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17 Unbeatable Team Building Problem Solving Activities
Problem-solving is a critical skill for professionals and with team building problem-solving activities, you can sharpen your skills while having fun at the same time.
Updated on August 31, 2021
In the professional world, one thing is for sure: problem-solving is a vital skill if you want to survive and thrive. It’s a universal job skill that organizations seek in new potential employees and that managers look for when considering candidates for promotions.
But there’s a problem. According to Payscale , 60% of managers feel that new grads entering the workforce lack problem-solving abilities – making it the most commonly lacked soft skill.
Problem-solving skill needs to be practiced and perfected on an ongoing basis in order to be applied effectively when the time comes. And while there are tons of traditional approaches to becoming a better problem-solver, there’s another (much more interesting) option: team building problem solving activities.
The good news? This means learning and having fun don’t have to be mutually exclusive. And you can create a stronger team at the same time.
11 In-Person Team Building Problem Solving Activities for Your Work Group
1. cardboard boat building challenge, 2. egg drop , 3. clue murder mystery, 4. marshmallow spaghetti tower , 5. corporate escape room, 6. wild goose chase, 7. lost at sea , 8. domino effect challenge, 9. reverse pyramid , 10. ci: the crime investigators, 11. team pursuit, 5 virtual team building problem solving activities for your work group , 1. virtual escape room: mummy’s curse, 2. virtual clue murder mystery, 3. virtual escape room: jewel heist, 4. virtual code break , 5. virtual trivia time machine.
- 6. Virtual Jeoparty Social
There are a ton of incredible team building problem solving activities available. We’ve hand-picked 11 of our favorites that we think your corporate group will love too.
Split into teams and create a cardboard boat made out of just the materials provided: cardboard and tape. Team members will have to work together to engineer a functional boat that will float and sail across water without sinking. Once teams have finished making their boats, they will create a presentation to explain why their boat is the best, before putting their boats to the test. The final challenge will have teams racing their boats to test their durability! Nothing says problem-solving like having to make sure you don’t sink into the water!
Every day at work, you’re forced to make countless decisions – whether they’re massively important or so small you barely think about them.
But your ability to effectively make decisions is critical in solving problems quickly and effectively.
With a classic team building problem solving activity like the Egg Drop, that’s exactly what your team will learn to do.
For this activity, you’ll need some eggs, construction materials, and a place you wouldn’t mind smashing getting dirty with eggshells and yolks.
The goal of this activity is to create a contraption that will encase an egg and protect it from a fall – whether it’s from standing height or the top of a building. But the challenge is that you and your team will only have a short amount of time to build it before it’s time to test it out, so you’ll have to think quickly!
To make it even more challenging, you’ll have to build the casing using only simple materials like:
- Newspapers
- Plastic wrap
- Rubber bands
- Popsicle sticks
- Cotton balls
Feel free to have some fun in picking the materials. Use whatever you think would be helpful without making things too easy!
Give your group 15 minutes to construct their egg casing before each team drops their eggs. If multiple eggs survive, increase the height gradually to see whose created the sturdiest contraption.
If you’re not comfortable with the idea of using eggs for this activity, consider using another breakable alternative, such as lightbulbs for a vegan Egg Drop experience.
With Clue Murder Mystery, your team will need to solve the murder of a man named Neil Davidson by figuring out who had the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the crime.
But it won’t be easy! You’ll need to exercise your best problem-solving skills and channel your inner detectives if you want to keep this case from going cold and to get justice for the victim.
Collaboration is critical to problem solving.
Why? Because, as the old saying goes, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This expression reflects the fact that people are capable of achieving greater things when they work together to do so.
If you’re looking for a team building problem solving activity that helps boost collaboration, you’ll love Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower.
This game involves working in teams to build the tallest possible freestanding tower using only marshmallows, uncooked spaghetti, tape, and string.
The kicker? This all has to be done within an allotted timeframe. We recommend about thirty minutes.
For an added dimension of challenge, try adding a marshmallow to the top of the tower to make it a little more top heavy.
Whichever team has the highest tower when time runs out is the winner!
If you’ve never participated in an escape room, your team is missing out! It’s one of the most effective team building problem solving activities out there because it puts you and your colleagues in a scenario where the only way out is collaboratively solving puzzles and deciphering clues.
The principle is simple: lock your group in a room, hide the key somewhere in that room, and have them work through challenges within a set time frame. Each challenge will lead them one step closer to finding the key and, ultimately, their escape.
At Outback, we offer “done-for-you” escape rooms where we’ll transform your office or meeting room so you don’t have to worry about:
- Seeking transportation for your team
- Capacity of the escape rooms
- High costs
- Excessive planning
That way, you and your team can simply step inside and get to work collaborating, using creative problem solving, and thinking outside the box.
In this smartphone-based scavenger hunt team building activity , your group will split into teams and complete fun challenges by taking photos and videos around the city. Some examples of challenges you can do in this activity are:
- Parkour: Take a picture of three team members jumping over an object that’s at least waist-high.
- Beautiful Mind: Snap a photo of a team member proving a well-known mathematical theorem on a chalkboard.
- Puppy Love: Take a photo of all of your team members petting a stranger’s dog at the same time.
It takes a ton of critical thinking and problem-solving to be crowned the Wild Goose Chase Champions!
Can you imagine a higher-pressure situation than being stranded at sea in a lifeboat with your colleagues?
With this team building problem solving activity, that’s exactly the situation you and your group will put yourselves. But by the time the activity is over, you’ll have gained more experience with the idea of having to solve problems under pressure – a common but difficult thing to do.
Here’s how it works.
Each team member will get a six-columned chart where:
- The first column lists the survival items each team has on hand (see the list below)
- The second column is empty so that each team member can rank the items in order of importance for survival
- The third column is for group rankings
- The fourth column is for the “correct” rankings, which are revealed at the end of the activity
- The fifth and sixth columns are for the team to enter thee difference between their individual and correct scores and the team and correct rankings
Within this activity, each team will be equipped with the following “survival items,” listed below in order of importance, as well as a pack of matches:
- A shaving mirror (this can be used to signal passing ships using the sun)
- A can of gas (could be used for signaling as it could be put in the water and lit with the pack of matches)
- A water container (for collecting water to re-hydrate)
- Emergency food rations (critical survival food)
- One plastic sheet (can be helpful for shelter or to collect rainwater)
- Chocolate bars (another food supply)
- Fishing rods (helpful, but no guarantee of catching food)
- Rope (can be handy, but not necessarily essential for survival)
- A floating seat cushion (usable as a life preserver)
- Shark repellant (could be important when in the water)
- A bottle of rum (could be useful for cleaning wounds)
- A radio (could be very helpful but there’s a good chance you’re out of range)
- A sea chart (this is worthless without navigation equipment)
- A mosquito net (unless you’ve been shipwrecked somewhere with a ton of mosquitos, this isn’t very useful)
To get the activity underway, divide your group into teams of five and ask each team member to take ten minutes on their own to rank the items in order of importance in the respective column. Then, give the full team ten minutes as a group to discuss their individual rankings together and take group rankings, listed in that respective column. Ask each group to compare their individual rankings with those of the group as a whole.
Finally, read out the correct order according to the US Coast Guard, listed above.
The goal of this activity is for everyone to be heard and to come to a decision together about what they need most to survive.
If your team works remotely, you can also do this activity online. Using a video conferencing tool like Zoom , you can bring your group together and separate teams into “break-out rooms” where they’ll take their time individually and then regroup together. At the end, you can bring them back to the full video conference to go through the answers together.
Many problems are intricately complex and involve a ton of moving parts. And in order to solve this type of problem, you need to be able to examine it systematically, one piece at a time.
Especially in the business world, many problems or challenges involve multiple different teams or departments working through their respective portions of a problem before coming together in the end to create a holistic solution.
As you can imagine, this is often easier said than done. And that’s why it’s so important to practice this ability.
With a collaborative team building problem solving activity like Domino Effect Challenge, that’s exactly what you’ll need to do as you and your group work to create a massive, fully functional chain reaction machine.
Here’s how it goes.
Your group will break up into teams, with each team working to complete their own section of a massive “Rube Goldberg” machine. Then, all teams will regroup and assemble the entire machine together. You’ll need to exercise communication, collaboration, and on-the-fly problem solving in order to make your chain reaction machine go off without a hitch from start to finish.
Being a great problem-solver means being adaptable and creative. And if you’re looking for a quick and easy team building problem solving activity, you’ll love the reverse pyramid.
The idea here is simple: break your group out into small teams and then stand in the form of a pyramid.
Your challenge is to flip the base and the peak of the pyramid – but you can only move three people in order to do so.
Alternatively, rather than doing this activity with people as the pyramid, you can do another version – the Pyramid Build – using plastic cups instead.
This version is a little bit different. Rather than flipping the base of a pyramid to the top, you’ll need to build the pyramid instead–but in reverse, starting from the top cup and working down.
With this version, you’ll need 36 cups and one table per group. We recommend groups of five to seven people. Give your group 20 to 30 minutes to complete the activity.
To get started, place one cup face down. Then, lift that cup and place the subsequent two cups underneath it.
The real challenge here? You can only lift your pyramid by the bottom row in order to put a new row underneath – and only one person at a time can do the lifting. The remaining group members will need to act quickly and work together in order to add the next row so that it will balance the rest of the pyramid.
If any part of your pyramid falls, you’ll need to start over. Whichever team has the most complete pyramid when time runs out will be the winner!
The value of being able to approach problems analytically can’t be overstated. Because when problems arise, the best way to solve them is by examining the facts and making a decision based on what you know.
With CI: The Crime Investigators, this is exactly what your team will be called upon to do as you put your detective’s hats on and work to solve a deadly crime.
You’ll be presented with evidence and need to uncover and decipher clues. And using only the information at your disposal, you’ll need to examine the facts in order to crack the case.
Like many of our team building problem solving activities, CI: The Crime Investigators is available in a hosted format, which can take place at your office or an outside venue, as well as a virtually-hosted format that uses video conferencing tools, or a self-hosted version that you can run entirely on your own.
Each member of your team has their own unique strengths and skills. And by learning to combine those skills, you can overcome any challenge and solve any problem. With Team Pursuit, you and your team together to tackle challenges as you learn new things about one another, discover your hidden talents, and learn to rely on each other.
