How do you do team-building?

Question

Team building, in my opinion, is often misunderstood concept! The wikipedia definition is also very theoretical.

But i think it is real critical skill for any team leader.

So, How do you "team-build"?

Do you just book some conference room in a big hotel and discuss the same things you do at your regular meetings?

Or you do you take your team to some place nice to have some fun group activity?

Or do you hire some professional speaker to give a great lecture?

What is your experience and what has worked for you??

Cheers

Answer 1

My office is fairly small and we're all guys, so my experience may differ greatly from the norm. I find that interacting with each other as if you were friends as well as colleagues works about as well as anything. We drink beer, go fishing, watch movies, just maintain a friendship. This is not to say that everybody has to be great mates, but it does mean that we're comfortable with each other.

Answer 2

Team building is a very complex matter, as people are very different. To build a team you need a good understanding of humans and lots of practice.

I fear, there are no "simple" way to learn team building - only hard work and training.

Answer 3

I think conference room and hotel is a big no. The last thing you want to do when trying to build better inter-personal relationships with a team is to re-enforce the corporate work atmosphere. Definitely think of something fun that everyone can do and just hang out and let loose. This is somewhat easier if everyone is in the same age range, but I've seen it work in general. Even something as simple as booking some bowling lanes for a few hours and then going for dinner and a few beers afterwards goes a long way to making everyone feel more comfortable with each other. If you're a leader, dinner and drinks is also a good time to congratulate everyone on a job well done and say something motivational :)

Answer 4

It turned out that competition works best. In fact competition outside office - some sport activity or sth. like this. We played bowling and there were winners and everybody had fun. Afterparty is also important - especially, when your boss leaves earlier leaving you some funds to spend.

Answer 5

We've been doing annual holidays with the entire company. SOs are invited along. We find some company that helps us organise by booking the right hotels, restaurants etc and then we take off there on a Thursday evening by car (so people group up together and talk on the way there) for a roughly 2 hour drive to the destination (some parents need to be within emergency return range in case something happens with their kids).

Once there, we have 3 days in which we do various "touristy" activities and have great dinners in expensive restaurants. Inbetween organised events, people get to hang out wherever (bars, lounges, hotel lobby, whatever). And the great thing is that because of the shared activities, you'll find out you're thrown together with people you don't usually get a chance to talk to in the office, and as such you'll realise they're a lot more interesting than you thought.

I'd think that's part of the goal of "team building". Getting to know the SOs also brings a new dimension to co-workers you thought you knew so well...

Anyway, in terms of patterns, it seems like the best thing to do is take your team to an environment completely unrelated to work, do stuff that's completely unrelated to work and hence slowly create a space in which people can freely get to know each other outside the bounds of the work floor.

One great thing we notice each year is the amount of people making plans outside of work greatly increases immediately following the holiday. So, mission accomplished, I think.

Answer 6

Personally I feel you have to do something that encourages team interaction on a whole. For instance, my company recently took us all out to a baseball game, which was incredibly nice of them. However, we ended up all sticking to our usual clicks, and interacting with the people we normally be hanging out at work with anyways. I tend to suggest something fun, non-work related, that can build a bond between employees.

A few fun things to consider:

Trivia Games Sports (soccer, baseball, kickball, etc) Paintball (legal crap can prevent this, waivers necessary)

Anything that gets the group together, and acting like a team while having fun. The hardest part is getting everyone to trust each other, and that's especially hard in a stressful work environment. Hence, fun team activities reduce the stress, and let people bring their guards down a bit.

Answer 7

I think a degree of caution is required. Teams cannot be forced. When I was a team-member, I loathed most team-building activities, because they were blunt instruments applied to a subtle problem. The unspoken assumption was that we didn't want to be a team, and had to be manipulated into being one. This did not lead to a positive attitude.

The problem with most approaches to team-building is that they don't stop to consider what they mean by "team". You've got to define what you're trying to achieve. The usual minimal goal is to have a group of people that:

1. Are considerate to each other
2. Help each other out without being prompted
3. Understand and work efficiently toward a common goal
4. Have complimentary skills and understand and value what each other can contribute

There is no single approach that will achieve all of these goals in all situations and all teams. The great thing is that humans are (generally) predisposed to co-operation, so mostly all you have to do is remove any obstacles. A team should be the natural state of your employees. If they're not working as a team, then something is wrong, and you need to fix it.

For instance, maybe your team-members are arguing. Perhaps the root cause is everyone's tired and stressed. This is one instance where I'd consider a "fun" activity, but I wouldn't couch it as a "team-building" event. I'd give it as a thank-you for hitting a milestone, a "blow off steam" event. Maybe everyone just needs to start going home on time, and you've got to work out how to make that happen.

Basically, I'd say:

• Think about what you want to achieve
• Deal with each situation on its own merits
• Remember that they're people, not resources

Answer 8

I was the leader of programming teams for several years. My experience was that at the beginning you have just a group of persons (not a team). This is a very loooong subject to discuss about (but no complex). I'll try to summarize the most important issues in the process:

1. You are managing PERSONS not machines nor slaves.
2. It's your responsibility to start transforming this group in a team.
3. At the beginning you should give the first steps (See The Pragmatic Programmer, Chapter 1, Section 3: "Stone Soup and Boiled Frogs")
4. You ARE the example for them.
5. Members respect is a MUST TO HAVE, and it starts on you. You must respect everyone in your team, and make sure that everyone respect each other.
6. Every team member makes mistakes (including you).
7. If you made a fault, you MUST recognize it publicly with your team, and tell how you will fix it.
8. If you have to blame some one, do this privately. If you have to congratulate some one DO THIS publicly in company with the others team members.
9. Remember that when you are talking with your Boss that the job was done by you AND your team. You shouldn't assume all the credits.
10. Don't bother your team members with project problems. You must always protect them from outside problems. It's your responsibility to manage it.
11. If you have to blame the team, do it with respect! May be the team fails due your fault, you must analyze it carefully (may be with them).
12. You aren't their mother.
13. After a hard work due to very high pressure to delivery something, give a break to the team members most affected.
14. And the most important from my point of view: Try to know very well each team member: their personality, problems, fears, hobbies, etc. That will help you make decisions. Example: A team member engaged with one or more son is different to manage than the Single whom lives alone in a small apartment without to much moth expenses.
15. It takes time to build a team, don't expect to have one in a couple of weeks.

