipment.

Balance on a Brick

How many of the team can you balance on a single house brick?

Vertical Stack

How high up a tree can the team climb? Height is measured by the lowest person. You can also do it as how high up a rope can you get the entire team.

Disc golf or Ultimate Frisbee

Disc golf can be a useful team game. To get the entire team working together though, Ultimate is a recognised team sport where two teams compete to get a flying disc across a line at the other end of the football pitch to score points.

Want More Team Building Ideas?

Not satisfied with those 40 outdoor team building activities? You can find lots more ideas that suit your occasion on the team building activities list.

Team Building activities for adults differs from other forms of team building activities due to the types of characters that you will encounter.

Team building activities for kids should aim to develop a sense of working together. To get primary school age children to also understand and develop leadership skills can be quite challenging. I find that you get the best results by focussing on how to work together.

Team building for teens, secondary school and elementary school children is a lot of fun. They are very receptive to new ideas, love a challenge, and yet haven’t had the vast experience of life that an adult has. This means that problem solving has to be done by applying logic more than by using past experiences. Also, I find that today’s teenagers are so used to being provided with instant gratification and fed with computer games that their imagination can be somewhat stifled. Telling a good story usually gets their brains stimulated. Rather than getting them to use a plank of wood and some crates to get from one place to another, spin them a tall tale of adventure where they have to use the equipment to escape a terrible fate.

Adults are a completely different ball game. Stuck in an office or full time job, perhaps unemployed, and taking on a lot of responsibilities in life tends to dampen some people’s spirits. Adults also think they know better than anyone else. Oh yes, and everyone has a huge amount of personal baggage that drives their behaviour. You have to quite cunning to get team building activities for adults to work well. So, to help you out, I am going to share my experiences and expertise in having worked out the hard way how to create and run successful team building for adults.

When Should Team Building be used with Adults?

Team building activities for adults are used to address specific problems. The main reasons include:

• For conveying and sharing a common vision across teams
• Direction setting
• Shared understanding
• Building relationships across technical specialists in different teams
• When external influences affect team motivation, such as a drop in sales, increased competition or customer problems. This can be addressed using the two-factor theory (also known as Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory)
• New teams. Creating, forming and getting new teams to gel.
• Addressing teamwork skills such as communication, leadership, motivation, coordination, vision, ideas, problem solving, system thinking.

Ideas for Team Building Activities for Adults

So you know what your purpose is for running your team building session, but what team building activities will help you to develop your teamwork skills?

Drone Flight Formations

This is a great new team building activity that I have developed for adults, which works particularly well for tech companies. The initial outlay of cost will soon give you a huge return on investment.

The team has four small quadcopter drones such as the KiiToys® Nano Size Quadcopter. The team building activity will take up the entire morning.

You start the day by allowing the team 30 minutes to learn how to fly their quadcopters. You then run and team development discussion talking about observations made during the shared learning experience. Did they work together or teach each other? Did they struggle on independently?

The next session involves the team developing a flying display. They have to perform 3 given manouvres plus anything else they want to show. These could include a circle, vertical stack, or flips.

After the session, bring the team back to the discussion area to talk about how they developed their ideas, worked as a team, and how leadership developed.

Next you have the display, followed by an after action review. Did it go well? What would they do better next time?

Egg Toss

How far can you throw a raw egg to a partner who successfully catches it?

Obstacle courses

Create an assault course or obstacle course and get the teams to race over it. You can be as imaginative as you want.

The brilliant thing about obstacle courses is that you can tailor them to your team. If you have an ultrafit team, you might want to suggest that they enter for an obstacle course race such as Tough Mudder. If you are focussing on trust, you could try blindfolding the entire team apart from the leader who shouts out directions to guide the team across the room around scattered chairs.

Get the Canister from Toxic Area

This is a popular team building challenge. Set up a can inside a taped off area. Give the team some equipment to retrieve the can without touching the ground inside the area. One variation I have done on a residential course is to attach an ammo box up a tall tree containing supper for the team. They have to use climbing gear to climb up the tree, retrieve the box and return without dropping it inside the area. Inside the box can be anything you want that they can cook over an open fire. We had two chickens in ours. We plucked and prepared them while others in the team made the fire. Lovely.

If you aren’t that adventurous, you can just put chocolate in the can.

Crate Stacking

You need proper climbing gear for this one. Rig a safety line and pulley high above the place where you will be stacking your crates. The stacker has to stack the crates into a tower as tall as they can, whilst balancing on the top. They need to wear a climbing harness, and helmet, with someone belaying them from the ground.

The team have to pass the crates up to the stacker. Takes guts and teamwork.

Bucket on a rope water obstacle course

Get a very long piece of rope or string and weave it across a series of obstacles. Up trees, through bushes, across mud, over walls. Then, feed one end of the string through the handle of a bucket that is full of water. The team then has to get the bucket of water to the other end of the piece of string without spilling any water. Good teamwork is needed to pass the bucket up and over high obstacles.

Orienteering

The team has to work together to navigate a course finding markers along the way. They have to keep together. The fastest team wins.

Go Karting

The team can make go karts, or just go somewhere and race proper go karts. They work as a team to see who is fastest.

Geocaching

Using a GPS, you can find hidden caches all over the world using the geocaching.com website. A hitech treasure hunt.

Sailing

One way to get the team to work together is to send them on a sailing day. The skipper will teach them how to work as a crew, and they will not only learn how to work together, but also learn a new skill.

Soap Box Cart Gravity Racing

A soap box cart originates from the good old days when kids used to get a wooden soap box crate, stick some pram wheels on and race them down hills. Get you teams to design and build their soap box carts and race them down a hill.

Now Get Out Of That Challenges

Now Get Out of That was a UK TV programme where teams had to navigate to a given location. There they would be given a puzzle or challenge to solve. Successful completion would give the teams the clue to the next location.

The team challenges included river crossings and getting a cassette recorder to work when the power wires were too short (use the earth lead to extend the others). The sort of tasks teens will love are things like working out how to boil some water using only a sheet of paper and a candle. They have to fold up the paper to make a container. The water soaks into the paper a bit, but this is countered by the flame. It doesn’t burn the paper if they are careful.

Swamp or River Crossing

Create a swamp, and then the teams have to cross it without going in it. They can be provided with a variety of useful and unhelpful equipment. Planks and bricks are commonly used. You can also get the teams to make a bridge.

The Great Egg Race – Invention to solve a problem

Give the teams a problem where they have to build something to solve it. It could be a device to carry an egg the furthest over a course, or a rocket/parachute that can bring an egg back safely to earth.

Scavenger Hunts and Treasure Hunts

Give your teams a list of items or tasks they have to complete in the time given. To make your teens think, make the description of the items cryptic. A picture of Thomas Jefferson ($5 bill), or a portrait of the Queen (a stamp or money).

If completing tasks such as visiting places, they can take a picture to prove they were there.

Monopoly Runs

Monopoly Runs are a race around a virtual Monopoly board. This is easy if you are in London. The team has to visit all of the places named on the Monopoly board as quickly as possible.

If you aren’t in London, you can create your own board with place names of where you are.

Blindfold instructions

This trust building game involves a member of the team being blindfolded and guided by voice around an obstacle course. If more than one team goes at once, this adds lots of confusion as the people who are blindfolded are not sure if the instructions are for them or not.

Construction

Get the team to build something. Anything. Just the act of cooperative work improves their team work. This is a great way to support troubled teens, as they will often work well when given physical tasks where they can see the results of their labour. Community projects may be ideal.

Lego structure copy

Make a Lego structure out of different coloured bricks and place it in the next room. Each team is given a set of bricks to build an exact copy of the Lego structure. The rules are that only one person from each team is allowed to go and have a look at the structure. When they come back to their team, they cannot touch the bricks, but they can tell the others how to build their copy. Anybody from the team can go and have a look, but only one at a time. Once another person comes back from having a look, the previous person can then touch their bricks to help build.

What you don’t tell the teams is that you have swapped one brick from each of their supplies with another team. This means that they cannot complete their copy unless they get the correct brick from another team. Of course, the other teams will not be willing to give away their bricks until they know which ones they have spare. Negotiation comes into play.

One amazing thing I once saw was when I did this team building activity with ten teams. Some of the teams grouped together and all worked on completing one model. They could then copy the model within the room as they had a copy in front of them. All I had said is that there was a prize for every team that completes their copy of the model. It is not a race, but most teams usually want to be first and don’t help the greater group.

Follow the plans

Give each team a set of plans that tell them how to do or build something. A prize is given for every team that completes the task in the time limit.

What you don’t tell them is that you have not given them a full set of instructions. Take one page from each set of instructions and put it into the instruction for another team. So team A may have pages 1, 2, 4 and 5; Team B may have pages 1, 2, 3 and 5. The teams will need to work this out to finish the task. Sometimes they will improvise and work out what the missing instructions might be.

Be dramatic

If you live in NYC or San Francisco, there are some great theatre improvisation sessions that you can go to. The team building sessions get everyone working together, having fun, and even performing some comedy. A great laugh.

If you are not so fortunate, give the teams a silly phrase on a piece of paper. The teams then have to create a short play that includes that sentence. The other teams in the audience have to guess what the sentence was.

Learn a new sport

Just have a look at the full outdoor activities list to discover a new sport they all might like to try. Sharing the learning experience is a great way to get a team to bond.

Chocolate making

There are an ever increasing number of places that you can go to have a chocolate making experience. This can be a great team building activity for team bonding in a low threat environment.

Raft Building

Egg Tower Construction

Yes it’s the “build a tower using drinking straws and tape to support an egg.” This is good if the team leader ensures that everyone in the team is involved. What usually happens is that one or two team members dominate the activity leaving everyone else to watch. No need to say any more.

The levitating Stick

This team building activity involves the team getting into two rows facing each other. Everyone holds out their index finger and you place a lightweight cane or stick so that it rests on everyone’s fingers. The team then have to lower the stick to the ground whilst keeping their fingers in contact with the stick.

What happens is that someone will usually apply more pressure on the stick and it will go up a bit. Someone else realises that their finger is not longer touching the stick so they raise their finger. The stick then ends up magically levitating up into the air as everyone lifts their fingers.

It takes coordination to get the stick to the ground.

The Wall

Find an assault course that has a ten foot wall in it. The team has to get everyone over the wall. It takes planning, as the strongest person who can lift the other up onto the wall may not be the best person that everyone else has to then pull up the wall.