This team building problem solving activity is perfect for high-energy groups that love to put their heads together and work strategically to solve problems as a group.
If you and your team are working remotely, don’t worry. You still have a ton of great virtual team building problem solving options at your disposal.
In this virtual escape room experience, your team will be transported into a pyramid cursed by a restless mummy. You’ll have to work together to uncover clues and solve complex challenges to lift the ancient curse.
You’ve probably never heard of a man named Neil Davidson. But your group will need to come together to solve the mystery of his murder by analyzing clues, resolving challenges, and figuring out who had the means, motive, and opportunity to commit a deadly crime.
This activity will challenge you and your group to approach problems analytically, read between the lines, and use critical thinking in order to identify a suspect and deliver justice.
If you and your team like brainteasers, then Virtual Escape Room: Jewel Heist will be a big hit.
Here’s the backstory.
There’s been a robbery. Someone has masterminded a heist to steal a priceless collection of precious jewels, and it’s up to you and your team to recover them before time runs out.
Together, you’ll need to uncover hidden clues and solve a series of brain-boggling challenges that require collaboration, creative problem-solving, and outside-the-box thinking. But be quick! The clock is ticking before the stolen score is gone forever.
With Virtual Code Break, you and your team can learn to be adaptive and dynamic in your thinking in order to tackle any new challenges that come your way. In this activity, your group will connect on a video conferencing platform where your event host will split you out into teams. Together, you’ll have to adapt your problem-solving skills as you race against the clock to tackle a variety of mixed brainteaser challenges ranging from Sudoku to puzzles, a game of Cranium, riddles, and even trivia.
Curious to see how a virtual team building activity works? Check out this video on a Virtual Clue Murder Mystery in action.
Step into the Outback Time Machine and take a trip through time, from pre-pandemic 21st century through the decades all the way to the 60’s.
This exciting, fast-paced virtual trivia game, packed with nostalgia and good vibes, is guaranteed to produce big laughs, friendly competition, and maybe even some chair-dancing.
Your virtual game show host will warm up guests with a couple of “table hopper rounds” (breakout room mixers) and split you out into teams. Within minutes, your home office will be transformed into a game show stage with your very own game show buzzers!
And if your team loves trivia, check out our list of the most incredible virtual trivia games for work teams for even more ideas.
6. Virtual Jeoparty Social
If your remote team is eager to socialize, have some fun as a group, and channel their competitive spirit, we’ve got just the thing for you! With Virtual Jeoparty Social, you and your colleagues will step into your very own virtual Jeopardy-style game show—equipped with a buzzer button, a professional actor as your host, and an immersive game show platform! Best of all, this game has been infused with an ultra-social twist: players will take part in a unique social mixer challenge between each round.
With the right team building problem solving activities, you can help your team sharpen their core skills to ensure they’re prepared when they inevitably face a challenge at work. And best of all, you can have fun in the process.
Do you have any favorite team building activities for building problem-solving skills? If so, tell us about them in the comments section below!
Learn More About Team Building Problem Solving Activities
For more information about how your group can take part in a virtual team building, training, or coaching solution, reach out to our Employee Engagement Consultants.
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Top 15 Problem-Solving Activities for Your Team to Master
Some people see problems as roadblocks, others see them as opportunities! Problem-solving activities are a great way to get to know how members of your team work, both individually and together. It’s important to teach your team strategies to help them quickly overcome obstacles in the way of achieving project goals.
In this article, you’ll explore 15 problem-solving activities designed to enhance collaboration and creativity. Additionally, if you want to discuss the insights and outcomes with your team after the activities, you can use Wrike’s actionable meeting notes template. This template allows you to record meeting discussions, assign action items, and ensure that everyone is on the same page.
The importance of problem-solving skills in today’s workplace
According to a 2019 report by McKinsey , soft skills are increasingly important in today's world — and problem-solving is the top area in which skills are lacking. A company or team’s success weighs heavily on the willingness of managers to help employees improve their problem-solving abilities. Team building activities targeting focus areas like communication and collaboration, adaptability, or strengthening decision-making techniques help.
All problem-solving processes start with identifying the problem. Next, the team must assess potential courses of action and choose the best way to tackle the problem. This requires a deep understanding of your team and its core strengths. A problem-solving exercise or game helps identify those strengths and builds problem-solving skills and strategies while having fun with your team.
Problem-solving games aren't for just any team. Participants must have an open mind and accept all ideas and solutions . They must also have an Agile mindset and embrace different structures, planning, and processes. Problems usually arise when we least expect them, so there's no better way to prepare than to encourage agility and flexibility.
Another aspect to keep in mind when engaging in problem-solving games and activities: There are no winners or losers. Sure, some games might end with a single winner, but the true goal of these exercises is to learn how to work together as a team to develop an Agile mindset. The winning team of each game should share their strategies and thought processes at the end of the exercise to help everyone learn.
Here’s a list of fun problem-solving activity examples to try with your team. From blindfolds to raw eggs, these problem-solving, team-building activities will have your team solving problems faster than Scooby and the gang.
Classic team-building, problem-solving activities
1. a shrinking vessel.
Helps with: Adaptability
Why adaptability is important for problem-solving: Adaptability is highly associated with cognitive diversity, which helps teams solve problems faster , according to the Harvard Business Review. Innovation and disruption are happening faster than ever before . People, teams, and organizations that can adapt will come out on top.
What you’ll need:
- A rope or string
Instructions:
1. Using the rope, make a shape on the floor everyone can fit into.
2. Slowly shrink the space over 10-15 minutes.
3. Work together to figure out how to keep everyone within the shrinking boundaries.
2. Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower
Helps with: Collaboration
Why collaboration is important for problem-solving: “Collectively, we can be more insightful, more intelligent than we can possibly be individually,” writes Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline . We can solve problems better as a team than we can alone, which means developing your team’s collaboration skills will lead to better problem-solving outcomes.
What you’ll need (per team):
- 20 sticks of uncooked spaghetti
- 1 roll of masking tape
- 1 yard of string
- 1 marshmallow
1. The goal of this exercise is to see which team can use the materials provided to build the tallest tower within an allotted time period. The tower must be able to stand on its own.
2. To make this exercise more challenging, try adding a marshmallow to the top of the tower. This team problem-solving exercise helps people think on their toes while building camaraderie and leadership.
3. Egg Drop
Helps with: Collaboration, decision-making
Why decision-making is important for problem-solving: Making decisions isn’t easy , but indecision leads to team paralysis, stagnant thinking, and unsolved problems. Decision-making activities help your team practice making quick, effective choices. Train your team’s decision-making muscles and they will become more adept at problem-solving.
- A carton of eggs
- Basic construction materials such as newspapers, straws, tape, plastic wrap, balloons, rubber bands, popsicle sticks, etc., tarp, or drop cloth
- A parking lot, or some other place you don’t mind getting messy!
1. Each team gets an egg and must select from the construction materials.
2. Give everyone 20-30 minutes to construct a carrier for the egg and protect it from breaking.
3. Drop each egg carrier off a ledge (i.e. over a balcony) and see whose carrier protects the egg from breaking.
4. If multiple eggs survive, keep increasing the height until only one egg is left.
4. Stranded
Helps with: Communication, decision-making
Why communication is important for problem-solving: More employees work remotely than ever before. Good communication skills are vital to solving problems across virtual teams . Working on communication skills while your team is together will help them solve problems more effectively when they’re apart.
Here's the setting: Your team has been stranded in the office. The doors are locked, and knocking down the doors or breaking the windows is not an option. Give your team 30 minutes to decide on ten items in the office they need for survival and rank them in order of importance. The goal of the game is to have everyone agree on the ten items and their rankings in 30 minutes.
Creative problem-solving activities
Helps with: Communication
What you'll need:
1. Divide everyone into small teams of two or more.
2. Select an overseer who isn't on a team to build a random structure using Lego building blocks within ten minutes.
3. The other teams must replicate the structure exactly (including size and color) within 15 minutes. However, only one member from each group may look at the original structure. They must figure out how to communicate the size, color, and shape of the original structure to their team.
4. If this is too easy, add a rule that the member who can see the original structure can't touch the new structure.
- A lockable room
- 5-10 puzzles or clues (depending on how much time you want to spend on the game)
1. The goal of this exercise is to solve the clues, find the key, and escape a locked room within the time allotted.
2. Hide the key and a list of clues around the room.
3. Gather the team into the empty room and "lock" the door.
4. Give them 30 minutes to an hour to find the key using the clues hidden around the room.
7. Frostbite
Helps with: Decision-making, adaptability
- A blindfold
- 1 packet of construction materials (such as card stock, toothpicks, rubber bands, and sticky notes) for each team
- An electric fan
Instructions: Your employees are Arctic explorers adventuring across an icy tundra! Separate them into teams of four or five and have them select a leader to guide their exploration. Each team must build a shelter from the materials provided before the storm hits in 30 minutes. However, both the team leader’s hands have frostbite, so they can’t physically help construct the shelter, and the rest of the team has snow blindness and is unable to see. When the 30 minutes is up, turn on the fan and see which shelter can withstand the high winds of the storm.
8. Minefield
- An empty room or hallway
- A collection of common office items
1. Place the items (boxes, chairs, water bottles, bags, etc.) around the room so there's no clear path from one end of the room to the other.
2. Divide your team into pairs and blindfold one person on the team.
3. The other must verbally guide that person from one end of the room to the other, avoiding the "mines."
4. The partner who is not blindfolded can't touch the other.
5. If you want to make the activity more challenging, have all the pairs go simultaneously so teams must find ways to strategically communicate with each other.
9. Blind Formations
1. Have the group put on blindfolds and form a large circle.
2. Tie two ends of a rope together and lay it in a circle in the middle of the group, close enough so each person can reach down and touch it.
3. Instruct the group to communicate to create a shape with the rope — a square, triangle, rectangle, etc.
4. If you have a very large group, divide them into teams and provide a rope for each team. Let them compete to see who forms a particular shape quickest.
Quick and easy problem-solving activities
10. line up blind.