There are more points to describe, but i think the listed above are enough to you to start transforming your group into a team.

Good luck!

Answer 9

Teambuilding is a very delicate matter depending very much on the personalities you have on the team.

I found that with most tech-oriented teams the best approach was to have a constant effort focused on technical problems or geeky activity. The most successful practices I encountered integrated nicely in the workplace and where not of the "lets go out and play outside in the real world" type. They allowed to be skipped by some of the more social awkward members of the team in the beginning but had enough attraction and accessibility to draw them in at their pace.

To give a few examples:

• Tech lectures. Every two weeks or so let every team member give some kind of presentation regardless of the relevance of the subject to the actual work. Even when not scheduling a Q&A afterwards in my experience most team members discussed the presentation afterwards (helps to have a snack table and coffee machine in the vicinity). Since most people will choose a subject they are well versed in this will also lead to a better recognition of that persons skills from the other team members.

• Lunching together. Especially in smaller firms having lunch together is a fun way to get everyone to socialize in their everyday environment.

• Gaming. Most techs will be gamers of some sort and having a console around to beat each others highscore or getting together for an after-work gaming session will create friendly competition and recognition. Keep a close eye on it though or you might end up with a team of highly trained gamers and a product that misses all deadlines by miles.

But remember that what works for one team may lead to completely opposite results in another, the key is to constantly evaluate your team's mood and interaction and not force anything down their throat.

Also remember that you are part of the team as well and should not stand outside the circle. One of my early mistakes was to fantasize how effective my newly great teambuilding measure was and how it will bring the whole team closer together than the A-team, only to find to my great disappointment that no one really liked the idea.

A friend of mine cleverly summarized those failures by comparing it to the efforts of a kid in the playground trying to monopolize what games are being played. I tried to stick to proposing ideas as well as listening to the proposition of others from then on and being prepared that the new pinball machine in the office might be ignored by everyone even if I chained them to it.

Hope that helps :)

Answer 10

If this is a development team,

Pair with other team members. Try to pair programme with each member at least once a week. This helps to find out how they work, their strengths and weaknesses.

Let team members own actions from meetings. Let them own code quality metrics/standards and champion them in the team.

Remove blocking issues, protect the team and keep them focused.

If you are using scrum, rotate the scrum master role each week.

Allow them to make decisions, arbitrate not dictate

Be there for the team, answer questions, be ready to drop everything to help. Over time everyone helps each other.

Sit with the team, keeps you on top of things and the team has access to you.

Most of all have food/snacks in the team area. Chocolates, sweets.. Doughnut Fridays.

Answer 11

Whatever you do, don't do one of those cheesy, day-long "team building exercise" things unless you really think your team will go for it.

They can be done well and there's professionals out there who can help you coordinate this (my wife is an event planner so she knows a few) but if you do it wrong you'll come across as giving your employees "adult day care" and they'll lose respect for you.

Three jobs ago, we had one of those "team building exercise" things at a job and every single activity was awkward and horrible. One of them involved us all standing in a line, each person connected by holding one end of an uncooked piece of spaghetti. We then had to do an obstacle course without breaking the spaghetti. It was sort of funny but then the organizer (just an employee) had to make some heavy handed analogy about how we have to work as a team and the spaghetti was somehow symbolic of the bonds our teams form with each other.

Suffice it to say I called in sick the following year on that day, as did about half the staff. I quit shortly thereafter.

Answer 12

I've had various different kinds of team-build activities; some successful, and others not.

One of our events was a day at Pladiyum (an arcade). It was awful; especially for any females in the group who weren't into gaming. We had the event designed by Pladiyum themselves, and it mostly focused on 'competition' and splitting up the team to see who would win...It wasn't nearly as friendly as it should be. I imagine it was because most people had been to an arcade before and knew whether they liked it or not.

Out of the many successful events we had, both involved doing an activity that most people hadn't done in the group. So most people had something in common, and the experts were excited to teach everyone. This was particularly nice when you have a supervisor vs. subordinate, because now the subordinate would be the one that's teaching. One of these events was rafting, and another one was Golf.

Golf was particularly nice for me. I am not someone who enjoys watching Golf. I lack patience, and need "speed" to really have fun. However, the way they organized the event was very good. They had teams of 4 (4 per golf cart), one of which was an expert, one beginner, and two in between. The expert would encourage folks, answer all the silly questions...etc. The game was never about winning, instead just learning. I loved it. I probably wouldn't waste $$ going to golf, but I wouldn't mind going again :)

So..all in all I'd recommend an event that doesn't single out folks and gives people an opportunity to learn. Even though our group was of 4 people, once I became comfortable around them...we started joking around, talking to other folks (as we are waiting for their turn), etc. Plus the BBQ afterwards was awesome :)

Answer 13

I went to Team building traning. I got a few key points which are very helpful. So, I blogged them.

http://techmaddy.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-succeed-as-team-from-my-training.html

Answer 14

A team needs an enemy image. - I lead the kitchen team at McDonald's and our goal was to crush drive through and we did, almost every time. Maybe take your team out for a game of paintball against another department or competing business.