Water Barrel Swap

Tie a pulley to a tree branch and pass a rope through it. Tie a barrel to each end of the rope. Fill one barrel with water. Then fence off an area around the barrels. The challenge is to swap positions of the barrels without anyone touching the floor inside the fenced off area, or touch the barrels.

Untie the Circle

Everyone stands in a circle facing inwards. You get everyone to cross their arms and hold the hands of the person standing next to them. The challenge is to uncross everyone’s hands without anyone letting go. This takes coordination from everyone. The trick is for the first person to uncross their arms by putting one arm over their head. Then going in one direction around the circle everyone else uncrosses their arms. Easy. Practice first.

Circle Lap Sit

Get everyone into a circle. Everyone then turns to face the person to their left. They all then sit on the lap of the person behind. If done at the same time, everyone ends up sitting on a lap self supporting. If not, people fall on the floor.

Dragon Boat Racing

Get the team working together to paddle a dragon boat in a race. Rowing is another idea.

Canal Lock Navigation

Guide a canal boat through a lock

Technology Transmissions

Get the teams to use technology to solve a puzzle or challenge.

Group plank skiing

This should only be done with teams who don’t mind having a laugh. You need two planks with loops of rope attached to them. The team stands with a foot on each plank holding the rope. They then have to walk the plank skis to the end of the room or field. This requires coordination and teamwork to lift the plank.

White water Rafting

Send your teens white water rafting. They need to listen to the instructor and work together to paddle in the right direction.

Paintball

Paintball can be a great way to get teams to work together. They will need to formulate plans, adapt them during the game, and work together to win. If you don’t give any guidance, it will often end up as a general free for all.

If these ideas aren’t enough for you, I have more ideas for outdoor team building activities.

You will find out:

1. The best approach for delivering team building activities for teens
2. How to keep teens engaged during team building acitivites
3. Safety Considerations
4. Types of Team Building Activities
5. 53 team building activities for teens

The real benefit of team building activities is providing youth with those essential life skills of problem solving, working together, understanding others, and youth leadership. These character building activities need to be run in just the right way to elicit the very best from each teenager.

This step by step guide on how to run more than 50 team building activities for teens makes your job easy. The printable worksheets show how to avoid disasters and keep things on track, with instructions, rules, equipment, aims and outcomes. Including obstacle course ideas, swamp crossing, water bucket and rope pulley swap, and the favourite toxic waste canister.

If you are planning your team building activities for outdoors or summer camps, I’ve compiled 40 of my best outdoor team building activities in one post for you.

Or you can find many more ideas in the full team building activities list containing worksheets for all of the team building activities to make it easy for you.

The Best Approach for Team Building Activities for Teens

If anyone tells a teenager to go and do some task, often the response is “No” or “Why?” However, if you present the task as a challenge you are pretty much guaranteed a positive response.

The second key factor is to ensure that every teenager can clearly see what they will get out of the team building activities. If you sell it purely on improving their teamwork or youth leadership skills, then you aren’t going to win their attention. Present it as fun, provide some reward for succeeding, or even give them the opportunity to feel that they have achieved something.

The aim of a team building activity is that there is some goal that is worth the effort to attain, but it should be achievable. If your group of teenagers perceive the team building activities to be impossible, they won’t even bother and will be completely demoralised.

You have to make the challenge attractive. Rather than ask if they can get a bucket of water from one end of a field to the other, ask if they can do it faster than another team whilst negotiating an obstacle course. They will definitely be up for that.

Teenagers are at a stage in their lives when they are trying to work out who they are and where they fit into society. The effectiveness of outdoor team building activities for difficult youth is proven, as long as those organising it are encouraging and supportive. Help them to rise to the challenge, giving them support and encouragement to develop as they discover their true potential.

Safety

As with any team building activities, make sure that you take care that all of the teenagers are safe during the challenges you set. The spirit of competitiveness may cause some teens to over stretch themselves and do something too adventurous just to win. Clearly state to the youth group what the rules are and make sure that they stick to them. You will always get those who innovate, cheat or break the rules just to beat the opposition.

Types of Team Building Activities

There are a few different types of team building activities that you can use to develop teamwork for teenagers.

• Problem solving,
• physical challenges,
• dependency and trust games,
• creative team building activities

There are also the good old team building games that everyone loves to do time and time again.

The List of Team Building Activities for Teens

This list is not the usual boring team building games for teens that you will find all over the internet. You won’t find “lining up in birthday order” here!

Whether you want It’s a Knockout type games or Crystal Maze activities, these outdoor physical team building activities are for teens to really get to develop what they’re made of.

1. Human pyramids

   Teenagers seem to love the physical element of this is they are good friends. How high can you build a human pyramid or tower?

2. Egg Toss

   How far can you throw a raw egg to your fellow teen so that they can successfully catch it?

3. Obstacle courses

   Create an assault course or obstacle course and get the teams to race over it.

4. Bucket Swimming relay

   Get the team to do a swimming relay collecting things from the other end of the pool. Include a bucket, which is actually a real challenge to swim with as it fills up and slows you down.

5. Blanket Volleyball

   Basically, you set up a volleyball court using blankets or large tarps for the net. The teams on either side cannot tell where the ball is coming from, so have to work together to win.

   You can play this team building game standing up or sitting down on the floor, depending on how high you can make the net.

6. Crate Stacking

   You need proper climbing gear for this one. Rig a safety line and pulley high above the place where you will be stacking your crates. The stacker has to stack the crates into a tower as tall as they can, whilst balancing on the top. They need to wear a climbing harness, and helmet, with someone belaying them from the ground.

   The team have to pass the crates up to the stacker. Takes guts and teamwork.

7. Bucket on a rope water obstacle course

   Another teen favourite. Get a very long piece of rope or string and weave it across a series of obstacles. Up trees, through bushes, across mud, over walls. Then, feed one end of the string through the handle of a bucket that is full of water. The team then has to get the bucket of water to the other end of the piece of string without spilling any water. Good teamwork is needed to pass the bucket up and over high obstacles.

8. Capture the Flag

   This team building game for teens is one of the easiest to run. Plus it will wear out the energetic ones whilst those who don’t feel up to running around can adopt different roles within the game.
   Capture the flag involves placing two flags at a distance from each other within a defined play area. Each team starts from their game base where their flag is and try to capture the flag from their opponents and return it to their base. The first team to get the enemy flag to their base wins, regardless of whether they still have their own flag. Very quick and easy to setup. Even more fun at night.

9. Firemans relays

   Each team has to form a relay chain to get all of the water from one big barrel across an obstacle course and into another barrel at the other end. The race is timed of course.

10. Chariot racing

    The team builds a chariot and then races across a course. The course can be as long as you like. I have raced cross country over several miles before.

    The chariot can have wheels, or be dragged like a wooden frame.



11. Sedan Chair Racing

    Sedan chair racing is the same principle as the chariot race, but the team have to carry the sedan chair off the ground with their rider sitting on it. A lot more tiring.

12. Orienteering

    The team has to work together to navigate a course finding markers along the way. They have to keep together. The fastest team wins.

13. Go Karting

    The team can make go karts, or just go somewhere and race proper go karts. They work as a team to see who is fastest.

14. Geocaching

    Using a GPS, you can find hidden caches all over the world using the geocaching.com website. A hitech treasure hunt.

15. Sailing

    One way to get the team to work together is to send them on a sailing day. The skipper will teach them how to work as a crew, and they will not only learn how to work together, but also learn a new skill.

16. Drops

    Drops are where you drop off the team of teenagers somewhere. They then have to work out how to get to a given location in a time limit.

    You can make it easier by getting them to travel to a tall building that they can see from the start point. Or you could make it harder by blindfolding them when taking them to the start, so that they don’t know where they are.

17. Soap Box Cart Gravity Racing

    A soap box cart originates from the good old days when kids used to get a wooden soap box crate, stick some pram wheels on and race them down hills. Get you teams to design and build their soap box carts and race them down a hill.

18. Get the Canister from Toxic Area

    This is a popular team building challenge. Set up a can inside a taped off area. Give the team some equipment to retrieve the can without touching the ground inside the area. One variation I have done is to attach an ammo box up a tall tree containing supper for the team. They have to use climbing gear to climb up the tree, retrieve the box and return without dropping it inside the area. Inside the box can be anything you want that they can cook over an open fire. We had two chickens in ours. We plucked and prepared them while others in the team made the fire. Lovely.

    If you aren’t that adventurous, you can just put sweets in the can.

19. Now Get Out Of That Challenges

    Now Get Out of That was a UK TV programme where teams had to navigate to a given location. There they would be given a puzzle or challenge to solve. Successful completion would give the teams the clue to the next location.

    The team challenges included river crossings and getting a cassette recorder to work when the power wires were too short (use the earth lead to extend the others). The sort of tasks teens will love are things like working out how to boil some water using only a sheet of paper and a candle. They have to fold up the paper to make a container. The water soaks into the paper a bit, but this is countered by the flame. It doesn’t burn the paper if they are careful.

20. The Great Egg Race – Invention to solve a problem

    Give the teams a problem where they have to build something to solve it. It could be a device to carry an egg the furthest over a course, or a rocket/parachute that can bring an egg back safely to earth.

21. Scavenger Hunts and Treasure Hunts

    Give your teams a list of items or tasks they have to complete in the time given. To make your teens think, make the description of the items cryptic. A picture of Thomas Jefferson ($5 bill), or a portrait of the Queen (a stamp or money).

    If completing tasks such as visiting places, they can take a picture to prove they were there.

22. Monopoly Runs

    Monopoly Runs are a race around a virtual Monopoly board. This is easy if you are in London. The team has to visit all of the places named on the Monopoly board as quickly as possible.

    If you aren’t in London, you can create your own board with place names of where you are.

23. Balance on a brick

    How many people can balance on a brick at once? You can use any surface to hand, such as a milk crate. Or how many teens can you get in a phone box or in a car.

24. Blindfold tent pitching

    This is straightforward, but is prone to lots of cheating and peeking.

25. Blindfold instructions

    This trust building game involves a member of the team being blindfolded and guided by voice around an obstacle course. If more than one team goes at once, this adds lots of confusion as the people who are blindfolded are not sure if the instructions are for them or not.

26. Construction

    Get the team to build something. Anything. Just the act of cooperative work improves their team work. This is a great way to support troubled teens, as they will often work well when given physical tasks where they can see the results of their labour. Community projects may be ideal.

27. Lego structure copy

    Make a Lego structure out of different coloured bricks and place it in the next room. Each team is given a set of bricks to build an exact copy of the Lego structure. The rules are that only one person from each team is allowed to go and have a look at the structure. When they come back to their team, they cannot touch the bricks, but they can tell the others how to build their copy. Anybody from the team can go and have a look, but only one at a time. Once another person comes back from having a look, the previous person can then touch their bricks to help build.