1. Blindfold everyone and whisper a number to each person, beginning with one.
2. Tell them to line up in numerical order without talking.
3. Instead of giving them a number, you could also have them line up numerically by height, age, birthday, etc.
11. Reverse Pyramid
Helps with: Adaptability, collaboration
1. Have everyone stand in a pyramid shape, horizontally.
2. Ask them to flip the base and the apex of the pyramid moving only three people.
3. This quick exercise works best when smaller groups compete to see who can reverse the pyramid the fastest.
12. Move It!
- Chalk, rope, tape, or paper (something to mark a space)
1. Divide your group into two teams and line them up front to back, facing each other.
2. Using the chalk, tape, rope, or paper (depending on the playing surface), mark a square space for each person to stand on. Leave one extra empty space between the two facing rows.
3. The goal is for the two facing lines of players to switch places.
4. Place these restrictions on movement:
- Only one person may move at a time.
- A person may not move around anyone facing the same direction.
- No one may not move backward.
- A person may not move around more than one person on the other team at a time.
13. Human Knot
1. Have everyone stand in a circle, and ask each person to hold hands with two people who aren’t directly next to them.
2. When everyone is tangled together, ask them to untangle the knot and form a perfect circle — without letting go of anyone's hand.
Our last two problem-solving activities work best when dealing with an actual problem:
14. Dumbest Idea First
Helps with: Instant problem-solving
1. "Dumb" ideas are sometimes the best ideas. Ask everyone to think of the absolute dumbest possible solution to the problem at hand.
2. After you have a long list, look through it and see which ones might not be as dumb as you think.
3. Brainstorm your solutions in Wrike. It's free and everyone can start collaborating instantly!
15. What Would X Do
1. Have everyone pretend they're someone famous.
2. Each person must approach the problem as if they were their chosen famous person. What options would they consider? How would they handle it?
3. This allows everyone to consider solutions they might not have thought of originally.
Looking for more team-building and virtual meeting games? Check out these virtual icebreaker games or our Ultimate Guide to Team Building Activities that Don't Suck.
Additional resources on problem-solving activities
- Problem-Solving Model : Looking for a model to provide a problem-solving structure? This detailed guide gives you the tools to quickly solve any problem.
- The Simplex Process: Popularized by Min Basadur's book, The Power of Innovation , the Simplex Process provides training and techniques for each problem-solving stage. It helps frame problem-solving as a continuous cycle, rather than a “one and done” process.
- Fun Problem-Solving Activities and Games : Looking for more ideas? Check out this list of interesting and creative problem-solving activities for adults and kids!
- The Secret to Better Problem-Solving: This article provides tips, use cases, and fresh examples to help you become a whiz at solving the toughest problems.
How to organize problem-solving activities with Wrike
If you want to make problem-solving activities more effective, consider using team collaboration software such as Wrike.
Wrike’s pre-built actionable meeting notes template helps you keep track of meeting discussions, assign action items, and keep everyone in the loop. It’s an effective tool to streamline your problem-solving sessions and turn insights into real projects.
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14 Best Team Building Problem Solving Group Activities For 2023
The best teams see solutions where others see problems. A great company culture is built around a collaborative spirit and the type of unity it takes to find answers to the big business questions.
So how can you get team members working together?
How can you develop a mentality that will help them overcome obstacles they have yet to encounter?
One of the best ways to improve your teams’ problem solving skills is through team building problem solving activities .
“86% of employees and executives cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures.” — Bit.AI
These activities can simulate true-to-life scenarios they’ll find themselves in, or the scenarios can call on your employees or coworkers to dig deep and get creative in a more general sense.
The truth is, on a day-to-day basis, you have to prepare for the unexpected. It just happens that team building activities help with that, but are so fun that they don’t have to feel like work ( consider how you don’t even feel like you’re working out when you’re playing your favorite sport or doing an exercise you actually enjoy! )
What are the benefits of group problem-solving activities?
The benefits of group problem-solving activities for team building include:
- Better communication
- Improved collaboration and teamwork
- More flexible thinking
- Faster problem-solving
- Better proactivity and decision making
Without further ado, check out this list of the 14 best team-building problem-solving group activities for 2023!
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Popular Problem Solving Activities
1. virtual team challenge.
Virtual Team Challenges are popular problem-solving activities that involve a group of people working together to solve an issue. The challenge generally involves members of the team brainstorming, discussing, and creating solutions for a given problem.
Participants work both individually and collaboratively to come up with ideas and strategies that will help them reach their goals.
Why this is a fun problem-solving activity: Participants can interact and communicate with each other in a virtual environment while simultaneously engaging with the problem-solving activities. This makes it an enjoyable experience that allows people to use their creative thinking skills, build team spirit, and gain valuable insights into the issue at hand.
Problem-solving activities such as Virtual Team Challenges offer a great way for teams to come together, collaborate, and develop creative solutions to complex problems.
2. Problem-Solving Templates
Problem-Solving Templates are popular problem-solving activities that involve a group of people working together to solve an issue. The challenge generally involves members of the team utilizing pre-made templates and creating solutions for a given problem with the help of visual aids.
This activity is great for teams that need assistance in getting started on their problem-solving journey.
Why this is a fun problem-solving activity: Problem-Solving Templates offer teams an easy and stress-free way to get the creative juices flowing. The visual aids that come with the templates help team members better understand the issue at hand and easily come up with solutions together.
This activity is great for teams that need assistance in getting started on their problem-solving journey, as it provides an easy and stress-free way to get the creative juices flowing.
Problem Solving Group Activities & Games For Team Building
3. coworker feud, “it’s all fun and games”.
Coworker Feud is a twist on the classic Family Feud game show! This multiple rapid round game keeps the action flowing and the questions going. You can choose from a variety of customizations, including picking the teams yourself, randomized teams, custom themes, and custom rounds.
Best for: Hybrid teams
Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Coworker Feud comes with digital game materials, a digital buzzer, an expert host, and a zoom link to get the participants ready for action! Teams compete with each other to correctly answer the survey questions. At the end of the game, the team with the most competitive answers is declared the winner of the Feud.
How to get started:
- Sign up for Coworker Feud
- Break into teams of 4 to 10 people
- Get the competitive juices flowing and let the games begin!
Learn more here: Coworker Feud
4. Crack The Case
“who’s a bad mamma jamma”.
Crack The Case is a classic WhoDoneIt game that forces employees to depend on their collective wit to stop a deadly murderer dead in his tracks! Remote employees and office commuters can join forces to end this crime spree.
Best for: Remote teams
Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: The Virtual Clue Murder Mystery is an online problem solving activity that uses a proprietary videoconferencing platform to offer the chance for employees and coworkers to study case files, analyze clues, and race to find the motive, the method, and the individual behind the murder of Neil Davidson.
- Get a custom quote here
- Download the app
- Let the mystery-solving collaboration begin!
Learn more here: Crack The Case
5. Catch Meme If You Can
“can’t touch this”.
Purposefully created to enhance leadership skills and team bonding , Catch Meme If You Can is a hybrid between a scavenger hunt and an escape room . Teammates join together to search for clues, solve riddles, and get out — just in time!
Best for: Small teams
Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Catch Meme If You Can is an adventure with a backstory. Each team has to submit their answer to the puzzle in order to continue to the next part of the sequence. May the best team escape!
- The teams will be given instructions and the full storyline
- Teams will be split into a handful of people each
- The moderator will kick off the action!
Learn more here: Catch Meme If You Can
6. Puzzle Games
“just something to puzzle over”.
Puzzle Games is the fresh trivia game to test your employees and blow their minds with puzzles, jokes , and fun facts!
Best for: In-person teams
Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Eight mini brain teaser and trivia style games include word puzzles, name that nonsense, name that tune, and much more. Plus, the points each team earns will go towards planting trees in the precious ecosystems and forests of Uganda
- Get a free consultation for your team
- Get a custom designed invitation for your members
- Use the game link
- Dedicated support will help your team enjoy Puzzle Games to the fullest!
Learn more here: Puzzle Games
7. Virtual Code Break
“for virtual teams”.
Virtual Code Break is a virtual team building activity designed for remote participants around the globe. Using a smart video conferencing solution, virtual teams compete against each other to complete challenges, answer trivia questions, and solve brain-busters!
Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Virtual Code Break can be played by groups as small as 4 people all the way up to more than 1,000 people at once. However, every team will improve their communication and problem-solving skills as they race against the clock and depend on each other’s strengths to win!
- Reach out for a free consultation to align the needs of your team
- An event facilitator will be assigned to handle all of the set-up and logistics
- They will also provide you with logins and a play-by-play of what to expect
- Sign into the Outback video conferencing platform and join your pre-assigned team
- Lastly, let the games begin!
Learn more here: Virtual Code Break
8. Stranded
“survivor: office edition”.
Stranded is the perfect scenario-based problem solving group activity. The doors of the office are locked and obviously your team can’t just knock them down or break the windows.
Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Your team has less than half an hour to choose 10 items around the office that will help them survive. They then rank the items in order of importance. It’s a bit like the classic game of being lost at sea without a lifeboat.
- Get everyone together in the office
- Lock the doors
- Let them start working together to plan their survival
Learn more here: Stranded
9. Letting Go Game
“for conscious healing”.
The Letting Go Game is a game of meditation and mindfulness training for helping teammates thrive under pressure and reduce stress in the process. The tasks of the Letting Go Game boost resiliency, attentiveness, and collaboration.
Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Expert-guided activities and awareness exercises encourage team members to think altruistically and demonstrate acts of kindness. Between yoga, face painting, and fun photography, your employees or coworkers will have more than enough to keep them laughing and growing together with this mindfulness activity!
- Reach out for a free consultation
- A guide will then help lead the exercises
- Let the funny videos, pictures, and playing begin!
Learn more here: Letting Go Game
10. Wild Goose Chase
“city time”.
Wild Goose Chase is the creative problem solving activity that will take teams all around your city and bring them together as a group! This scavenger hunt works for teams as small as 10 up to groups of over 5000 people.
Best for: Large teams
Why this is an effective group problem solving activity: As employees and group members are coming back to the office, there are going to be times that they’re itching to get outside. Wild Goose Chase is the perfect excuse to satisfy the desire to go out-of-office every now and then. Plus, having things to look at and see around the city will get employees talking in ways they never have before.
- Download the Outback app to access the Wild Goose Chase
- Take photos and videos from around the city
- The most successful team at completing challenges on time is the champ!
Learn more here: Wild Goose Chase
11. Human Knot
“for a knotty good time”.
