Hi folks,
After a long long time now I am back to write some ideas about agile and team building games. I tried to gather useful and playable game ideas from the net and also add a few ones which I have INVENTED. Kidding, nowadays you don’t need to invent anything, you just need to grab an idea and adopt it with your needs.
As they are many I will split them through different posts, so this would be the first part.
1- Human knot
The name tells all itself. This game is one of my favourites for ice-breaking, it is easy and does not need any requirements. Just grab your team around (ideally less than 10 people) and ask them to stand in a circle. Then ask them to grab any of their team-mates right hand with their left hand, randomly, everyone should grab some one hand, so now they are all connected. now ask them to grab another team-mate left hand with their right hand. This would be fun.
Now ask them to untangle without anyone letting go of the hand they are holding. easy, right? believe me it is not easy.
* In some articles about this game there is no rule about which hand should get which, it is up to you.
What you gain: it is exactly how the team should work, hand in hand, they should resolve a problem. In some cases you can identify a potential leader who starts to see the knot from up above and analyse the solution and tell other people how to move. you may also find some other team members who just stand there waiting for direction or team decision. This simple game can teach us (the team itself and agile coach) a lot. don’t miss it.
2. Distance
In many cases people cannot see the large image of how they are involved as part of a large complex and how they act as a single person can affect the whole company. The idea behind this game is to show them they are all connected and any act can cause chaos all over the system and it will take time so the system can adapt itself to a stable situation.
So let’s go to the game. For this one you need to have a large open area. Involve as many org members as you can into this game. Just ask them to stand within a 2 meter of any other person.
Now ask them to choose two other people (just in their mind, should not shout whom they choose) and move their position to where the “Distance” between them and those two chosen one become equal. step back and see who everyone is moving as their chosen ones move. It will take a few minutes so they can be stable and stand still. Now just pick one of them and ask to come and stand by your side (while everyone else should obey the rule of equal distance with their chosen ones)
portrait of a group of people standing together — Image by © Royalty-Free/CorbisYou can continue moving them around for a little bit longer, but remember, don’t let people become board from agile games. Timing here is the golden key.
3. Save the egg
what it takes to secure an egg for not breaking when it drops from the ceiling? every team would have the same material to achieve that.
Materials: 4 pens, few A4 papers, tape and 1 meter rope and for sure an egg.
Give each team 15 minute to build a structure over the egg so can secure it. After that, the fun part. Let’s drop those eggs and see which one survives.
As any of others, this game is all about teamwork, problem solving and time management. Also lots of fun
4. Blind Drawing
Can you draw a horse, a very simple one, a body, a head, four legs and a tail. Sure you can, what if your eyes are blindfolded? it is harder but you can. Now what if you don’t know what you should draw and other team members explain to you? This will be a challenge.
Materials: whiteboard and marker, piece of fabric for blindfold, and few simple images from google to draw.
So the team will choose one to go for drawing (this will rotate and all team members should get blindfold and do drawing). Give them a picture and 5 minute. These are some of my favourite ones to just give you the idea of how simple drawings should be:
The idea behind this game is, not only is it fun, people can understand how hard it could be to explain (or write a document and description) for someone who does not have any idea about the subject, and how their understanding and final result could be different from what you expected. Also it will increase trust between team members that they are doing their best to help you to draw an image close to the goal. “you guide me, I will do the job, if I lose, every one lose, we are a team“
** If you are a product owner or product manager, this is the game for you. Next time you want to create a ticket, keep in mind writing a good and sufficient description will make it more clear to all team members to come on the same page. If you spend extra 15 minute of your time making a very clear task/ticket, it would be better than all team members spending 15 minute together to understand it while asking you questions.
5. Guess what he draw
Now that you have your marker and board around lets play another game. It is somehow similar to blind drawing but the one who draws is not blindfold and only one of team members knows what they should draw. Others should guess what it is. But there is one rule: for describing the picture, all the words they can use are:
circle, oval, square, triangle, line, dot, big, medium, small, half {shape}, above {shape}, below {shape}, right of {shape}, left of {shape}
Team will have 10 minute and they get a score every time they guess the image correctly, then they should change place, another one take control of drawing and another one take control of describing.
For images you should pick something that is achievable with basic shapes and does not need many details. here are some samples:
This game is also another practice of how we can split a complicated task to few very simple ones.
This is the end of part one for agile and team building games. I have collected about 40 games and will write about them 5 by 5.
let me know if you play any of these, how was that, what did you gain, what did you learn.
Keep safe,
Navid