    What you don’t tell the teams is that you have swapped one brick from each of their supplies with another team. This means that they cannot complete their copy unless they get the correct brick from another team. Of course, the other teams will not be willing to give away their bricks until they know which ones they have spare. Negotiation comes into play.

    One amazing thing I once saw was when I did this team building activity with ten teams. Some of the teams grouped together and all worked on completing one model. They could then copy the model within the room as they had a copy in front of them. All I had said is that there was a prize for every team that completes their copy of the model. It is not a race, but most teams usually want to be first and don’t help the greater group.

28. Swamp Crossing

    Create a swamp, and then the teams have to cross it without going in it. They can be provided with a variety of useful and unhelpful equipment. Planks and bricks are commonly used. You can also get the teams to make a bridge.

29. Follow the plans

    Give each team a set of plans that tell them how to do or build something. A prize is given for every team that completes the task in the time limit.

    What you don’t tell them is that you have not given them a full set of instructions. Take one page from each set of instructions and put it into the instruction for another team. So team A may have pages 1, 2, 4 and 5; Team B may have pages 1, 2, 3 and 5. The teams will need to work this out to finish the task. Sometimes they will improvise and work out what the missing instructions might be.

30. Be dramatic

    If you live in NYC or San Francisco, there are some great theatre improvisation sessions that you can go to. The team building sessions get everyone working together, having fun, and even performing some comedy. A great laugh.

    If you are not so fortunate, give the teams a silly phrase on a piece of paper. The teams then have to create a short play that includes that sentence. The other teams in the audience have to guess what the sentence was.

31. Human Marble Run

    Give each teenager in the team a length of gutter or drainpipe. The team has to convey a tennis ball or golf ball from one place to another by rolling the ball from one piece of gutter to the next. Make it interesting by making the team get the ball to traverse an obstacle course or to go up and down stairs. Not as easy as it sounds.



32. Learn a new sport

    Just have a look at the full outdoor activities list to discover a new sport they all might like to try. Sharing the learning experience is a great way to get teens to bond.

33. Chocolate making

    Make a giant bar of chocolate

34. The Search Party

    This team building activity is a great way for teens to learn and understand what is involved with organising a search party. You could even get the real emergency services involved for the practice and education.

    Two people are to act as the missing persons and wait at a known location in the woods. Everyone else is given a rough location of where they might be and they then have to form a search party to find them. To make it harder, you can have the rule that the missing people do not answer to any rescuers’ calls. Or do it at night. You will need to have a clear signal that the missing people must respond to in case the rescuers cannot find them.

35. Raft Building

    A favourite amongst teens for team building. Give them lots of poles, ropes and large barrels to lash together to form a raft. Then have a race or get them to cross a river.

36. Egg Tower Construction

    Yes it’s the “build a tower using drinking straws and tape to support an egg.” No need to say any more.

37. Target Practice

    Use any projectile to hit a target. Water, paint or flour bombs are the best. The team has to build their contraption for launching their ammo. See which team can fire it the furthest, or get closest to a target. You can also have a battle firing at each other. Eye protection is advised. Get building those trebuchets, catapults, water bombs slings and ballistas.

38. The levitating Stick

    This team building activity involves the team getting into two rows facing each other. Everyone holds out their index finger and you place a lightweight cane or stick so that it rests on everyone’s fingers. The team then have to lower the stick to the ground whilst keeping their fingers in contact with the stick.

    What happens is that someone will usually apply more pressure on the stick and it will go up a bit. Someone else realises that their finger is not longer touching the stick so they raise their finger. The stick then ends up magically levitating up into the air as everyone lifts their fingers.

    It takes coordination to get the stick to the ground.

39. Bridge Building and other river crossings

    Create a virtual river using two long pieces of rope. Give the teams equipment to make a bridge. If you are feeling adventurous, do it over a real stream or river.

40. The Wall

    Find an assault course that has a ten foot wall in it. The team has to get everyone over the wall. It takes planning, as the strongest person who can lift the other up onto the wall may not be the best person that everyone else has to then pull up the wall.

41. Electric Fence

    This is one of the most popular trust building activities for youth groups. Set up a fence made of rope with large squares. This can either be ready made or you can use several pieces of rope to make a spider’s web sort of arrangement. The team then have to get every teen through the electric fence without touching the ropes. Lots of trust required.
    

    

42. Water Barrel Swap

    Tie a pulley to a tree branch and pass a rope through it. Tie a barrel to each end of the rope. Fill one barrel with water. Then fence off an area around the barrels. The challenge is to swap positions of the barrels without anyone touching the floor inside the fenced off area, or touch the barrels.

43. Human Knot

    Everyone crowds together and randomly holds someone else’s hands. They then have to unravel themselves without letting go.

44. Circle Lap Sit

    Get everyone into a circle. Everyone then turns to face the person to their left. They all then sit on the lap of the person behind. If done at the same time, everyone ends up sitting on a lap self supporting. If not, people fall on the floor.

45. Parachute Games

    Take one large parachute and play team building games with it. There are some great parachute games books on Amazon.

46. Location Hunt from Photo

    Give the teams a set of photos of places in the area. They then have to go to those places and prove they were there. The photos can be obvious or obscure, depending on the skills of your teens.

47. Dragon Boat Racing

    Get the team working together to paddle a dragon boat in a race. Rowing is another idea.

48. Canoe catamaran trust

    Using two canoes, balance beams between them and the team leader sits on the beam. Teams then canoe a course around the lake

49. Canal Lock Navigation

    Guide a canal boat through a lock

50. Technology Transmissions

    Get the teams to use technology to solve a puzzle or challenge.

51. Group plank skiing

    You need two planks with loops of rope attached to them. The team stands with a foot on each plank holding the rope. They then have to walk the plank skis to the end of the room or field. This requires coordination and teamwork to lift the plank.

52. White water Rafting

    Send your teens white water rafting. They need to listen to the instructor and work together to paddle in the right direction.

53. Paintball

    Paintball can be a great way to get teams to work together. They will need to formulate plans, adapt them during the game, and work together to win. If you don’t give any guidance, it will often end up as a general free for all.

54. Water Fights

    Using water fights as a team building activity for teens gives you plenty of scope to adapt to your environment. You can use rivers, lakes, boats, or just two large barrels of water at each end of a field for them to refill from. Allow a free for all, or work out a points system for achieving some goal such as capturing a flag.

55. Wide Games

    Wide games are team games played over a large area, usually at night. The most common wide game is capture the flag. One team of teens defends a base, whilst the other has to enter and retrieve an object such as a flag and return it to their base. I have a powerful rotating beacon connected to a car battery and fire alarm switch. The switch is held open by a block of wood. The players have to get into the camp and remove the block of wood which turns on the beacon. That way it is obvious when the game is over.

Need More Team Building Activities?

If these team building activities don’t meet your needs, you can find many more ideas in the full team building activities list containing worksheets for all of the team building activities to make it easy for you.

1. Have a clearly defined and understood purpose

Why are we teambuilding? What are you trying to achieve by making your team go through the team building activity you are planning? Usually you will be trying to teach and develop team skills, but sometimes you will be attempting to fix a dysfunctional business team.

2. Support and foster leadership behaviour

One of the key things that is usually missed during team building activities is to support and develop leadership skills. As a supervisor or trainer, you should be watching to see who emerges as a team leader, and give them the support, guidance and encouragement that will help them to lead and organise their team.

3. Increase understanding of team members’ skills, abilities and character

Sometimes team building activities are run just to get to know other members of an existing team better. It could be getting to know your customers, or suppliers, or just within your own team.

By knowing what skills team members have, when facing a new challenge or problem, the team leader will be able to quickly allocate roles according to the skills within the team.

4. Everyone should have a role and responsibility during the activity

Make sure that no one is left out during a team building activity! Often, some of the quieter ones in the group are left out whilst the more confident and boisterous egos charge in to complete the task at hand. It may help you to win the race, but won’t build team cohesion. You may regret it later when you need those specialist skills from those reclusive specialists in your team.

5. Learn new skills together

It can be really great for team building to all learn a new skill together. Whether it is how to be better at sales, or how to be better at sailing, find a new skill that you can all share the experience of learning. Also, help each other out as you learn, passing on tips you discover.

6. Be challenging, problem solving

Your team building activity will be a bit boring if the solution is obvious and easy. Get the marble out of the bottle is easy if all you have to do is turn it upside down. Tape the bottle to a tree and it makes the task a bit trickier. Add the rule that you can’t break the bottle and it will really get the team thinking.

7. Provide the perception that success is achievable

There is a psychological term called “flow.” If people perceive that they are faced with a challenge but it is achievable with a bit of effort, then they soon get into their flow and crack on with finishing the task. If a solution is possible but the team don’t believe it can be done, then they will quickly give up. So, the challenge you set for your team building activity must appear to be achievable for your particular team.

8. Be logistically well planned, organised and make it run smoothly

Ever turned up at a team building day and not known where to go, who was running it, or where you should sit? Simple things like a table plan or signs directing attendees where to go will make them feel welcome and comfortable. They will then be more likely to engage with the tasks you set.

9. Prepare for innovation, cheats, rule breakers and non-engagement

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With any planning, you have to expect the unexpected. I am always amazed at the ways in which team members will attempt to cheat or do something completely unexpected in order to win the team building game. At a recent event I ran for teens, I gave them the challenge of getting a metal flask out of a roped area using only some poles, string and elastic bands. They quickly worked out that they had to make an elastic collar to grab the flask, but they asked to try a different approach. They leant over into the area, and used the longest pole to knock the flask clean out of the area without hitting the ground. Job done. I let them have it, as they had complied with my rules. Next time, I will make sure that the fenced off area is bigger so that they cannot do that.

The biggest challenge you will face is those who don’t want to be there. You will have to use your emotional intelligence to work out what will get them to engage. More on that another time.

10. Have fun

I left this one until last, but it is just as important. Part of the bonding journey is to have fun along the way. Make your team building activities fun, and they will be remembered for all the right reasons.

Team building activities for work don’t have to be like this. I have collated for you a list of the best, successful and most popular outdoor team building activities for work on offer from established outdoor activity providers.  Whether you want to Go Ape, ski or snowboard indoors on real snow, blast the boss with paint, whitewater raft the Olympic course, hovercraft or have a fantastic day at Center Parcs, you will definitely have a company team building day that is brilliant fun.