The Human Knot is one of the best icebreaker team building activities! In fact, there’s a decent chance you played it in grade school. It’s fun, silly, and best of all — free!
Why this is an effective group problem solving activity: Participants start in a circle and connect hands with two other people in the group to form a human knot. The team then has to work together and focus on clear communication to unravel the human knot by maneuvering their way out of this hands-on conundrum. But there’s a catch — they can’t let go of each other’s hands in this team building exercise.
- Form a circle
- Tell each person to grab a random hand until all hands are holding another
- They can’t hold anyone’s hand who is directly next to them
- Now they have to get to untangling
- If the chain breaks before everyone is untangled, they have to start over again
Learn more here: Human Knot
12. What Would You Do?
“because it’s fun to imagine”.
What Would You Do? Is the hypothetical question game that gets your team talking and brainstorming about what they’d do in a variety of fun, intriguing, and sometimes, whacky scenarios.
Best for: Distributed teams
Why this is an effective group problem solving activity: After employees or coworkers start talking about their What Would You Do? responses, they won’t be able to stop. That’s what makes this such an incredible team building activity . For example, you could ask questions like “If you could live forever, what would you do with your time?” or “If you never had to sleep, what would you do?”
- In addition to hypothetical questions, you could also give teammates some optional answers to get them started
- After that, let them do the talking — then they’ll be laughing and thinking and dreaming, too!
13. Crossing The River
“quite the conundrum”.
Crossing The River is a river-crossing challenge with one correct answer. Your team gets five essential elements — a chicken, a fox, a rowboat, a woman, and a bag of corn. You see, the woman has a bit of a problem, you tell them. She has to get the fox, the bag of corn, and the chicken to the other side of the river as efficiently as possible.
Why this is an effective group problem solving activity: She has a rowboat, but it can only carry her and one other item at a time. She cannot leave the chicken and the fox alone — for obvious reasons. And she can’t leave the chicken with the corn because it will gobble it right up. So the question for your team is how does the woman get all five elements to the other side of the river safely in this fun activity?
- Form teams of 2 to 5 people
- Each team has to solve the imaginary riddle
- Just make sure that each group understands that the rowboat can only carry one animal and one item at a time; the fox and chicken can’t be alone; and the bag of corn and the chicken cannot be left alone
- Give the verbal instructions for getting everything over to the other side
14. End-Hunger Games
“philanthropic fun”.
Does anything bond people quite like acts of kindness and compassion? The End-Hunger Games will get your team to rally around solving the serious problem of hunger.
Best for: Medium-sized teams
Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Teams join forces to complete challenges based around non-perishable food items in the End-Hunger Games. Groups can range in size from 25 to more than 2000 people, who will all work together to collect food for the local food bank.
- Split into teams and compete to earn boxes and cans of non-perishable food
- Each team attempts to build the most impressive food item construction
- Donate all of the non-perishable foods to a local food bank
Learn more here: End-Hunger Games
People Also Ask These Questions About Team Building Problem Solving Group Activities
Q: what are some problem solving group activities.
- A: Some problem solving group activities can include riddles, egg drop, reverse pyramid, tallest tower, trivia, and other moderator-led activities.
Q: What kind of skills do group problem solving activities & games improve?
- A: Group problem solving activities and games improve collaboration, leadership, and communication skills.
Q: What are problem solving based team building activities & games?
- A: Problem solving based team building activities and games are activities that challenge teams to work together in order to complete them.
Q: What are some fun free problem solving games for groups?
- A: Some fun free problem solving games for groups are kinesthetic puzzles like the human knot game, which you can read more about in this article. You can also use all sorts of random items like whiteboards, straws, building blocks, sticky notes, blindfolds, rubber bands, and legos to invent a game that will get the whole team involved.
Q: How do I choose the most effective problem solving exercise for my team?
- A: The most effective problem solving exercise for your team is one that will challenge them to be their best selves and expand their creative thinking.
Q: How do I know if my group problem solving activity was successful?
- A: In the short-term, you’ll know if your group problem solving activity was successful because your team will bond over it; however, that should also translate to more productivity in the mid to long-term.
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Top 20 Problem Solving Activities for Your Team to Master
Fred Wilson
We live in a world where problems are numerous in number and stingier than ever. There are a lot of ethnic, social, or other organizational problems among the workforce. But as they say, “Every cloud has a silver lining”, we can see these problems as opportunities in disguise.
Confused? Let us clarify.
Sure, these problems should not be present in this day and age, but since they are still among us, we can guide our team to be more conscious , so they can be pros at problem-solving no matter what it is.
Given below are 20 of the most effective problem-solving games your team can master.
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1. A Shrinking Vessel
If your team has been suffering from adaptability issues, then this technique is an amazing way to overcome that obstacle. As we know, Adaptability is deeply connected with cognitive diversity which aids your troops to solve their issues quickly.
Instructions
You will need a rope or a string for this technique.
- Make a shape on the floor using the rope which should be big enough to fit everyone in
- Reduce the size of this space over the period of 10-15 minutes
- The real challenge for the team will be to adapt and figure out how they can work together and keep everyone inside the shrinking boundaries
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In this activity, the team has to be positive about any and every suggestion anyone speaks out loud. That means that when anyone gives an idea, everyone has to chant “Yes!” and the activity goes on. This lets all of the group speak their mind and not face any negativity or counter of any kind, in return.
These ideas can be creative, or it can be stuff just coming right off from the top of their heads. This helps in Communication and Collaboration.
3. Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower
This technique helps amazingly with collaboration among the team members . Why Collaboration is important? Well in the words of Peter Senge, “Collectively, we can be more insightful, more intelligent than we can possibly be individual”.
This means that we are always more receptive to any type of social or psychological change if we are a part of a collaboration or team.
So, we can solve issues in teams more easily than alone. For that developing the team’s collaborative efforts and skills need to be enhanced for more effective problem-solving outcomes.
For this, you will need 20 sticks of spaghetti that haven’t been cooked, a marshmallow, a single roll of masking tape, and a yard of string.
- Keep in mind that the main goal of this game is to find out which team will utilize the materials provided to construct the tallest tower in a specific time period
- To make it more interesting, you can try adding a marshmallow at the very top of the tower
- This group problem-solving activity helps the team to think quickly while building a solid foundation of camaraderie and leadership
4. Brainstorm ideas
The simplest way to resolve problems in a team is through Brainstorming ideas. This will help your team come up with a lot of solutions on their own and you just have to choose the right path for them.
5. Egg Drop
This technique helps to promote collaboration among the troops with additional decision-making capabilities . How does problem-solving depend on decision-making? Well, as we know indecision can make a team immobile with a lot of unresolved problems due to stagnant thinking.
Decision-making will help the team be quicker on their feet and create more effective choices.
For this game, you will need a full carton of eggs and construction material like plastic wrap, balloons, rubber bands, etc.
- Firstly, you will provide an egg to each team and select a random construction material
- The task for each team is that they have to construct a carrier for the egg and keep it from breaking
- Once the carriers are completed, drop them off a ledge or over a balcony to see which carrier is the most successful in protecting the eggs
6. Dumbest Idea First
In this activity, you encourage all of your team members to quickly think of the dumbest ideas they have in their heads in solving a particular problem. Once they have done so, check the list and find out the ideas that are not dumb at all and you can shape that into an effective solution for your problem.
7. Stranded
Stranded helps in building effective communication and decision-making foundations among the team members.
Why is it important for teams to communicate with each other for problem-solving? Well, we live in a time where people mostly work remotely, good communication skills on different channels are critical to solving problems.
This is why, when the team starts working on their communications skills being present in one physical space, they will be able to better understand each other when they will be apart.
You just need an office space to perform this activity.
- The setting for this activity is that your team will be stranded in the office space
- The doors of the room will be locked, and you can’t break down the windows or the doors
- Your team will be given 30 minutes so that they can choose 10 items that they will need for survival
- They have top rank the items as well in order of importance
- The goal of this activity is that each team member has to agree on the 10 items and their ranking under the given time period
8. End in Mind
This is an amazing activity that lets you backtrack your way into finding a solution. To create the perfect solution, you first have to start off with the end in your mind. The main purpose of this is to move backward.
Establish important milestones and dates that might be useful, in reverse order. These dates have to start with the end-of-project party and finishing with today.
This activity helps with communication. You will need Legos and your team for this activity.
- Your team has to be divided into small teams of two or more people
- Select an impartial individual that is not on any team to construct a random structure using the Legos in under 10 minutes
- The teams that are competing in this activity have to recreate that exact structure in under 15 minutes but there’s a catch
- Only one person from the teams is allowed to see the structure and they have to communicate all of the parameters like the color, shape, and size, to the other team members
10. Idea Mock-ups
In this activity, you have different solutions for your problems that can be projected via mock-ups. This way you can try out a bunch of solutions for your problem to find the perfect one. You can create a solution using office supplies or even making images from the internet.
This technique helps to increase collaboration among the team members and requires 4 things to be performed. They are:
- Lockable room
- 5-10 puzzles or clues
- The expected outcome of this activity is to solve all of the clues to find the key that will unlock the room within the given time
- You have to hide the key somewhere in the room and also a list of all of the clues that are needed to find the key
- Gather all of the team members in the room and lock it
- You can give them 30-60 minutes to find the key to complete the whole activity
12. Gamification
This activity is incredibly fun as it turns your problem into a sort of a game for the whole team to participate into. You can set different types of rules and objectives for the team which they have to follow to earn different skill points that will let them “win the game” aka solving the problem.
13. Frostbite
This activity helps with Decision Making and Adaptability and requires three things to be performed. They are:
- An electric fan
- A packet of construction materials like card stock, rubber bands, and sticky notes, etc.
- A blindfold
The scenario for this activity is:
- Your team is on an arctic exploration
- You have to separate them into different teams comprising of 4-5 members
- They have to choose a leader among themselves who will lead them on this adventure
- Each team has to construct a shelter to protect themselves from the storm that will hit in precisely 30 minutes
- The catch is that the hands of the team leaders’ are unable to work due to frostbite and all other team members are temporarily blind due to snow blindness
- After the time is up, you can turn on the fan and see whose shelter can endure the high winds of the storm
14. Be a Character
With this activity, you can add a bit of fun to your work by executing the solution to the problem as if you were an imaginary character. This will give you a different perspective on your solution and whether or not it’s feasible for other members of the team.
