Activities for Teambuilding - how to create a good team with the help of team games?

How to use games to build a successful team?

Before we start looking for the best way to bring a team together, it's important to think about the benefits which can be gained during such activities. There are few questions which need to be asked in order to choose the best and right activities for your team. The answers given to these questions will allow you to properly choose the solution for your staff:
- Is the Team just getting to know each other or are the teammates working already together for a long time?
- Shall the games be primary about cooperation or is competition also important. (one goal or several goals of the game and settlement of each participating unit)?
- Do you want to achieve creativity and brainstorming or developed strategy games?
- What is more important for your team? hierarchy or partnership (games with leading characters or partnership tasks)?

Which game to choose for team building?

To choose a game to integrate people in the company, you should analyze your needs and choose the right offer based on the needs of your team. Below we present a few ideas and options, so that you can make an easier decision:

Bowling - a great idea when you want to get people together and spend a nice time with each other. It has a competitional character and there will be team players who will excel compared to others.
Paintball - a proposal for teams that already know each other well, and who have a need to teach cooperation in specific groups, e.g. a department against another department
ASG - a game similar to paintball, in which you will get a set trophy. It gives the possibility to control the team and devise a strategy by the commanding division - good for bigger teams already cooperating for longer with each other
Escape room - the most versatile of all games. It allows you to provoke creativity, get to know each other and strive for a common goal. It favors cooperation and complementing each other. Groups who know each other well can play together as well as strangers, who will get to know each other during the game. Reflecting your teamwork afterwards will give the team a topic to talk about and more reason to engage with each other.

Of course, you can also take your group to a bonfire, dance, sit with them while playing board games. When you have limited possibilities, it is worth organizing a team building in the office. There are choices of many traditional games like:

- Word/boardgames
- game developing unconventional thinking consisting in inventing unusual ones for everyday items (eg pencils, desks, rulers), in which a team with more applications wins
- solving industry puzzles in teams

Everything depends on the needs and preferences, however, an ever-wider group of managers is choosing escape rooms because of their wide possibilities. You want to learn more about it – here you go:

What is a room escape game?

Do you remember computer games in which getting out of a closed building was possible only after the discovery of the unusual use of the tools lying there? This time you and your team are stuck in a puzzle room and you have to think properly to get out of it. Escape rooms are games that are rolling according to a pre-defined scenario, with 60 minutes time slots. After receiving the hints and rules, you will be free from the abandoned hospital, terrible home or scenery from the horror only with the help of mutual support!

Why is team building in an escape room working so well?

Using team building games, you definitely want the time spent on them to translate into effects in your daily work. Often, scenes or exercises arranged in an artificial way do not allow us to perceive the strength of common work, and after their completion, the employees return to the system of working on their own. An unquestionable advantage of  escape rooms is the fact that solving the puzzles will not be possible alone due to the limited amount of time, as well as the complexity of the issues - just like during everyday tasks. Regardless of whether you start the game as a self-sufficient unit or an underestimated office mouse, after completing it you will be part of the body that will be created during a joint adventure.

How is it working?

We need various skills to solve puzzles, analytical thinking, perceptiveness, as well as unconventional ideas. Each of the trapped participants has the chance to show off in the part of the game where they feel best. With successive solutions, the work goes more and more efficiently, and employees recognize that each of them has a function and is an important part of the whole team. Encouraged to brainstorm, they improve each other's ideas and proposals instead of rivaling each other (as is the case with paintball f.e). A common goal, a bit of adrenaline and motivation to complete the task in regular time, give satisfactory results.

Team games for adults and work in the office

A few days training, which explains the importance of teamwork, is outdated. Today, we use a lot of shorter, more interesting and effective methods - including team games for adults. These in practice shows how important cooperation between employees is in their daily working routin. In the case of an escape room, within a short time and without too much effort a team can experience its team abilities. The characteristics of working together will also be similar to what you do on a daily basis, so you will easily transfer the acquired skills to a professional ground. When choosing a game for your team, do not forget that common entertainment also – funny, shared memories build up an important base of trust and companionship and allow your team to get to know each other better.

If you are still wondering if the team building in the escape room is effective - come and check it yourself!