If you are seeking ideas for team building activities for work that you can run yourselves, I have a huge free resource that will help you get your staff working together more productively.

The benefits of outdoor team building activities for work

One of the key things you will be wanting to achieve is to get out of the office and partake in activities that will help your team to work together better. Staff will rise to a challenge, but not if they are embarrassed, made to feel awkward, or are forced to do something that they perceive that they cannot do.

Outdoor corporate team building activities that involve hiking across moors or tasks such as crate stacking are seen by staff as pointless and dull. You need to inject a bit of fun and interest into the team day out. Think about whether your staff will actually want to do any of the activities. Overall, make sure it is fun for them and give them the opportunity to learn more about themselves and other members of the team.

Learning something new or sharing a new experience together will help your team to gel. This should be done in a supportive and encouraging way. Here are some ideas for team building activities for work that will provide everything you need to get your team to work together.

Go Ape Team Building Events for Work

Go Ape is a tree top ropes course located in various forests across the UK and US. The courses involve rope swings, challenging crossings up in the trees, and exhilarating zip wires. You can also go Segway trekking, Zip Trekking (lots of zip wires one after the other), and mountain biking.

There are Go Ape courses across the country. You can do a full day or half day of team building. You will have a dedicated host who will build a day that suits your team and budget. You get exclusive use of a forest shelter, and conferencing facilities if you need them.

The Go Ape treetop adventure lasts between 2 and 3 hours. It is suitable for all, so everyone will be able to do it. At some points there are different routes, so the more adventurous can take the extreme routes. You wear safety harnesses at all times, and get a full briefing on how it all works.

Go Ape forest Segway takes about an hour. If you want other ways to explore the forest, mountain bikes are available for hire.

Food and drink is provided. You will get welcome drinks, brunch, and a BBQ lunch.

You can find out more and book on the Go Ape Corporate Team Building page

Ski or Snowboard on Indoor Snow All Year Round

A Team Day for Work in The Alps at The Snow Centre

Take in the alpine experience with this new Exclusive Package at The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead. Not only will you learn skills in both skiing and snowboarding, your team will have a fun filled day out that will not disappoint!

Based just outside London, this unique corporate team building package is jam packed from start to finish; start with a 1 Hour Ski Lesson, followed by a 1 Hour Snowboard Lesson. If all that isn’t enough, finish off the day with a fun filled Sledging Session. Whizz, spin and slide down the slope in a rubber ringo or sledge; can you beat your colleagues to the finish? In between all the action on the slope enjoy refreshment in our Schuss Bar on the slope and a tasty lunch in the new alpine restaurant, The Lodge Bar and Kitchen, whilst you relax with panoramic views over the slope.

You can get all of this for only £69 per person. Get more details fromThe Snow Centre.

Ski and snowboard on a rolling Skiplex slope

If you don’t fancy playing in the snow, you can try skiing or snowboarding on a Skiplex continuous indoor revolving ski slope. Each slope at Skiplex is 4m wide and 9.5m long and can rotate up to speeds of 25mph with the gradient of the slope being adjusted as the skier improves.

Skiers get to master the basics of skiing including learning to control speed; coming to a stop and adopting the correct balance and weight distribution. Qualified instructors offer real time feedback and the use of a giant mirror at the base of the slope enables you to progress immediately.

Skiplex can plan the whole days activities if that is what’s required. Corporate team skiing last 1 – 2 hours. In this time skiers are rotated every 10-15 minutes giving everyone equal time on the slope. Skiers are grouped by ability so when you are on the slope you are not held up or left behind by your colleagues.

The corporate team building day package includes time on the slope (depends on how long is desired on the slope, minimum 1 hour), all the skis and snowboards, boots, helmets, polls, the instructor cost and the post skiing private room. It will cost £15 per head. Ski/Snowboard instruction is the basic package, but Skiplex can arrange and organise addition activities.

Skiplex slopes are suitable for all abilities, from first timer to advanced skiers. Skiplex offers a great team building environment. The slopes allow you to ski with your colleagues and also with a viewing area you can keep a close eye on how others are getting on. When you are on the slopes you face a giant one way mirror, this allows you to see yourself whilst skiing for immediate feedback. On the other hand when you are off the slope on the opposite side of the mirror you can see the skiers but they are unable to see you.

This leads to a fun learning environment and gives you a great opportunity to meet, get to know and bond with your colleagues. Get more information from Skiplex.

Whitewater Rafting

You can experience the thrills of white water rafting at locations such as the London Olympic competition course at Lee Valley just outside London. Your corporate team building day would consist of tackling 300m of fast and furious white water, obstacles and drops in a big inflatable raft.

Your team will have a qualified rafting guide steering and telling you exactly what to do. You get to learn how to control the raft under a variety of conditions, and get to rush down the rapids, surf the waves, and even pull huge wheelies when everyone sits at the back of the raft.

This is a fabulous outdoor team building day. The team building day I took part in was at Nottingham Water Sports Centre. There is the risk of capsizing the raft, which happened once to us, but all you do is lie on your back and float down river. Before you know it, the raft guide has got the raft upright and someone is pulling you back in.

A white water rafting team building day is £49 per person.

Paintball Team Days for Work

Paintball is a strategy game played by running around in the woods firing paint pellets at each other. This is not everyone’s cup of tea, but a great opportunity to get your own back on those you don’t get on with in the office.

You will need to plan the game strategies and organise a debrief afterwards if you want to actually develop teamwork. Otherwise all of the games risk just being a free for all shoot out where everyone looks after themselves.

A corporate paintball team building day will cost about £20 per person. You will have to pay extra for more ammo and food.

Sailing, Tall Ships or Yacht Charters

Life on the ocean waves sounds like great fun. This team building day is a really good way to develop team work. Charter a sailing yacht with a qualified skipper, and your team will learn how to sail. The skipper will direct you all how to get the yacht to go where you want to. You will get to practice different areas of responsibility. Tasks include steering at the helm, manning a winch or handling a line, supporting and coaching your colleagues, share risk-taking and increase trust.

Adventure Associates in the US specialise in blending adventure activities and interactive experiences with team building. They can plan and host some great work team sailing days.

Corporate Luxury Yacht Charters

Tall ship team building days involve a big boat. Imagine your team sailing on a traditional clipper with huge sails and rigging to climb. Or if you would rather have your team or clients treated to the ultimate luxury, why not charter a large luxury yacht or cruise ship. Royal Caribbean Corporate Cruises will take your team building day to the next level with the ultimate luxury event destination. Exhilarating onboard activities, award-winning entertainment and endless options for dining and conferencing.

Center Parcs

Center Parcs has a huge range of activities. Each location is in over 400 acres of natural woodland and offers an extensive range of team building facilities. Indoors or outdoors, challenging or relaxing, there is something for everyone and packages to suit all budgets.

At £99 per head, your team will get breakfast rolls on arrival, half day meeting room hire, refreshments and lunch. You get to choose two leisure activities from the following options of laser combat, paintball, field archery, target archery, laser clay shooting, cable ski, abseiling and climbing (where available) orienteering, or ten pin bowling tournament.

You get complimentary car parking, wifi and access to the renowned Subtropical Swimming Paradise. This is a huge indoor tropical set of pools with slides, flumes, wave machines, and Jacuzzis. Find out more from the Center Parcs website.

Corporate Go Karting

This one is a bit flaky in being called team building. You spend a few hours blasting around a track with your bum a few inches above the ground. The only team bit is planning the driver changes and choosing who is going to be in which team.

Still, I’m not one to complain if my company is willing to pay for me to drive a go kart. It can get very competitive though.

The biggest indoor go karting track in the UK is at Capital Karts in London. They have developed a brilliant motor racing experience inclusive to all abilities. They have onsite catering, exclusive lounge access and even transportation to and from your event available. This can be ideal for entertaining not only your team, but your clients as well.

Capital Karts have space to accommodate several hundred drivers at a single event. However large the group, they will have the capacity to host your day out. The track is located close to central London, the City and Canary Wharf.

Two of the best outdoor tracks are at Thruxton and Buckmore Park. There are so many options on offer to suit your corporate day that you have to check out Corporate Karting Days for details.

Corporate Hovercraft Team Building Days

Hovercrafts are so much fun to drive. Floating across land and water, you whizz over most surfaces. This type of team building day is more of a shared experience day. It allows you to try out something new together.

Corporate Driving Days

Now this is another great team building day. Track days are very popular. You can hire conferencing facilities to run your usual form of teambuilding and motivational days, and then go for a high speed blast around a track in a sports car or racing car.

There are plenty of types of driving on offer. If a sports car isn’t for your team, you can learn how to drive a 4×4 over rough terrain, go rallying, drive tanks or even have tank paintball fights.

You can discover the full range on my driving experiences page.

Other considerations for Team Building activities for work

How to get there

When choosing where your teambuilding day is going to be, make sure that your team can get there. Will you arrange a coach or minibus, or will they have to make their own way?

Food and Catering

Will your team get breakfast when they arrive? Will they be staying overnight beforehand? How are you going to organize when to eat during the day? Most of the corporate team building venues will have a host who will organize all of this for you, but ask in advance.

IT, projectors, flipcharts and conferencing facilities

As well as a truly fun day out, do you need to have facilities to get your team together for some motivation sessions and team talk? Check if there are any facilities available or if you have to bring your own equipment.

Want more Corporate Team Building Ideas?

What? You want more ideas. Ok. Here are some more ideas for you. Over time I will be discovering what is involved and whether they are any good. I will let you know what I find out.

• Clay Pigeon Shooting
• Team days with the Territorial Army – Had a great weekend with the TA camping in bivvies, doing assault courses, driving military vehicles, and going on recce missions at night.
• Quad Biking
• Raft Building – Used to do this with youth groups. You need to work together to stay afloat.
• Archery
• Dragon Boat Racing
• Bushcraft
• Crystal Maze Challenges
• Soap Box Derbys and Gravity Racing – Design, build and race a soap box
• Scavenger Hunts
• Horse riding or a Day at the Races
• Thames Rib boat treasure hunts
• Obstacle courses and It’s a Knockout games

There are several things you need to consider when approaching or creating problem solving activities. One of the first questions that needs to be answered is what is the point of this exercise?

What are you trying to Achieve?

This is the most obvious question to ask, yet often overlooked. You need to ask what it is that you are being asked to do. This leads onto other questions such as “What does success look like?” of “What effect are you trying to have?”

If you are creating problem solving activities, I find that making the outcome obvious a good way to engage the team. However, you have to make the method require some considerable thinking and experimentation. This is the key to setting problem solving activities. It is not a challenge if the solution is easy.