15. Reverse Pyramid
This technique helps with Adaptability and Collaboration.
- Firstly, your team has to be standing in a pyramid shape
- The next step is to flip the base and apex of the pyramid, but you can only move three people
- This encourages adaptability and collaboration among the troops
16. Word on the Street
This is a useful technique where you can experience different perspectives on the solution you came up with for the problem your team has been facing. You will interview members of the team about the solution and get to know how they feel about it.
17. Move It!
Move It also helps with adaptability and Collaboration among the team members and requires an item that can mark a space. That can be chalk, paper, tape or a rope.
- You have to first split the whole group into two teams and line them up in such a way from front to back that they should face each other
- Using the space marking the item, draw an area for each person to stand on
- You have to leave on extra space between the two facing rows
- The main objective of this activity is that the two lines of players that are facing each other have to switch places
There are some restrictions that have to be put on the movement though. They are:
- Only one individual is allowed to move at a time
- An individual can not move around anyone if they are facing in the same direction as them
- Moving backward is not allowed
- An individual can move only once at a time around the people from the other team
18. Idea Trial
Another fun activity that you can do to find out solutions for a particular problem is to have mock trials about your problem. You can have different or all members of the team come up and project their ideas in “court”. They will go through their opening and closing statements and also call witnesses to support their ideas.
19. Human Knot
This technique also helps with Adaptability and Collaboration.
- Firstly, your team has to be standing in a circle
- Ask every team member to hold hands with the people that aren’t directly next to them
- When everyone is cross-connected, ask them to untangle this whole structure and form a proper circle without letting go of anyone’s hand
20. Find the Funny
The final activity on the list is the most fun one and that is creating a monologue that covers the main aspects of the problem or some funny moments that happened during all of the activities. Share them with your team and make them feel relaxed.
Organizational cultures are complete mayhem nowadays with different problems haunting the teams daily. These problems have a profound effect on the team’s performance which can delay the company to achieve its goals. This is why it’s very important that you work with your team and choose the activities that are described in this piece so that they can get the work done while having fun.
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17 team building problem-solving activities that actually work
Wouldn’t it be great to go to work every day and everything just … works? While that’s a lovely daydream, in reality, we face challenges from time to time.
And when it comes to challenges, one thing remains true: Having a team you can rely on makes whatever it is way easier to deal with.
It’s time to support your team in their personal growth and work on those problem-solving skills. The best way to do that is through some targeted team building activities .
We’ve compiled a list of the best problem-solving activities, sorted by duration and your team’s needs. Bonus point: A lot of them are free !
Effective team building problem-solving activities
One of the most daunting aspects of team building is looking up ideas for things to do, not knowing whether they work. So we did the hard part for you and hand-picked the best team building activities to overcome obstacles.
1. Improve collaboration with Work Buddy
Price: 14-day free trial, afterwards 7€ per user
Time : 15-20 minutes
Best for: Improving collaboration through understanding other team members' work preferences
Work Buddy is an innovative way to get teams on the same page! It's a fun and interactive quiz that helps team members understand each other better, leading towards improved collaboration. Through this session, you'll gain insights into your colleagues' working style - hours they prefer communicating during, their long-term goals, and more - which can help create stronger relationships within the workplace for more effective achievement of shared objectives. Work Buddy is free to try .
2. Practice to become a Communication Master
Best for: Exploring and understanding communication biases in the team
You're not alone if you've noticed misunderstandings or inefficient communication in your team. According to a recent study, 86% of knowledge workers report experiencing communication issues at work . Shortcomings in communication are estimated to lead to losses in profit of more than one trillion $ each year in the US alone.
Communication Master is an activity that helps your team practice explaining ideas in a clear and efficient way. It's challenging and fun, and you can try it for free .
3. Follow the GROW process
Price: Free
Time : 2-3 hours
Best for: Taking a tried and tested approach to problem-solving
Arguably the best way to tackle organizational problems is by applying a model already tried and tested in business coaching. The GROW model is precisely that. GROW is an acronym in which each letter represents a step in the problem-solving process.
How it works:
- G - Goal: Align on the goal(s) you want to achieve. Be as precise as possible and include numbers, time frames, etc.
- R - Reality: Observe where you are on the journey to achieve your goal. What still lies ahead of you?
- O - Obstacles & Options: Which obstacles does your team currently face, and which challenges do you anticipate in the future? Consider various approaches to overcoming the (possible) roadblocks.
- W - Way forward: Write down concrete action steps that you will take moving forward, including responsibilities and timelines.
Watch this role play video to see how you can put GROW into action.
4. Assess personality types
Price: Free Time: 60-90 minutes
Best for: Increasing empathy and enhancing teamwork
If your teammates constantly clash with each other, chances are they have different personality types. Understanding differences within your team is critical for good collaboration and teamwork, the pillars of successful problem-solving. To get going, take a personality test together and learn about each other's strengths and weaknesses. Have a follow-up discussion to talk about how you can collaborate better in the future.
Question starters for your discussion:
- Were you surprised by your results?
- Where does your personality benefit your work?
- How can you balance out each other's weaknesses?
- How can you build on each other's strengths?
- Have you found a new appreciation for your teammates?
5. Have a well-being talk
Price: Free Time: 60 minutes
Best for: Making sure your team is mentally prepared to tackle problems
If you feel like your team is lacking motivation and not on the top of their game, it may be time for a well-being check-in. Have an open conversation about mental health and your employees' feelings. Identify triggers for stress in the workplace; these typically include:
- Content of the job
- Role within the organization
- Professional development
- Work relationships
- Company culture
- Working conditions
- Personal reasons
Once you have identified the most prominent issues, create an action plan to improve your team’s mental well-being.
6. Online hackathon
Price: Free
Time: 24-48 hours
Best for: Boosting teamwork and innovation; Solving a specific problem in your organization
A hackathon is an event in which people of different disciplines come together to solve a common, real-world problem. It is the perfect activity for quickly innovating processes within your organization. Hosting a hackathon online allows you to invite team members from all around the world.
There are already great resources about organizing virtual hackathons available. To get you going, here’s a quick rundown on the most important steps:
- Settle on the problem that your team should tackle, develop the deliverables, and invite industry experts to serve as a jury
- Choose a video conferencing platform so the participants can stay in touch throughout the hackathon
- Divide your team into smaller action teams. This works best if you involve different departments to mix and match different strengths and skillsets
- When the day of the hackathon arrives, hold a kick-off meeting to explain the process of the event
- Have fun and get excited about great results
Leah Buchholz
Remote Expert & Jr. Content Marketer
Large groups
Prep required
Share fun facts and bond with a team quiz
Have your participants choose from a list of questions they’d like their coworkers to answer about them, before watching as they guess the right answer.
share-fun-facts-and-bond-with-a-team-quiz
Run a guided recognition activity
run-a-guided-recognition-activity
Organize a virtual cooking class
Hire a professional chef to help your team cook a delicious lunch or dinner. May be difficult for co-workers with families. To find providers and get tips, read our blog about virtual cooking classes.
organize-a-virtual-cooking-class
Hire a stand-up comedian
hire-a-stand-up-comedian
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Table of contents
Discover virtual team building with Gomada
Gomada auto-generates the optimal activity sequence for your team. All you need to do is schedule the activity.
Virtual team building problem-solving activities
If your team is working in a remote or hybrid setting and you’re looking for some fun games that strengthen problem-solving skills, the following activities are a match.
Related : The best team building software tools & apps.
7. Yes, and …
Time: 5-15 minutes
Best for: A quick game to foster creativity and flexibility
One of the best ways to strengthen your team’s ability to think quickly and adapt to unknown scenarios is through improv games. This one is perfect for beginners as it doesn’t require any acting, and your team can participate from the comfort of their home office chairs.
To play the game, one person begins to tell a story, and the rest of the team has to build on it by replying with "yes, and". One after the other, everyone contributes one or two sentences, but people have to react quickly to keep the flow of the story going.
You can determine the order in advance, for example, by first name or age, or keep it open to increase the difficulty level.
8. Flash of genius
Time: 15- 20 minutes
Best for: Quick thinking, boosting creativity, healthy competition
Have you ever had a flash of inspiration at a random moment? The one that prompts you to jot down your brilliant idea on a piece of paper or a napkin? That’s what this game is all about.
Before the game starts, you have to prepare several problem statements. These can be real, like ‘A team from another department constantly messes up your work. What do you do?’ or imaginative, such as ‘Aliens have landed on planet earth and kidnapped humans. What do you do?’. During the session, the participants then need to develop solutions to these problems.
- Split the team into small groups and ask everyone to write down their approaches on a digital collaboration board
- After two minutes of brainstorming, every team gets one more minute to decide on their number one solution
- For the finale, everyone presents their approach to the rest of the group
9. Codenames
Time: 15-30 minutes
Best for: Thinking outside the box, risk evaluation, communication
Codenames was initially released as a card game but is now also available as an online version. In this game, two teams must try to identify agents hiding behind codenames.
- The playing field consists of 25 cards labeled with codenames (random words)
- Both teams assign one spymaster who gets to see under which cards the agents for their team are hiding. The spymasters take turns giving their team members clues to find the right cards, but with one big restriction – they can only say one word.
- The goal is to find all the right words before the other team finishes.
To be the fastest team, it is useful to give clues that connect different terms, but players have to be careful not to guess the cards that belong to the other group. Thus, the participants must find the right balance between risk-taking and passing on an opportunity to score.
10. Domino effect
Price: 0- 29€/person
Best for: Collaborating asynchronously and working together on one goal
The idea behind this activity is simple; you knock over one object that sets a second in motion, which is followed by a whole chain of reactions. What makes it difficult is that the team has to create this domino effect without being in the same place. Therefore, each team member has to create one part of the process and film it.
This is what it looks like:
- Person 1 begins the series by knocking over a random object and making a video of it; let’s say they choose a ball that knocks down a book
- They inform person 2, who creates a video of a book falling onto a bottle.
- Then, person 3 has to start their video with a bottle falling on the object of their choice and so on.
- In the end, all videos are cut together.
The activity requires strategic thinking and good communication to have a consistent string of domino effects and is perfect for teams who work across different time zones. You can either set it up yourself or get a professional agency to support you.
