Collections

Pick by the constraint you actually have

Most of the time the question is not “what would be fun” but “what fits fifteen minutes, forty people, a video call and no budget”. These lists are cut that way.

Virtual team building

Activities built for a video call, not squeezed into one

Nothing here asks a remote team to mime, stand up on camera or wait twenty minutes for a turn. Every run sheet assumes a grid of faces, a chat box and at least one person on a phone in a car park.

23 activities

In-person team building

For a room, a hallway or a field

Activities that use physical space, materials you can hand round and the kind of noise a video call cannot carry.

25 activities

Quick icebreakers

Fifteen minutes or less, start of a meeting

Short openers for the top of a stand-up, a workshop or an all-hands. Long enough to change the temperature of a room, short enough that nobody resents them.

9 activities

New hire onboarding

For the first two weeks, when nobody knows who to ask

The fastest thing you can give a new starter is a map of who knows what. These activities build that map without a slide deck.

8 activities

Remote team rituals

Small things, repeated weekly

Distributed teams are not short of events. They are short of texture between events. These are designed to repeat without going stale.

12 activities

Large group events

Thirty people and up, one facilitator

Activities that scale by splitting, rotating or running in parallel — so the fiftieth person is as involved as the fifth.

15 activities

No budget needed

Nothing to buy, nothing to book

Everything on this list runs with a room, a call, or paper you already have. Useful when the team building line item is the first thing cut.

26 activities

Offsites & retreats

Longer blocks for a day away

Activities with enough substance to anchor a morning or an afternoon, and debriefs that connect back to the work you came to talk about.

19 activities

Giving back

Team building with an output someone else keeps

Volunteering and community work done as a team. The bonding is a side effect of doing something real, which is why it tends to land harder than a game.

2 activities

Leadership development

Practice at directing, delegating and deciding

Activities that put people in charge of something small so they can find out how they lead before the stakes are real.

5 activities

Seasonal & holiday

For the end of the year, and the quiet weeks around it

Seasonal activities that work for a mixed team — no assumed holiday, no assumed beliefs, no forced jumper.

7 activities