Another important thing to consider when setting problems is to make the solution appear achievable. Unless your team is full of some strong characters, you may find that everyone gives up. This most often happens with teenagers who aren’t always engaged with team building and would rather be somewhere else. Maintain attention by a bit of storytelling. You are just trying to get a box out of a tree, you are rescuing a stranded pilot, or stealing food store from a group of bandits.

Understand the Situation

Do you understand the circumstances in which you have to work and solve the problem? Do you understand the following:

• Rules and constraints of the problem
• Assumptions – don’t take anything for granted. You may be able to find clever ways to circumvent or innovate
• What is important? – It cost the key factor, or time, or how much resource you use?
• What are the dependencies – How to different parts of the system interact or relate? If you change one area, what is the impact on the overall situation?
• Time critical responses – what needs to be done and when, or doesn’t it matter?
• Will circumstances change during the task? – Will external factors change the rules by which you have to play by?

Learning system skills is another way of approaching problem solving activities. Thinking strategically is an extremely important skill, especially for leaders.

Problem Solving Activities

So, here are a few ideas to get you started. Some are physical, others can be done in the classroom or office. All of them require the team to think strategically and for there to be good leadership.

Water Barrel Swap

Tie a pulley to a tree branch and pass a rope through it. Tie a barrel to each end of the rope. Fill one barrel with water. Then fence off an area around the barrels. The challenge is to swap positions of the barrels without anyone touching the floor inside the fenced off area, or touch the barrels.

Swamp Crossing

Create a swamp, and then the teams have to cross it without going in it. They can be provided with a variety of useful and unuseful equipment. Planks and bricks are commonly used. You can also get the teams to make a bridge.

Get Container from Fenced Area

Place a container inside a fenced off area. The teams are then given a range of equipment to reach and remove the container with it or the equipment touching the ground. Poles and ropes are the main bits of kit. If the canister is light, then the use of an elastic band and four pieces of string are a quick extraction solution.

Film Canister Retrieval from Tube Using Water

Mount a length of plastic drainpipe vertically. Seal off the bottom. Drop in a plastic film canister. The team then has to use their initiative to get the canister out. It will of course be too narrow to get your hand in, and the use of a stick will not work. The solution is to pour in water to make the canister float to the top of the drainpipe.

Carry Bucket of Water Along Rope Over Obstacle course

Make an obstacle course and string a rope along it. Then put the rope through the handle of a bucket of water. The team then has to work together to get the bucket along the length of rope over the obstacles without spilling any water.

The Wall

As a team, get over a ten foot wall.

Get the Team Through a Sheet of Paper

Using a sheet of A4 or letter sized paper and a pair of scissors, you have to cut the sheet of paper so that it forms a hole big enough to fit the entire team through.

HINT You cut the paper in a zig zag pattern…

Measuring Without Markings – Water Decanter

Give the team two jugs. One jug holds 5 litres, the other jug holds 3 litres. The team has to measure t exactly 4 litres using the jugs. They have an unlimited amount of water to experiment with. The answer lies in pouring water from one jug into the other and back.

For a more advanced problem to solve, give the team an eight litre container full of water and two empty containers, one that holds 5 litres and the other 3 litres. The team must divide the eight litres into two of the containers, each with exactly four litres in each.

Through my 20 years of planning, running and being part of some great teamwork exercises, I have a few ideas that you might find useful. To help you pick the right one, I have organised them into themes focussed on what skills or messages you want your team to learn.

Themes for Quick Team Building Activities

1. Working together and cooperation
2. Communication
3. Leadership skills
4. Problem Solving Techniques
5. Soft skills, people skills, influence and motivation

Blindfold Team Building Activities

Using blindfolds are a good way to introduce the “trust” aspect with minimal risk of someone injuring themselves. The stupid idea of falling backwards and hoping that your so called colleagues are going to catch you is not just trusting that they want to catch you but also whether they are able to catch you. So don’t go there. People will hate you for it.

Back to the blindfold thing. You can do many variations on a theme which don’t take much time to set up.

The blindfold obstacle course can be as easy of difficult as you wish. You can just place chairs around the room as obstacles, and then get members of the team to try to navigate their way without touching any chairs. You have the team leader at the other end of the room calling out directions for the blindfolded team member to follow.

You can introduce confusion by having two teams trying to accomplish the room crossing at the same time. Having two people call out the directions means that you have to carefully listen whether it applies to you.

You can also have the team blindfolded and not have any obstacles. They have to be directed to a location on the floor.

Other variations on the blindfold team building activities include the team all holding hands blindfolded and having to lead each other through a course.

The Levitating Stick

This is very easy to set up, but it may or may not work depending on whether members of the team have done it before.

The team lines up so that they are in two lines facing each other. Each person holds out their two index fingers. You then place a garden cane so that it rests across everyones’ fingers. The aim is for the stick to be lowered to the ground.

The rule is that everyone’s fingers have to stay in contact with the stick at all times. What happens is that when you say go, the pressure of the stick on the team’s fingersis so light that they lift their fingers to keep more contact. The effect is that everyone then lifts their fingers to keep contact and the stick appears to be lifted up in the air as if made of helium.

Team Through a Sheet of Paper

Each team is given a sheet of letter sized paper (A4) and a pair of scissors. The challenge is to cut a hole in the paper in such a way so as to create a big enough hole for the team to climb through. Sounds impossible? It’s not. Hint – Fold it in half and cut in zig zags.

Egg Toss

This is an easy one to organise, but does have to be done outdoors. In pairs, one person throws a raw egg to the other person who has to catch it. The pair have to see how far apart they can stand and still successfully catch the egg.

What is the Point of Ice Breaker Games?

A key reason why teams fail to work is due to a poor understanding of who everyone is and what they are good at. A good team leader needs to know what skills each team member has, what their preferences are, which all leads to identifying what the best role is for that person in the team.

Ice breaker games provide a way for team member to get to know each other in a supportive and unthreatening environment. The perfect ice breaker activities are designed to encourage people to get to know each other without feeling insecure or foolish.

How to run Ice Breaker Games

Ice breaker games are best run at the start of a team building activity day. After the initial welcome drinks, get everyone sitting down and explain what the ice breaker game is all about. Make sure that you have organised any resources such as pens and paper beforehand.

If the ice breaker activities involve people standing up on their own and speaking to everyone, make sure that you ask someone who you feel is more confident to do so to go first. This will give support to those team members who are more reserved, shy or embarrassed by the whole team building thing.

Ice Breaker Games Ideas

Who Can…?

This ice breaker game needs you to give out a sheet of letter sized paper to everyone. The piece of paper is divided up into 9 boxes, each with an unusual skill in it. The skills could include juggling, play the drums, ride a unicycle, hold their breath for one minute etc. This should be printed in advance.

The group is then given ten minutes to find someone in the room who can do one skill from each box and write their name in the box. By encouraging people to only write their name in one box per piece of paper, people will have to talk to more of their colleagues.

Once the time is up, get everyone to sit down and you can go through each box and find out who has what skills. This will now give everyone something that they can talk to each other about when starting a conversation.

Amazing Facts

The thumb ball is a very useful resource to have for icebreakers. It is a 6 inch ball with different topics written on it. You throw e ball to a team member who then has to say something about themselves relating to the category that is under their thumb on the ball.

Amazing facts is a similar ice breaker game that involves everyone standing up one at a time and saying one amazing fact about something they have done. This could be that they have skydived, or lived in seven different countries, or that they have a reptile for a pet.

You could also ask them to say what their biggest achievement is. That may give people more scope to come up with something. They might say that being a mum is the best thing that they have done.

True of False, or 2 Truths 1 Lie

Each person takes it in turn to stand up and say three statements about themselves. Two of the statements must be true, and one must be a lie. The rest of the group has to guess which is the lie and why they think so. You can learn some amazing things about people in this ice breaker game.

Punch Lines

This involves splitting the group into teams and giving each team a piece of paper with a wacky sentence on it. The team then have to make a two minute play where the sentence is said. At the end, the other teams have to guess what the line was.

Sort it Out

The goal of this ice breaker is to get everyone to line up in a particular order. This has to be related to a fact about the person. It could be in age order, birthday, where they live from North to South, or any other criteria you can think of.

Categories

Everyone is given 10 minutes to talk to five other people and write down information according to some categories they have been given.

The categories could include:

• What is your favourite food?
• What is your best memory?
• What is your favourite hobby?
• What is your favourite place in the world that you have been to or want to visit?

At the end of this ice breaker, the group does not have to report back, but you can choose a few selected highlights if you wish.

Draw Me

Provide everyone with a sheet of paper and a marker pen. They are given 10 minutes to draw a picture or cartoon that represents themselves. It can be absolutely anything, even just a smile.

Examples they could draw are a dog if they love dogs, a musical instrument, a hobby, or a place. When the time is up, each person has to stand up one at a time and say why what they have drawn says something about who they are.

This is one of the most successful ice breaker games, as it gives people the freedom to express themselves freely, giving away as much or little about themselves as they like.

Birds of a Feather

For this ice breaker game, you will need to have some open space for people to move around in. The organiser calls out a category, such as “your favourite hobby.” Everyone then has to get into a group with anyone who has the same favourite hobby as themselves. This will involve talking to everyone. After a while, the groups will form.

The great thing about this ice breaker is that it enables people to form groups of like minded individuals. They will immediately have something to talk to each other about for the rest of the team building activities.

More Team Building Ideas

If you like these ice breaker games ideas, why not read the complete list of team building activity ideas.

Physical team building activities are great for all ages, and enable team members to gain immediate feedback on how well they are doing. Physical team building activities are defined as any team building exercise that involves physical effort from the participants.  It could involve building something big, carrying a casualty on a stretcher, or orienteering.

I have broken this guide to physical team building activities down into four sections:

• What works well
• Team Bonding
• Physical Challenges
• Military Team Building Activities

Be VERY aware of your team’s physical abilities

Before planning any physical team building activity, you must carefully consider the opinions and abilities of your team. It is all too easy to dictate that everyone is going on a 20 mile hike across wild country carrying heavy packs in challenging weather conditions. The end result will be to completely alienate and defeat quite a few members of the team. This is disastrous for your efforts to bring the team closer together. Adversity does not necessarily work.

There will be times when adventurous activities create the right conditions to bring team members closer together by sharing experiences, learning together and supporting each other.

You need to know the characters within your team before you embark on anything too strenuous.