11. Escape room
Price: 0-30€/person
Time: 15-90 min.
Best for: Refining attention to detail and logical thinking with a gamified experience
If you’re not already familiar with the concept of escape rooms, you’re missing out! In short, your team has to solve various puzzles and riddles while following a mystery tale. Only if they find the hidden clues will they reach the solution and escape the room.
This makes escape rooms an excellent problem-solving team building activity for adults. Participants have to practice their patience and logical thinking. Virtual escape games usually take place over a video conferencing tool so participants can discuss their ideas as the game proceeds. One of our favorite escape room experiences is this Sherlock-inspired detective story.
12. Panel of Experts
Time: 15-30 min.
Best for: Helping team members to step out of their comfort zone through improvisation
Panel of Experts is another improv game that is great for fostering creativity and spontaneity as your team will have to create dialogues without any prior preparation and script.
How it works:
- You determine one show host and two to four ‘experts’; the rest of the team will act as an audience.
- Everybody in the audience can call in a topic they would like the group to discuss for two minutes. Collect all ideas and agree on a topic to start with.
- The actors now have to engage in a conversation in their respective roles.
- After each round, assign the roles to new team members.
Your team will have collaboratively put up some entertaining scenes, and who knows, maybe you will discover some actual special-interest knowledge.
13. Sort the group
Time: 10-15 minutes
Best for: Improving communication; Getting to know your team
Sort the group exercises are exactly what they sound to be: As a team, you have to get in order following different attributes like height, age, duration at the company; you name it. The difficulty lies within the fact that you aren’t allowed to talk or write. Team members have to develop other ways to communicate and get in order.
Pro tip: You can open a shared document, write down the names of the participants and rearrange them until everyone agrees on the final result.
Trust Activity
Ups & Downs
Core dimension
What cheers us up and tears us down can be very different. Get to know your team’s motivators and demotivators.
Offline problem-solving activities for team building
If you’re pumped to do some team building in person , we’ve picked the right activities for you.
14. The minefield
Price: 0-10€
Best for: Practicing communication and listening skills and advancing trust between team members
This classic team building activity works very well to build trust in your team without the awkwardness of trust falls or entangling human knots. You’ll have to prepare a playing field beforehand, consisting of a starting and finishing line, and put some obstacles (e.g., bottles) in between.
- Divide the team into several small groups. Each team lines up at the edge of the playing field.
- Each participant is given a blindfold to put on when it is their turn. You can use face masks or anything else to cover the eyes.
- After giving the go, the groups must try to guide their 'blind' teammates through the minefield using verbal instructions alone. If a person touches an object, they have to start over. If they make it through the minefield, the next person can start.
- The fastest team wins.
Pro tip: To make the game more difficult, you can rule that players cannot give directions (front, side, back) but must think of a code to guide their teammates.
15. Picking up trash
Time: 30 minutes - 3 hours
Best for: Teams looking to make a real impact beyond simple games
What better way to connect with your team than simultaneously doing something great for the environment? Have your team walk around the area around your office and pick up trash together. Afterward, you come together and brainstorm ideas on how to tackle the garbage problem. Maybe your neighborhood could profit from some more trash cans? Higher fines for littering? A better deposit system? Get creative!
You can also turn it into a challenge. To do so, divide your crew into smaller groups and assign each one the task of collecting as much rubbish as they can. After some time, you evaluate who had the most original approaches and picked up the most trash.
Either way, you train your problem-solving skills on a real-world issue and do some good for nature.
16. Speed-dating
Time: 10-20 minutes
Best for: Fostering 1:1 conversations around work issues
While speed dating is best known for finding new romantic partners, it can also be applied to the working environment.
Here is how it works:
- Divide the team into two groups, one of which positions itself in an inner and the other in an outer circle. There should always be two people facing each other. If you’re an uneven number, create one pair that always moves together.
- A game leader asks a question for which both partners have one minute to answer.
- Then the inner circle moves so that two new team members are facing each other.
- The game ends when everyone has returned to their original partner.
Some questions to inspire your own:
- If you could change one thing in your workday, what would it be?
- Would you rather have more time or more money? Why?
- What would you do if your laptop suddenly just stopped working?
17. Scavenger hunt
Price: Varies
Time: 2-3 hours
Best for: Fostering cross-team collaboration and boosting team morale
Another classic team-building activity that is great for promoting problem-solving. You have to work together as a team to find clues that will ultimately lead you to a goal.
As far as preparation goes, you will have to decide between setting up the activity yourself or a professional provider. Depending on which option you choose, you will have to invest more money or time (yes, we are referring to the last game here). Either way, your joint search will have your team think outside the box and socialize with others.
What are the benefits of problem-solving team building activities for businesses?
Problem-solving is an essential skill for every team. In particular, strengthening your team member’s decision-making and adaptability skills will ensure that your daily operations run a bit smoother; say a new process isn’t going as planned, or an essential co-worker falls sick, your team will be able to handle it. You also set out your organization for success when facing more drastic challenges, such as, uh, a global pandemic or changes in the company’s strategy.
Some of the skills your team will improve on when regularly engaging in problem-solving team building activities are:
- Out-of-the-box thinking
- Communication
- Creativity
- Flexibility
- Collaboration
Using team building problem-solving games
Investing time into team building activities that support problem-solving is the best way to empower your team in their abilities to overcome work challenges. Whether you’re an experienced leadership team looking to boost your decision-making and critical thinking skills or a young team working on collaboration and communication, these activities set you up for success.
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25 Team Building Problem Solving Activities
Table of Contents
- 1.1 Benefits of Team Building Problem Solving Activities
- 1.2.1 Egg Drop
- 1.2.2 A Shrinking Vessel
- 1.2.3 Scavenger Hunt
- 1.2.4 Virtual Team Building
- 1.2.5 Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower
- 1.2.6 Dumbest Idea First
- 1.2.7 Stranded
- 1.2.8 End in Mind
- 1.2.9 Legoman
- 1.2.10 Escape
- 1.2.11 Frostbite
- 1.2.12 Move It!
- 1.2.13 What Would X Do
- 1.2.14 Bonding Belt
- 1.2.15 Minefield
- 1.2.16 Reverse Pyramid
- 1.2.17 Human Knot
- 1.2.18 Dog, Rice, and Chicken
- 1.2.19 Crack The Case
- 1.2.20 What Would You Do
- 1.2.21 Can You Tell What I Changed?
- 1.2.22 Organizational Jenga
- 1.2.23 Web of Wools
- 1.2.24 The Barter Puzzle
- 1.2.25 Create your own
25 Problem Solving Team Building Activities
While we are in lockdown (transition to or from) and acclimating to virtual life, these activities will engender trust, create strong bonds, and improve the problem solving abilities of everyone that plays them!
Benefits of Team Building Problem Solving Activities
Problem solving skills are one of the most essential components of a competent workplace. When we attempt to solve problems within a group, we need strong communication skills, adaptability, and collaborative clarity. The team building activities in this list house a smattering of interactive and creative approaches that can help foster these skills in any healthy team.
Making decisions isn’t always easy, but the inability to make decisions can stagnate a team and lead to thought paralysis. Decision-making team building activities help your staff make quick and effective choices, and oftentimes their gut instinct is the correct way to go.
Play this game using a carton of eggs, construction materials (newspaper, tape, rubber bands), and take the party out to the parking lot. Give each team an egg, and let them select whatever they wish from the construction materials. Allow everyone twenty minutes to construct a special egg carrier, then drop the egg off a ledge and see which carrier works. Repeat until there is only one egg left! If you want to, you can discuss the thought processes that went into the egg carriers afterward.
A Shrinking Vessel
Adaptability is an important aspect of problem solving, the feature that allows us to understand shifting needs in real-time. Adaptive teams can solve problems quicker and innovate in the middle of a crisis. Those of us that can adapt on the fly will come out on top in the long run.
Using a piece of rope or string, make a shape along the floor that your team can comfortably fit into. Over the space of fifteen minutes, gradually shrink the space. Your team should work together to figure out how to keep within the shrinking boundaries, communicating in real-time to figure out how to best make everyone fit.
Scavenger Hunt
The goal of the scavenger hunt is for each time to navigate a list of items and bring them all back within a set time frame. Whoever comes back first, wins. You can mix up your scavenger hunts by utilizing different items and locations, and include time limits or windows to increase the challenge. Having scavenger hunts outside can be a fun and interesting way to break up the workday.
This cityHunt Scavenger Hunt is a fantastic way to get your group problem solving together!
Virtual Team Building
Remote work can be daunting, and many of us still haven’t adapted to this new way of life. Luckily when it comes to team building activities, there are tons of options! The virtual world is filled with fun games that can easily be adapted to this new format.
Whether it’s virtual scavenger hunts, game shows, trivia, challenges, or other team-based games, there are many ways to enjoy problem solving activities together. Virtual team building games can be hosted on the virtual conferencing platform of your choice, where teams can tackle different events and games together.
Virtual scavenger hunts are a great way to get your team working together.
Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower
Sounds messy, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, we aren’t going to cook any of it.
A critical component of good problem solving is collaboration, and the team that learns how to play together will know how to work together. We can achieve truly great things if we work together, and what better way than to build a tower out of dry spaghetti noodles and tiny marshmallows?
Each of your teams is going to attempt to build the tallest tower they can by using nothing but marshmallows and dry spaghetti noodles (okay, you can also provide them with tape and string, we aren’t monsters). Give them a timeframe and see who can become more accomplished! The tallest tower wins!
Dumbest Idea First
What’s more fun than a dumb idea? For this game, encourage your team to unify and quickly think of the dumbest ideas they can to solve a specific problem. Once accomplished, consult the list and flesh out the ideas that aren’t actually dumb so you can serve up a good solution to your problem. You might find that these so-called “dumb” ideas are actually fairly creative and host some original solutions!
This game helps everyone build strong communication standards and enhances the foundations of decision-making among your employees. It’s imperative that your teams learn proper communication strategies, especially when it comes to problem solving. In our remote-work world, communication skills are extremely important to mitigate frustrations and smooth the channels that lead to impactful problem solving.
To play Stranded:
- Your team is stranded in the office!
- The doors and windows are locked and cannot be opened.
- Give your team half an hour so they can choose up to ten items necessary to survive.
- Rank their ten items in order of necessity.
