On-Site Team Building: When Time Gets Cut to the Bare Minimum

With the trend towards shorter and shorter time frames,  it can be challenging to keep team building upbeat and interactive and yet retain the essential ingredients for effective team building.  I have previously blogged about one day team building pitfalls and how team building participants are getting shortchanged in the push for shorter team building.  must stress the fact that short team building is far from ideal as a stand-alone.

Despite all the cautions, the trend towards short timeframes is clearly not going to disappear any time soon.

On-site team building does not have to be boring.

Some of our most effective team building was originally delivered in corporate meeting rooms. Eventually, we expanded our offerings to take the sessions off site to the simulated destinations and incorporated activities to “flesh out” the theme. The programmes are just as compelling when delivered on-site.

Here are some tips to get the most out of short, on-site team building:

8 Tips for Short Team Building

1. If time is really short, cut to the chase. Set the context and focus all exercises on generating strategies to address specific business issues.
2. Select a theme that parallels and reflects the core issue(s) the organization is confronting.
3. Reinforce your theme through props, visuals, menu items for breaks, background music, and upbeat DVDs.
4. Use a virtual meeting, slideshare presentation and email blasts to cover key content that is primarily informational about a week prior to the session.
5. Use one very vivid vehicle to present your content during the team briefing (e.g. a skit, short and targeted game).
6. Select a unique setting for the team exercise (e.g. outdoors, verandah, shisha tent in the parking lot, patio, gazebos).
7. Create a visual and tactile interface for the team exercise. (e.g. giant index cards or post-its, butcher block paper covering tables, game boards).
8. Get groups to use a creative method to report back about their findings (e.g. collages, storyboards, TV commercials, infographics, Pinterest Boards).

Short Team Building Formats

While I consider the following formats to be far from ideal, here are 2 formats for effective team building when a longer session just isn’t possible.

Business Issue Focus:

• 15 Minutes: Session starter Exercise (upon arrival or right after lunch to identify key issues for the session (in pairs and trios)
• 15 minutes: CEO briefing to convey relevance to organizational issues and challenges
• 15 Minutes: Debrief Session Starter
• 30 minutes: Team Briefing by Facilitator to provide overview and zero in on key issues
• 1 Hour: Short Brainstorming Exercise Focusing on Issues Identified During Session starter.
  Here are some ideas for brainstorming 6 Brainstorming Tools.
• 15 Minutes: Break
• 30 Minutes: Debriefing Questions in Teams
• 15 Minutes: Mini-Presentations of Results from Team Exercise.
• 30 Minutes: Debriefing. Use an upbeat method for debriefing.
• 15 Minutes: Wrap up and Next Steps

Total: 4 Hours

What’s missing is any type of business simulation or recreational activity to promote team bonding. The facilitator has to work extra hard to engage participants and retain any element of the fun factor. The 8 tips shared earlier will help.

To buy yourself more time, begin with an early lunch (i.e. 11:30). Get creative and experiment with interactive working lunch formats that reinforce your theme. This will ensure that everyone is present for the start of your session.

To ensure that your session finishes by 4:30. Schedule the CEO briefing for the last 15 minutes of lunch. Be sure to serve his or her table first so that they are finished eating in time to present.

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Short Business Simulation Format:

• Snack 10:00 Start time of session. 
• 15 Minutes: 10:15 Session starter Exercise (upon arrival or right after lunch to identify key issues for the session (in pairs and trios)
• 15 minutes: 10:30 CEO briefing to convey relevance to organizational issues and challenges
• 30 minutes: 10:45 Team Briefing by Facilitator to provide overview and zero in on key issues
• 15 Minutes 11:15   Instructions for simulation, game or activity. (Games or activities must be set up in advance to save time.)
• 45 Minutes: 11:30 Serve Working Lunch with interactive format Over Lunchtime for teams to confer.
• 15 Minutes: Question period in last 15 minutes when participants are finishing lunch.
• 2  3/4 Hours: 12:15 Game, board game or short simulation – Some teams may not finish. Be prepared for critical feedback.  Example:  Cash Flow Game
• 15 Minutes: 3:00 Break
• 30 Minutes: 3:15 Debriefing Questions in Teams  (include questions about possible business applications).
• 30 Minutes: 3:45 Debriefing
• 15 Minutes: 4:15 Wrap up and Next Steps

Total: 6 1/2 Hours including lunch

To buy yourself more time, begin with a mid morning break  (i.e. 10:00) and start your session at 10:30. This will ensure that everyone is present for the CEO briefing.

To ensure that your session finishes by 4:30. Schedule the CEO briefing for the last 15 minutes of lunch. Be sure to serve his or her table first so that they are finished eating in time to present.

Programmes that fit this format:

• Restaurant Inc. – Facilitated Team Building Simulation That Includes Cooking
• Team Building with Toys
• The Ice Factory – Team Building Simulation That includes ice Sculpting
• Cash Flow Game

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Now that you have sampled our innovative team building approaches through this blog, we hope that you will keep Executive Oasis International in mind the next time your company requires team building, an executive retreat or on-site consulting to boost the effectiveness of your teams.

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