Ideas for physical “shared experiences” team building activities

To get your creative juices going, here are a few ideas for physical activities that can be used as a day away from your normal environment where team members can share new experiences together.

Ropes Courses

High ropes courses provide your team with some physical challenges where they have to get across various obstacles high up in the trees. You used to only be able to find ropes courses at outdoor activity centres, but Go Ape has set up lots of ropes courses all over the UK and US.

Go Ape ropes courses involve rope swings, challenging crossings up in the trees, and great zip wires at the end of each section. You can also go Segway trekking, Zip Trekking (lots of zip wires one after the other), and mountain biking.

You will have a dedicated host who will build a day that suits your team and budget. You get exclusive use of a forest shelter, food and drink, and conferencing facilities if you need them.

The Go Ape treetop adventure lasts between 2 and 3 hours. It is suitable for all, so everyone will be able to do it. At some points there are different routes, so the more adventurous can take the extreme routes. You wear safety harnesses at all times, and get a full briefing on how it all works.

Play in the Snow All Year Round at an Indoor Ski Centre

You don’t have to travel to the Alps to take your team skiing. You can take in the alpine experience at snow centres across the country. You can learn how to ski, snowboard, and have fun doughnutting in big inflatable rings or sledges.

Whitewater Rafting

You can experience the thrills of white water rafting at locations such as the London Olympic competition course at Lee Valley just outside London. Your corporate team building day would consist of tackling 300m of fast and furious white water, obstacles and drops in a big inflatable raft.

Your team will have a qualified rafting guide steering and telling you exactly what to do. You get to learn how to control the raft under a variety of conditions, and get to rush down the rapids, surf the waves, and even pull huge wheelies when everyone sits at the back of the raft.

This is a fabulous outdoor team building day. The team building day I took part in was at Nottingham Water Sports Centre. There is the risk of capsizing the raft, which happened once to us, but all you do is lie on your back and float down river. Before you know it, the raft guide has got the raft upright and someone is pulling you back in.

If you are in the US, there are lots of rivers where you can go white water rafting, such as the Colorado River.

Paintball Team Days

Paintball is a strategy game played by running around in the woods firing paint pellets at each other. This is not everyone’s cup of tea, but a great opportunity to get your own back on those you don’t get on with in the office.

You will need to plan the game strategies and organise a debrief afterwards if you want to actually develop teamwork. Otherwise all of the games risk just being a free for all shoot out where everyone looks after themselves.

Some youth organisations do not allow paintballing, as they prohibit shooting at people. But, if you are a corporate team, it is all system go! One word of caution – paintball pellets can leave some big bruises depending on how close you are when you get hit.

Sailing, Tall Ships or Yacht Charters

Sailing is a really good way to develop team work. Charter a sailing yacht with a qualified skipper, and your team will learn how to sail. The skipper will direct you all how to get the yacht to go where you want to. You will get to practice different areas of responsibility. Tasks include steering at the helm, manning a winch or handling a line, supporting and coaching your colleagues, share risk-taking and increase trust.

Adventure Associates in the US specialise in blending adventure activities and interactive experiences with team building. They can plan and host some great work team sailing days.

Assault Courses and Obstacle Course Races

Team building obstacle courses come in many forms. They range from the races at a school sports day, to something big like Total Wipeout on the TV. The military use assault courses to test the ability and endurance of personnel. These have gained notoriety with the public, and consequently events such as the Tough Mudder, Spartan Race and the Dirty Dash have become great events to take part in.

Physical Team Building Challenges

1. Firing Blind

   This is a very effective physical team building activity that requires leadership, coordination, trust and good communication. At one end of your playing field, lay out a large target area, about 3 meters in diameter. At the other end of the field is the fire team. They sit behind a large tarp held upright to block their view of the target. They have a water bomb launcher and a stack of water bombs. Using direction given by their observer who stands on the target side of the tarp, they have to try and get as many water bombs on target as possible.

2. Human pyramids

   How high can you build a human pyramid or tower?

3. Egg Toss

   How far can you throw a raw egg to a partner who successfully catches it?

4. Get the Canister from Toxic Area

   This is a popular team building challenge. Set up a can inside a taped off area. Give the team some equipment to retrieve the can without touching the ground inside the area. One variation I have done is to attach an ammo box up a tall tree containing supper for the team. They have to use climbing gear to climb up the tree, retrieve the box and return without dropping it inside the area. Inside the box can be anything you want that they can cook over an open fire. We had two chickens in ours. We plucked and prepared them while others in the team made the fire. Lovely.

   If you aren’t that adventurous, you can just put sweets in the can.

5. Bucket Swimming relay

   Get the team to do a swimming relay collecting things from the other end of the pool. Include a bucket, which is actually a real challenge to swim with as it fills up and slows you down.

6. Blanket Volleyball

   Basically, you set up a volleyball court using blankets or large tarps for the net. The teams on either side cannot tell where the ball is coming from, so have to work together to win.

   You can play this team building game standing up or sitting down on the floor, depending on how high you can make the net.

7. Crate Stacking

   You need proper climbing gear for this one. Rig a safety line and pulley high above the place where you will be stacking your crates. The stacker has to stack the crates into a tower as tall as they can, whilst balancing on the top. They need to wear a climbing harness, and helmet, with someone belaying them from the ground.

   The team have to pass the crates up to the stacker. Takes guts and teamwork.

8. Bucket on a rope water obstacle course

   Get a very long piece of rope or string and weave it across a series of obstacles. Up trees, through bushes, across mud, over walls. Then, feed one end of the string through the handle of a bucket that is full of water. The team then has to get the bucket of water to the other end of the piece of string without spilling any water. Good teamwork is needed to pass the bucket up and over high obstacles.

9. Firemans relays

   Each team has to form a relay chain to get all of the water from one big barrel across an obstacle course and into another barrel at the other end. The race is timed of course.

10. Chariot racing

    The team builds a chariot and then races across a course. The course can be as long as you like. I have raced cross country over several miles before.

    The chariot can have wheels, or be dragged like a wooden frame.

11. Sedan Chair Racing

    Sedan chair racing is the same principle as the chariot race, but the team have to carry the sedan chair off the ground with their rider sitting on it. A lot more tiring.

12. Orienteering

    The team has to work together to navigate a course finding markers along the way. They have to keep together. The fastest team wins.

13. Geocaching

    Using a GPS, you can find hidden caches all over the world using the geocaching.com website. A hitech treasure hunt.

14. Drops

    Drops are where you drop off the team of teenagers somewhere. They then have to work out how to get to a given location in a time limit.

    You can make it easier by getting them to travel to a tall building that they can see from the start point. Or you could make it harder by blindfolding them when taking them to the start, so that they don’t know where they are.

15. Now Get Out Of That Challenges

    Now Get Out of That was a UK TV programme where teams had to navigate to a given location. There they would be given a puzzle or challenge to solve. Successful completion would give the teams the clue to the next location.

    The team challenges included river crossings and getting a cassette recorder to work when the power wires were too short (use the earth lead to extend the others). The sort of tasks teens will love are things like working out how to boil some water using only a sheet of paper and a candle. They have to fold up the paper to make a container. The water soaks into the paper a bit, but this is countered by the flame. It doesn’t burn the paper if they are careful.

16. Swamp Crossing

    Create a swamp, and then the teams have to cross it without going in it. They can be provided with a variety of useful and unhelpful equipment. Planks and bricks are commonly used. You can also get the teams to make a bridge.

17. Scavenger Hunts and Treasure Hunts

    Give your teams a list of items or tasks they have to complete in the time given. To make your teens think, make the description of the items cryptic. A picture of Thomas Jefferson ($5 bill), or a portrait of the Queen (a stamp or money).

    If completing tasks such as visiting places, they can take a picture to prove they were there.

18. Monopoly Runs

    Monopoly Runs are a race around a virtual Monopoly board. This is easy if you are in London. The team has to visit all of the places named on the Monopoly board as quickly as possible.

    If you aren’t in London, you can create your own board with place names of where you are.

19. Balance on a brick

    How many people can balance on a brick at once? You can use any surface to hand, such as a milk crate. Or how many teens can you get in a phone box or in a car.

20. Learn a new sport

    Just have a look at the full outdoor activities list to discover a new sport they all might like to try. Sharing the learning experience is a great way to get a team to bond.

21. Raft Building

    

    A favourite amongst teens for team building. Give them lots of poles, ropes and large barrels to lash together to form a raft. Then have a race or get them to cross a river.

22. Bridge Building and other river crossings

    Create a virtual river using two long pieces of rope. Give the teams equipment to make a bridge. If you are feeling adventurous, do it over a real stream or river.

23. The Wall

    Find an assault course that has a ten foot wall in it. The team has to get everyone over the wall. It takes planning, as the strongest person who can lift the other up onto the wall may not be the best person that everyone else has to then pull up the wall.

24. Dragon Boat Racing

    Get the team working together to paddle a dragon boat in a race. Rowing is another idea.

25. Canoe catamaran trust

    Using two canoes, balance beams between them and the team leader sits on the beam. Teams then canoe a course around the lake

26. Canal Lock Navigation

    Guide a canal boat through a lock

27. Group plank skiing

    You need two planks with loops of rope attached to them. The team stands with a foot on each plank holding the rope. They then have to walk the plank skis to the end of the room or field. This requires coordination and teamwork to lift the plank.

28. Water Fights

    Using water fights as a team building activity for teens gives you plenty of scope to adapt to your environment. You can use rivers, lakes, boats, or just two large barrels of water at each end of a field for them to refill from. Allow a free for all, or work out a points system for achieving some goal such as capturing a flag.

29. Zombie Combat Experience

    Run around abandoned warehouses or shopping malls fighting for your life against hordes of zombies. This adrenaline-pumping team building experience is not for the faint hearted. Your team of thrill seekers get a detailed mission briefing before receiving a combat training session and being issued with airsoft weapons and ammunition. You then head into battle.

    Your mission is to work with a team of doctors, military personnel and other civilian survivors to defeat the evil zombies and end their reign of terror. Your team has to complete a series of military based tasks to find a cure for the life-threatening zombie infection and ultimately save the human race – just make sure you don’t get left behind!

30. Wide Games

    Wide games are team games played over a large area, usually at night. The most common wide game is capture the flag. One team of teens defends a base, whilst the other has to enter and retrieve an object such as a flag and return it to their base. I have a powerful rotating beacon connected to a car battery and fire alarm switch. The switch is held open by a block of wood. The players have to get into the camp and remove the block of wood which turns on the beacon. That way it is obvious when the game is over.