- The goal of this game is that at the end, each team member of each team will agree on the ten items needed and their ranked order, coming to a conclusion that will rescue them from being stranded.
End in Mind
This brilliant problem solving activity lets your team backtrack toward a proper solution. Begin with the end in mind, considering how your team must move backward in order to accomplish the task. Set up some milestones, dates, and steps within a task that would be useful but show them in reverse order. Begin with the end of the project and work toward the beginning, tasking your team with effectively putting things together in the right order and having them think outside the box on how the totality of a project might come into existence.
Another team building activity that will help with communication, Legoman is a fun game that will task everyone with playing with their favorite childhood toy.
Divide your team into small groups, typically around two or three people. Task another person who isn’t on any of the teams with building a random lego construct within ten minutes. Ask the teams to create the structure exactly within the same time frame, only give them an aside: only one person can actually look at the structure, and they must describe it to the rest of the team in order to build it!
This fun game enhances collaboration amongst your staff. Utilizing clues and tools, they will attempt to unlock a room within a given time frame. You will need a room that you can (safely) lock, a key for that room, rope, and a set of puzzles and/or clues.
The basic idea of this game is to solve all the clues presented and find the key so that they can unlock the room. Hide the key somewhere in the room, and make sure that the list of clues and puzzles that lead to the key are solvable and not too obtuse. Once your team is ready to go, you can give your team a time limit to complete the activity.
This game truly shows why team building is important!
Frostbite
Let’s take a break from the communication problem solving activities and play a game that requires decision making and adaptability. To play Frostbite, you will need an electric fan, some card stock/sticky notes/rubber bands, and a blindfold.
Your team is out on an exploration of the arctic. Separate them into groups of about four or five people, and have them choose a leader for the adventure. Your teams need to construct shelters that will protect them from an oncoming storm front that will ruin them in thirty minutes. Like the name of the game, your team leaders are suffering from frostbite, and the rest of the team is blinded because of the snow. Using the provided materials, team leaders and team members must rely on one another to build shelters that can endure the “high winds” when the storm hits (the electric fan). When the time comes, turn on the fan and see whose shelter can weather the storm!
This is another fun adaptability game that encourages collaboration and communication among your staff. To play this game you will need at least one item that can “mark” a space, such as tape, paper, chalk, etc.
- Divide the group into two teams, and align these teams so that they’re facing one another.
- Using your space marking item, label an area for each person to stand in.
- Make sure you leave some space between the rows of people facing each other.
- To solve the objective, have the two lines of facing team members swap places.
Caveats: Only one person can move at once, moving backward isn’t allowed, a person can only move around the people from the other team one at a time, and a person can’t move around anyone if they’re both facing the same direction.
It’s tough!
What Would X Do
Is your team stagnating on new ideas? This problem solving activity might stimulate your staff toward innovation.
In order to play What Would X Do, allow your teams to pretend to be someone famous. As a famous person, address an issue at hand. Have them ask themselves, what might they do in this particular situation? What might they consider? What choices would they make? This helps your team consider things in a new light.
Bonding Belt
For this game, divide your groups into five participants, binding them together with tape or rope in order to limit their movements. You want the teams to go from designated Point A to Point B, and make sure you record the time. Each team will work together in order to beat their previous scores.
Minefield
To play Minefield, we are going to place items around the room in a randomized fashion so that the path from one side to the other is properly occluded and confusing. Divide up your team. Blindfold one team and have the other team serve as the guides.
The guide team then navigates the blindfolded team through the minefield, being certain that players don’t touch (any players that touch are out!). This is a team building activity of trust and survival, one that requires concise communication and collaborative problem solving.
Reverse Pyramid
Direct your team to stand together in the shape of a pyramid. What you want to do here is “flip” the base and apex of the pyramid, limiting who can move to only two or three people. Your team will want to work together in order to flip the pyramid successfully, and this game works as a great communicative device that will need a lot of proper decision making.
Direct your team to stand in a circle, where each person holds the hand of a person that is not standing directly next to them. When the entire team is sufficiently connected, attempt to untangle without letting go of anyone’s hand. You may have played this game before at summer camp, and it remains an effective method of group problem solving.
Dog, Rice, and Chicken
This is a fun, silly problem solving activity that might help your adult staff cut loose. Direct one team member to play the role of the farmer, and the other team members are the villagers that advise them. The farmer will get three items: a dog, some rice, and a chicken, which they take across a river via boat.
You may have played this game before, or maybe you’re aware of the narrative device: only one item can be taken across at a time, and there are limits. The dog will eat the chicken. The chicken will eat the rice. Your team will have to work together to figure out how to properly bring everything across the river.
Crack The Case
Have you ever played a classic murder mystery group game? These virtual “Whodunnits” force employees to work collectively to crack a case or solve a murder. Remote games are super fun, and everyone from commuters to remote workers to in-house staff can play together.
Virtual Clue Murder Mystery Games use video conferencing platforms and apps to let coworkers solve cases together. They can study case files, look over clues, and work together to parse out motive, method, and everything else behind classic mysteries. It’s a great time.
What Would You Do
This hypothetical question game will favor communication and brainstorming efforts by gathering your team together for a problem solving activity that is intriguing and silly. This game works by asking absurd questions and getting thoughtful answers.
For example, you could ask someone “If you didn’t have to breathe, what would you do?” or “If you never had to eat, what would you accomplish?” Your hypothetical questions should be fairly optional and open, and they need to get your team talking. Try to come up with an inventive, fun list that garnishes thoughtful responses.
Can You Tell What I Changed?
This great communication-based problem solving activity doesn’t take too long and is fun for everybody. To play it, divvy up your team into groups and have them face each other in a line. Observe the individuals standing across from one another, giving them a minute or so to look. Then have them close their eyes.
Instruct the other line of people to make a bunch of quick changes to their appearances. They can put their hair up or down, take off their jackets, turn out their ties, and whatever else they might come up with in that short period of time. Have the other group open their eyes and identify each change as quickly as they can. Play this game as many times as you want, making it more and more complicated.
This is a fun problem solving activity that makes a great team icebreaker or just a quick break from office work.
Organizational Jenga
You may need to buy a Jenga game to play this one, or at least search out some blocks that can serve as Jenga pieces. Label the blocks in hierarchical order, according to your company. You might have blocks labeled for HR, management, IT, support staff, etc. The blocks themselves should match your office’s general composition, each block amount matching the department it’s representing.
Divvy up your team and give them equal amounts of the labeled blocks. Provide guidelines for the structure they must build, set a time limit, and start removing blocks without ruining the structure similar to Jenga. Challenge them to build a structure that can last longer as blocks are removed. This exercise is great to show the necessity of departments within your workplace, and that removing even an individual can make everything fall down. This is a conversational game, one where your teams must face the necessity of your office’s diversity.
Web of Wools
For this game, divide your team up into equal parts. Have your team form up a “web of wools,” one that should be as intricate as they can manage. Using yarn or string, your teams should entangle themselves together. Then switch the teams up so that everyone has a different web. Have one team member on each side be blindfolded and attempt to untangle each web only by the provided instruction of the other team members. Whoever does it first is the winner!
This is a fairly difficult game that can come with its own unique frustrations. The blindfolded person will have to balance their own preferences and instincts with the instructions of their teammates. This is a great team building activity that balances communication with problem solving.
The Barter Puzzle
How well do your teams and departments perform under pressure?
Divide each group into teams of about five people. Provide differing jigsaw puzzles of various complexity. Instruct them that the puzzles are actually mixed up, each puzzle containing pieces of the others. The goal here is to have one team complete the puzzle first, but the only way to accomplish this is through negotiation, bartering, and assigning important roles. This needs to be done as a team; don’t let individuals strike out on their own in an effort to quickly solve the puzzle. This problem solving activity shows who the best negotiators are, and tells you who needs work on their communication tactics.
Create your own
This is a unique version of the above games. The point of this game is for the team to brainstorm and come up with their own problem solving activity that is unique to your business and supports your values, ideals, and needs. By conquering this team building game, your team will build creativity and decision making skills.
Give them an hour to craft a team building exercise that is based on problem solving. Divide your staff into teams where they will be encouraged to develop new exercises that fit into your organization. The exercises should be unique, fun, and engaging. Then, have each team show off their created activities to everyone else. Have the others show the pros and cons of the created activities, and discuss how they came to the idea and what the benefits are.
No matter what you decide to play, we are certain that there are enough ideas on this list to get your group up and problem solving together! These team building activities are such a great way to get your team to communicate and negotiate, and best of all these games will bring your staff together during this tumultuous time. Problem solving is one of the backbones of any successful, growing business, and these games are sure to be celebrated by your staff for years.
If you’re looking for ways to bond beyond the rigors of the office, consider these virtual happy hour ideas that will bring your staff together in a relaxing way.
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15 Team Building Problem Solving Activities
In this article you will find:
- 15 problem-solving activities for your team to master
- Frequently asked questions about team building
Here are 15 problem-solving activities for your team to master:
15 Problem-Solving Activities
1. a shrinking vessel.
Why adaptability is important for problem-solving:
Adaptability is highly associated with cognitive diversity, which helps teams solve problems faster, according to the Harvard Business Review. Innovation and disruption are happening faster than ever before. People, teams, and organizations that can adapt will come out on top.
What You'll Need:
A rope or string
Instructions:
1. Using the rope, make a shape on the floor everyone can fit into.
2. Slowly shrink the space over a time period of 10-15 minutes.
3. Work together to figure out how to keep everyone within the shrinking boundaries.
2. Marshmallow Spaghetti Tower
Helps with: Collaboration Why collaboration is important for problem-solving: “Collectively, we can be more insightful, more intelligent than we can possibly be individual,” writes Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline. We can solve problems better as a team than we can alone, which means developing your team's collaboration skills will lead to better problem-solving outcomes.
What You'll Need (per team):
20 sticks of uncooked spaghetti
1 roll of masking tape
1 yard of string
1 marshmallow
1. The goal of this exercise is to see which team can use the materials provided to build the tallest tower within an allotted time period. The tower must be able to stand on its own.
2. To make this exercise more challenging, try adding a marshmallow to the top of the tower. This team problem-solving exercise helps teams think on their toes while building camaraderie and leadership.