Military Team Building Activities

It is essential in the military that all personnel work in strong effective teams. Leadership, trust, communication and coordination are critical. If these physical team building activities ideas aren’t enough for you, you’ll love my guide to military team building activities.

This team building activity is brilliantly simple, yet can be adapted to suit your specific learning objective.

Equipment Needed: 1 bulk builders bag for each team.

Objective

The perfect set up is to split everyone into teams with four people in each team. Each team is given a bulk bag. The aim is for all team members to stand in the bulk bag together, and upon the word go, to get to the other end of the room whilst remaining inside the bag.

One technique team members can adopt is to all jump at the same time like a great big sack race. This of course requires great coordination, timing and teamwork. To get this working, one team member has to direct the others when to jump by shouting “jump.”
Another technique is for everyone to shuffle the bag forward. This is less effective but can work.
You can make the activity more interesting by making the teams race between cones or around obstacles.

Chariot Races with bulk bags

If you get bored with using the bags for the big sack race, you can also use them as chariots for racing.
You have one team member inside the bag as the rider, whilst two other team members stand outside the bag and pull it along the ground holding the handles. At the end of each lap, the rider has to swap until everyone has a go at being the rider.

We used to use blankets for this game. It worked brilliantly on sports hall or school hall floors. You can really get up some speed, and it is especially fun swinging around corners to race back to the start.

The bulk bags can also be used for relay races where the team carries objects collected from around a course. Depending on how mean you are feeling you can select object of various weights that will really test teamwork.

Need more team building ideas?

If you like this and want more team building ideas, have a look at my top team building activities list

Scavenger Hunts in NYC

A scavenger hunt is a form of treasure hunt where you are given a list of tasks to complete or items to collect within a time limit. You might have to visit specific places such as a Monopoly Run, where you have to visit all of the locations on the Monopoly board. This requires planning and strategy to work out the fastest route to visit every location. Depending on the rules, you might be able to split your team to cover the ground quicker.

High tech scavenger hunts in NYC are becoming more popular in the last few years. Mobile phones or GPS can be used to issue tasks or directions of what the team has to accomplish for the scavenger hunt.

Improv Team Building in NYC

One way to gently step out of your comfort zone is to do something dramatic such as improvisation and drama. If you use one of the companies such as The Pit (People’s Improv Theatre), the instructors guide your team through a unique combination of improvisation, physical exercises, games and critical thinking. Using improve and drama can help your team to be better communicators, listeners, public speakers and team players in a fun, safe and nurturing environment.

Team Building at Chelsea Piers NYC

Chelsea Piers is on 23rd Street and Hudson River Park. The venue offers a variety of riverfront meeting and reception spaces for groups as small as 10 and as large as 2,000. You can book it for a home base for your day of team building activities, a full-service meeting space for an off-site, or a riverside setting for a catered reception.

Chelsea Piers have their own team building instructors who can tailor your off site corporate team building event to develop teamwork, leadership, communication and management skills. Activities are wide ranging, and can be based within a conference setting, or try out activities such as climbing, obstacle courses or dodgeball.

Using Cooking for Team Building in NYC

With the popularity of TV cooking shows, you can use cooking as a focus for your team building day. Cooking together is a fantastic way of getting to know your friends and a great team building way to bond with your colleagues.

Recipe For Success provides culinary team building all over the US, including New York. Hosted in locations in NYC such as Westin New York at Times Square, you can work together on challenges involving chocolate, ice cream, wine, baking and complete meals.

Sailing around Manhattan

For a corporate team building day with a difference, you can charter a yacht and use it for dinners, hosting customers and suppliers, as a base for team building activities or just to learn how to sail as a well oiled team.

Outdoor Team Building in Central Park NYC

To truly get out of the office and get outdoors, Central Park could be the ideal venue for your off site. The Central Park events team can host and organise team building events for up to 300 people.

What Team Building in NYC has worked for you?

If you have held team building activities in NYC, I would love to hear what worked for you and any recommendations you may have. Leave a comment below to help others achieve the same success that you did.

Go Ape Team Days Out

Red Letter Days for Business

If you love driving, you have to go on a team building driving day. There are lots of different driving experiences available. Choose from driving a tank, 4×4 or racing car. Learn skills such as rallying, drifting, and skid control. Use a safe environment to demonstrate your driving skills and impress your colleagues.

A few years ago, if you wanted to buy someone the gift of a driving experience day, you could buy a track day where you drive really fast around a flat race track. Oh how things have moved on since then. Now you can choose from a full list of driving experience days. You can test your skill at speed, go for an adrenalin rush on a skid pan, or just brute force with a 4×4 or tank driving experience.

All driving experience days come with a spot of training and instruction beforehand. Don’t worry if you aren’t old enough to drive – there are young drivers experiences as well.

Things to think about when choosing a driving experience day

Having been on a few driving experience days, here are a few of my tips that will help you to choose the right one for you.

1. Do you want to just go fast? – choose a track day, drifting or supercar driving experience day
2. Do you want to drive something different? Try tank driving, rallying, monster trucks or hovercraft driving experience days
3. Do you want to improve your driving skills? – Try rallying, skid pan driving, drifting, 4×4 or super car driving experience days.
4. Are you having a stag do or day out with the lads? – Select a driving experience day where you can all drive together, such as tank paintball, go kart racing, Segway, or hovercraft racing

Drifting

Drifting is where you perform high speed cornering by allowing the back of the car to drift out wide in the bend. You effectively take the corner sideways. It originated on the streets of Japan (see the film Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift). On the drifting driving experience, you will be taught how to use your skill in high speed cornering to drift around those bends with grace and style.

Off Road Driving Experiences

Off roading generally means driving a 4×4 such as a Landrover. You get to drive over some very challenging terrain. Ruts, bumps, very steep hill climbs and the compulsory water splash. You get taught how to go up some seriously steep inclines, and through some deep puddles. Much more fun than the school run.

Tank Driving and Tank Paintball

I have been on this driving experience day, and it sure is fun. If you want to know what it is like to drive one of these beasts, the tank driving experience is for you. Mud will be flying in all directions. You get to drive the tank with the hatches open and hatches closed. when the hatches are closed, you can only see where you are driving through a thin slot.

Tank paintball adds to the fun. This is best done with a group of friends, such as on a stag do. You not only get to drive and race around in tanks, but also to fire paintballs at each other from the high powered paintball gun on the turret.

Rally Driving

Been there and done that. A fantastic day. Sitting in the driving seat hurtling towards a corner with the instructor insisting you still go faster before you slam on the brakes and slide around the corner is such a rush. Speeding through mud and dirt, you will be taught how to drive a rally car. Seriously fast. The instructors teach you how to throw the weight of the car around to get the best grip in the mud. The adrenaline really gets going as you approach the bends and the instructor will teach you how to get round those corners fast, even when the car is sliding on mud and gravel. Grin-worthy stuff.

You get taught how to accelerate into the corners and brake hard as you turn so as to throw the weight of the car over the front wheels to give maximum grip. Hand brake turns are in the lesson as well. You will get told off for turning the steering wheel with the palm of one hand though.

Quad Biking

One of the muddiest days I have ever had. If you though of roading was fun, wait until you try quad biking. Speed around a muddy course with lots of lumps and bumps. You will usually be given overalls, as you end up smothered in mud and wearing the biggest grin ever.

Segway Driving

Not really driving, but more of balancing on a two wheeled off roader. Use your skill to navigate the course. Since Segways were banned in the UK from driving on the roads and pavements, they have been used at a number of forest and off road locations in the UK. You start off with a lesson on how to balance, steer and move about. then you are free to go whizzing off around a woodland course. Great for racing your mates or girlfriend.

Skid Pan Driving

Think you can drive on icy and slippery roads? Think again. The skid control experience is useful for understanding how to control your car when things get slippery. Great fun and very useful.

Depending where you go, the skid experience is created either by spraying water onto a private track, making it very slippery. Or, it can be simulated by using a car that is mounted on a cradle. The instructor uses controls to lift one corner of the cradle, lifting one wheel off the ground and leaving a castor-type wheel in its place. As you can imagine, you have now lost the control of that corner of the car. For more slippery stuff, you could try ice driving

Train Driving

For those who like their steam engines, you too could be standing on the footplate, driving a steam train. Get that nostalgic feeling.

Stunt Driving Schools

Youv’e seen it in the moives. Now learn how to do it yourself. Learn how to do a variety of stunts in someone else’s car. How good is that?

Racing Car Driving Experience

An introduction to what it’s like in a racing car. Speed round a racing track in a racing car.

Go Karting

Low down on the ground gives the impression you are really haring along. Fab fun.

Hovercraft Driving

On land and water, float over everything in a hovercraft. There are a variety of sizes of hovercraft. They all can move at quite a speed. You won’t want to go home.

Monster Truck Driving

Bigfoot style massive monster trucks. Drive of BIG obstacles and crush cars. Big boy stuff you have just got to do, if you are up for it.

Classic Cars

If you are more for that bit of classic style, you will find the classic car driving experience wonderful.

Super Cars and Sports Cars

Speed around a race track in these fantastic supercars. Not only will you look the part, you will feel it as well. Ferraris, porches, jaguars and Aston Martins are all there to be driven. Which will you choose?

Find out More about driving experience days

If you like what you see here, you can currently save up to 60% on driving experience days from Virgin Experience Days.

What is a Corporate Retreat

A corporate retreat is a team building exercise that takes staff away from the normal work environment.  Also called an offsite retreat, it is held out of the office on neutral territory.  This could be at a local conference centre, at a cabin in the mountains, or even overseas.

By taking staff away from the daily pressures and workload, you allow them to think more clearly, and be open to new ideas.  This fosters creativity and drives results.  You can take the opportunity to reaffirm your team’s shared mission, ensuring a common understanding of what it is you do and why does the organisation exist.

Choose a location for the corporate retreat that is completely different from the normal office environment.  Perhaps you could go to Lake Tahoe as it is near to San Francisco yet in the countryside.  If you are thinking of going overseas for your corporate retreat you could consider skiing in the French Alps, or golf and surfing at Praia Del Rey in Portugal.

A corporate retreat should not be considered to be a vacation.  Although you can provide the incentive of time on a golf course, maybe skiing in the mountains or being somewhere exotic, staff should be made aware that they are there for a specific purpose.

Whichever form of corporate retreat you decide to undertake, ensure that you communicate a clear and defined purpose or goal.

Define the Successful Outcomes of the Corporate Retreat

The corporate retreat must have a business goal. It is a waste of time and money if you are just going purely to get to know each other better, and to get your team to “bond.”

The aims and goals of the retreat will help you to select which staff to invite. If you are focussing on how to improve customer service, make sure that you have customer facing staff present. If you want to increase productivity and reduce the cost of quality, you will need a representative from all departments. For adapting the strategic direction, you will want to have staff who have a good understanding of the market and business.

Choose the Right Facilitator

One of the most critical parts of any team building activity is the facilitator. A facilitator is the person who guides the whole process, without becoming involved with the actual discussion.
Acting as a sounding board and being a very good listener, the facilitator ensures that the team considers all sides of the problem being explored, and asked pertinent questions that are thought provoking. You can select someone from your organisation to act as a facilitator as long as they are not closely connected with the task at hand. Sometimes it can be better to hire an independent facilitator from companies like Adventure Associates for your corporate retreat to host and run proceedings.

Logistics and Planning

Where are you going? How on earth do you get the whole team there? Are the right resources in place to allow your team to concentrate on their creativity?
The logistical organisation and planning needs to begin months in advance of the corporate retreat. Make sure you know what you want to achieve, and that the venue you have selected can support those goals.
You will need to consider:

• transport
• accommodation
• food and drink
• agenda and schedule
• activities
• rooms for holding the discussions
• recording and presentation resources

Provide the Right Environment for Creativity

Please, please, please do not force staff to be completely out of their comfort zone. Some corporate team building advocates insist that the only way to get teams to think differently is to create a challenge that employees must rise to. Oh how wrong they are.
I have heard so many tales of staff hating being forced to go above and beyond the call of duty by going on long hikes, mud scrambles or the torture of building yet another drinking straw tower. Yes it is good to challenge people’s thinking, but you must support them to fulfil their potential.
If you have a room full of tech geeks, set them a problem that appeals to their inquisitive minds that a solution must exist. If you have a cluster of sales and marketing staff, appeal to their competitive spirit. But make it seem achievable so that employees get into the flow.
By providing the right balance of challenge against skill, as long as a solution seems achievable, you will be amazed at how engaged your workforce will be on your corporate retreat.

Further Ideas for Corporate Retreats

To help keep this machine well-oiled it is important to make sure business processes are in place, but it is equally important to look after the human element. That is why regular teambuilding events are vital to success.

On the Water Teambuilding for Visible Results.

A teambuilding day is an opportunity to create space away from the usual working environment to focus on improving the way people interact with each other, help your team get to know each other better and foster a supportive environment.

One of the best team building activities is yacht sailing. A team of 8-10 on board a 40 foot sailing yacht have to learn to work together simply to get the boat moving, so not only is it obvious when the team is pulling together but it is a brilliant, fun day out!

Your team will have to listen to the skipper’s instructions to understand their role in the bigger picture, they need to perform their own role but simultaneously communicate clearly with their team mates. As the yacht gains speed, the wind-noise makes conversation harder, so clear communication is key – using words that sound different and avoiding instructions which could be mis-interpreted (such as “Go!” and “No!”).

Britannia Corporate Events, a specialist provider of company team building days describes a typical team building sailing day “No experience is necessary and mostly teams are complete novice sailors. From the moment the team step onboard the usual office hierarchy dissolves and everyone has a chance to be equally involved, learning something new. The smiles and obvious camaraderie at the end of the day really say it all!”

A Level Playing Field

Most crews don’t have any previous experience, creating a level playing field; so everyone is learning the ropes, quite literally.

Every yacht has two professional sailors onboard to keep an eye on safety and make sure no-one gets hurt. So after a hearty breakfast and a yacht safety familiarisation, the teams are settled in and ready for action.
Britannia uses racer-cruiser yachts. This means that whilst they are comfortable on board (complete with mini kitchen and bathroom) they are designed to be sailed by a team.

One of Britannia’s regular skippers Charlie smiles as he notes “Quite often the quietest person in the office really comes out of their shell. Junior people who may have never met or even spoken to senior managers are communicating effectively as equals. You can see the barriers breaking down – and you know that on the return to the office that junior person will have far more confidence.”

Communication, Co-ordination and Timing

So how does sailing develop team work? Consider the first ‘simple’ task of the day – hoisting the mainsail. This requires co-ordination between several of the team; the ‘mast-man’ will pull on the main halyard (rope) so that the ‘pit-person’ can winch it in quickly. The pit-person needs to give feedback to the mastman regarding the speed to make sure their timing is in sync. Meanwhile the person on the ‘helm’ (steering) doesn’t touch the sails, but it is essential they drive in a nice straight line otherwise the wind will fill the sails and make the job so much harder for everyone else!

Finally a 4th person with a better view will look up and keep the rest of the team updated on how much more they need to do; “Nearly there!”, “a little more!” – this continuous feedback is invaluable and allows the other 3 to focus on their roles.

Everything is a team effort, and the day is spent learning and perfecting sailing manoeuvres; working together and improving communication throughout. Everyone will rotate roles during the day to help develop empathy and trust between team mates as well as keeping the day interesting and fun!

A Racing Element

The format of the day can be adjusted to suit the group; choose to maximise time on the water with a packed lunch on board, or pop into picturesque Cowes on the Isle of Wight for a lunch ashore. For groups of more than 10 people, the group is split into teams for a race in the afternoon.

The racing is great fun, and provides an opportunity for each team to put their new skills into practice – to not just work together, but work well as a high performing team to win the race!

The Evidence

Dreams Ltd (the bed retailer) took their new management team on a teambuilding day on a Britannia First 40. The team hadn’t been working together as well as they needed to, and after their day Mike, the CEO reported “In a business turnaround situation it is vital to get the leadership team working together quickly, this was time well spent and we learnt more about each other in 1 day than the previous 2 months.”

Likewise, global insurance specialist Brit Insurance took representatives from different departments and even countries on a multi-day sailing event; “Britannia were extremely professional. The event manager worked seamlessly with a number of people at Brit to establish a format which met our objectives. Our event was a huge success and working relationships have improved immeasurably.”

A Day To Remember

With or without the racing, sailing on the Solent on a beautiful yacht isn’t something most employees get to do every day! Not only is it a genuinely constructive way to improve working relationships but it also a day to remember!

Your team will talk about it for days to come and probably remember it for years. Such a positive association with work and their team mates will further enhance a positive working atmosphere with improved working relationships.

Find out more about Team Building Sailing Days

If you feel that sailing days are something that your company could benefit from, get in touch with Britannia Corporate Events for a quote for your teambuilding day out.

By using red teaming activities you can challenge the very core of an enterprise’s plans, proposals, assumptions, tactics and capability. This will enable rapid problem solving, risk reduction and identification of opportunities and areas to improve.

What Exactly is Red Teaming?

Red Teaming activities involve challenging an enterprise’s plans, ideas and assumptions through close scrutiny and rigorous analysis. The aim is to provide key decision makers with a more robust understanding of the potential outcomes and consequences of implementing a specific plan.

Red Teaming can be used to challenge marketing strategies or examine gaps and weaknesses in a technical capability or product.

The outcome of your red teaming activities should provide your team with an understanding of the competitive environment through your adversaries’ perspective, giving rise to being able to identify your own weaknesses.

What can I use Red Teaming Activities for?

Red teaming exercises can be used to improve your chances of success in any given situation. By identifying what could go wrong, how changing circumstances could affect the outcome, or how your competitors may behave, you can make more robust decisions and reduce.

Taking red teaming to the next level of analysis, you could even move into mathematical game theory. Lots of fun to do and provides some quite incredible insights.

You can use red teaming for planning activities such as:

– Event planning
– Technology assessment
– Marketing strategies
– Public relations
– Supply chain management

– Red teaming is particularly useful for contingency planning in situations where the environment is liable to change unexpectedly, or conditions are uncertain. Just like any business environment.

How do I Undertake Red Teaming Activities?

There are a few different analytical approaches that can be employed for red teaming. Depending upon the questions you are trying to answer, you will select those that will yield the best results. The choice of techniques improves with skill and experience.

For the red teaming activities that I lead, the first step is to identify the task you are trying to accomplish.

Identify the Task or Question to Solve

You are performing red teaming for a reason. This is usually to identify the weaknesses in your plans and strategies. You may have a brilliant new design for some technology and want to check that it will work in all circumstances. How will the user use and abuse the gadget you are making?

Perhaps you are choosing how to launch a new marketing campaign. Pehaps you are about to embark on some major business process re-engineering. Red teaming can help in all of these situations to reduce risks, exposure to failure, and to increase your chances of success.

Identify the Red Team Leader

The choice of a suitable team leader for red teaming is crucial. The team leader has to demonstrate leadership, diplomacy, provide the right environment for creative minds, and drive the team to deliver a more robust solution.

Identify the Red Team

The red team should include characters who are creative and imaginative thinkers, subject matter experts, have analytical minds, and be cultural advisors. The team members should possess both curiosity, enquiring minds, and have a strong desire to drill down into the depths of a problem to seek solutions.

One way or Two Way Red Teaming

Before you start, you will need to decide whether to run a one way or two way red teaming exercise. One way red teaming exercises involve just one team analyising the question at hand.

Two way red teaming exercises involve running two team simultaneously, where decisions and actions from one team are fed into the other team. You run through your scenario, with staged decision points. A runner goes between the two separate rooms that the red teams are in and feeds them with responses.

Two way red teaming is used where you want a more dynamic ativity, and it gives a much wider range of results. If you really want to explore areas you never even considered, two way red teaming is perfect.

Running your Red Teaming Exercise

You need to brief all members of the red team as to what you are analysing, and any concerns that you may have with success. This should include what your plans are aiming to achieve, and the environment in which they will be used.

One of the best approaches that I have found is to begin with a free form brainstorming activity. With whiteboards and flipcharts, the red team leader begins to pose some questions to challenge the reliability and feasibility of success. The red team members will usually eagerly speak their minds.

It will be the skill of the red team leader that dictates how the session develops.

Once the ideas begin to flow, these should be documented. The red team leader may decide to call a halt to proceedings when a sufficient number of areas for deeper analysis emerge. The team can sometimes then be split into specific disciplines to examine the areas highlighted. For example, if there are concerns relating to how the customer base will react to a marketing campaign, further insights into the behaviour of that particular customer demographic may need to be explored. If a vulnerability in a technology implementation is identified, the red teaming exercise may then focus on understanding the weaknesses and how to address them to provide a robust design.

Red teaming is a wonderfully productive process, and in my experience always leads to a more robust outcome. If you want to find out more about red teaming, the US Army has kindly published its Red Teaming Handbook online.