3. Egg Drop
Why decision-making is important for problem-solving:
Making decisions isn't easy, but indecision leads to team paralysis, stagnant thinking, and unsolved problems. Decision-making activities help your team practice making quick, effective choices. Train your team's decision-making muscle and they will become more adept at problem-solving.
A carton of eggs
Basic construction materials such as newspapers, straws, tape, plastic wrap, balloons, rubber bands, popsicle sticks, etc., tarp, or drop cloth
A parking lot, or some other place you don't mind getting messy!
1. Each team gets an egg and must select from the construction materials.
2. Give everyone 20-30 minutes to construct a carrier for the egg and protect it from breaking.
3. Drop each egg carrier off a ledge (i.e. over a balcony) and see whose carrier protects the egg from breaking.
4. If multiple eggs survive, keep increasing the height until only one egg is left.
4. Stranded
Helps with: Communication and Decision-Making Why communication is important for problem-solving:
More employees work remotely than ever before. Good communication skills are vital to solving problems across increasingly virtual teams. Working on communication skills while your team is together will help them better solve problems when they're apart.
Your team has been stranded in the office. The doors are locked, and knocking down the doors or breaking the windows is not an option. Give your team 30 minutes to decide on 10 items in the office they need for survival and rank them in order of importance. The goal of the game is to have everyone agree on the 10 items and their ranking in 30 minutes.
1. Divide everyone into small teams of two or more.
2. Select an overseer who isn't on a team to build a random structure using Lego building blocks within 10 minutes.
3. The other teams must replicate the structure exactly (including size and color) within 15 minutes. However, only one member from each group may look at the original structure. They must figure out how to communicate the size, color, and shape of the original structure to their team.
4. If this is too easy, add a rule that the member who can see the original structure can't touch the new structure.
Collaboration
A lockable room
5-10 puzzles or clues (depending on how much time you want to spend on the game)
The goal of this exercise is to solve the clues, find the key, and escape a locked room within the time allotted.
Hide the key and a list of clues around the room.
Gather the team into the empty room and "lock" the door.
Give them either 30 minutes or 1 hour to find the key using the clues hidden around the room.
7. Frostbite
Decision Making, Adaptability What You'll Need:
A blindfold
1 packet of construction materials (such as card stock, toothpicks, rubber bands, and sticky notes) for each team
An electric fan
Picture this... Your employees are Arctic explorers adventuring across an icy tundra! Separate them into teams of 4-5 and have them select a leader to guide their exploration. Each team must build a shelter from the materials provided before the storm hits in 30 minutes. However, both the team leader's hands have frostbite, so they can't physically help construct the shelter, and the rest of the team has snow blindness and is unable to see. When the 30 minutes is up, turn on the fan and see which shelter can withstand the high winds of the storm.
8. Minefield
An empty room or hallway
A collection of common office items
1. Place the items (boxes, chairs, water bottles, bags, etc.) around the room so there's no clear path from one end of the room to the other.
2. Divide your team into pairs and blindfold one person on the team.
3. The other must verbally guide that person from one end of the room to the other, avoiding the "mines." 4. The partner who is not blindfolded can't touch the other.
5. If you want to make the activity more challenging, have all the pairs go simultaneously so teams must find ways to strategically communicate with each other.
9. Blind Formations
1. Have the group put on blindfolds and form a large circle.
2. Tie two ends of a rope together and lay it in a circle in the middle of the group, close enough so each person can reach down and touch it.
3. Instruct the group to communicate to create a shape with the rope a square, triangle, rectangle, etc.
4. If you have a very large group, divide them into teams and provide a rope for each team. Let them compete to see who forms a particular shape quickest.
10. Line up Blind
1. Blindfold everyone and whisper a number to each person, beginning with one.
2. Tell them to line up in numerical order without talking.
3. Instead of giving them a number, you could also have them line up numerically by height, age, birthday, etc.
11. Reverse Pyramid
1. Have everyone stand in a pyramid shape, horizontally.
2. Ask them to flip the base and the apex of the pyramid moving only three people.
3. This quick exercise works best when smaller groups compete to see who can reverse the pyramid the fastest.
12. Move It!
Chalk, rope, tape, or paper (something to mark a space)
1. Divide your group into two teams and line them up front to back, facing each other.
2. Using chalk, tape, rope, or paper (depending on the playing surface), mark a square space for each person to stand on. Leave one extra empty space between the two facing rows.
3. The goal is for the two-facing lines of players to switch places.
Place these restrictions on movement:
Only one person may move at a time.
A person may not move around anyone facing the same direction.
No one may not move backward.
A person may not move around more than one person on the other team at a time.
13. Human Knot
1. Have everyone stand in a circle, and ask each person to hold hands with two people who aren't directly next to them.
2. When everyone is tangled together, ask them to untangle the knot and form a perfect circle without letting anyone's hand.
Our last two problem-solving activities work best when dealing with an actual problem:
14. Dumbest Idea First
Instant Problem Solving What You'll Need:
1. "Dumb" ideas are sometimes the best ideas. Ask everyone to think of the absolute dumbest possible solution to the problem at hand.
2. After you have a long list, look through it and see which ones might not be as dumb as you think.
3. Brainstorm your solutions in Wrike. It's free and everyone can start collaborating instantly!
15. What Would X Do
1. Have everyone pretend they're someone famous.
2. Each person must approach the problem as if they were a famous person. What options would they consider? How would they handle it?
3. This allows everyone to consider solutions they might not have thought of originally.
Looking for more team building games? Check out these virtual icebreaker games Ultimate Guide to Team Building Activities that Don't Suck.
People also ask these questions about team building activities
Here are the answers to the most common questions about team building activities:
What is the team building process?
This process of learning to work together effectively is known as team development. Bruce Tuckman, an educational psychologist, identified a five-stage development process that most teams follow to become high performing. He called the stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.
What is team building?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines team building as: “The action or process of causing a group of people to work together effectively as a team, especially by means of activities and events designed to increase motivation and promote cooperation.”
How often should you schedule team-building activities?
One of the most important aspects of team building is that it is an ongoing process. One team-building session can be effective, but your team could benefit more from multiple sessions. In fact, it may be beneficial to make it a part of your regular program. For team building to be effective, you should repeat it as often as you feel it is useful. This largely depends on the activity you choose. You can do quick activities on a more regular basis since they don't interfere with the regular work schedule. You will probably conduct longer, more elaborate activities less frequently so the team can get work done.
What you should do now
More articles.
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7 Easy Problem Solving Activities – How Your Team Benefits From Them
“Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.” – Robert Schuller
Let’s face it – we cannot expect life in the workplace (or in general) to be a short, smooth road without any bumps, potholes, and speed breaks. Problems, small or big, will be there while we work.
The way we react to problems at the workplace says a lot about our problem solving skills, and this is one area where good teams outshine mediocre ones. We should be confident in overcoming challenges that we encounter in the middle of small or large tasks and projects.
Problem solving and decision-making go hand in hand at work, but the question is – “ Do we really know how to be good at problem-solving or how many of us have been trained for it?
Generally, when faced with problems, many employees tend to: get nervous and wish it would go away, they feel they have to create a solution, and it has to be the right one, and they look for someone to put all the blame on.
Guess what happens? Dealing with a problem becomes a problem itself!
Indeed, this is not how you would want problems to be handled within your team. As a leader of the pack, you have to take the initiative to make your team better at generating solutions when things will go haywire.
Problem solving activities can be a great way to know how team members identify problems, the way they react to them, how quickly they can find potential solutions, and then implement the best one.
Start managing your teams and projects efficiently with ProofHub!
When working with a team, there is not one but several types of problems that might occur. Move on to the next section to understand some common problems that can crop up while you navigate your team at work.
Table of Contents
#1 Human Knots
#2 a shrinking vessel, #3 marshmallow spaghetti tower, #4 frostbite, #5 egg drop, #6 dumbest idea first , lack of mutual trust, not having a central location for information sharing, lack of transparency, poor communication , lack of purpose , conflict and tension , uncertainty of roles , lack of motivation , #1 better thinking , #2 better risk handling , #3 better communication , #4 improved productivity output , some powerful features of proofhub include: , the final thought, 7 of the easiest problem solving activities for teams of all sizes.
There are some amazing activities out there that can work really well for team building. These will help you put your team’s problem-solving abilities to test while they learn how to bring their best qualities forward for effective collaboration.
These problem solving games will break the monotony at the workplace and help you build a more inclusive and welcoming environment for the whole team. Here are some the easiest activities that will help bring substantial change to your team culture and the workplace as a whole.
Helps With: Collaboration & Communication Skills
Estimated Time: 15-20 minutes
Things You’ll Need: Nothing
How To Do It:
Make your team stand in a small circle. If your team is large, then you can divide it into smaller groups and make them stand in multiple circles. Each person should hold the hands of two other people standing in the circle, but not of those who are standing directly beside them.
This should result in creating a “human knot.” The fun part (also the challenging) begins now. Ask each member of the group to untangle themselves without letting go of each other’s hands. You can set a time limit if you want. You can watch your team members as they work out moves to untangle their bodies.
This activity gives them a chance to communicate and collaborate with each other to solve the problem quickly. They may or may not fully entangle themselves but would have started to work together to solve the problem.
Why Communication Is Essential To Problem Solving –
When working as a team, no problem is big enough. A bunch of committed individuals can collaborate to overcome even the most difficult of hurdles. When all team members come together and put in a joint effort, the problem is likely to get resolved sooner than later.
Having problems communicating your ideas to the team? Use ProofHub discussions to keep track of ideas and important pitches.
Helps With : Adaptability & Quick Thinking
Estimated Time: 10-15 Minutes
Things You’ll Need: A rope and a ball of yarn
Take a rope and place it on the floor in a particular shape such that all your team members can stand inside it. If your team is large, you can use multiple ropes and divide your team into smaller groups.
The challenging part starts when all team members are made to stand inside the rope, and you start to shrink the rope slowly. As space reduces, team members will have to make subtle adjustments to maintain their position as well as balance inside the shrinking circle.
No one should step outside the circle. The challenge before your team is to quickly think together about how to keep everyone inside the circle.
Why Adaptability Is Essential To Problem Solving –
This amazingly effective problem-solving activity is for teams who are facing adaptability issues. Adaptability and cognitive diversity go hand in hand, which enables your team to work out things faster. People and organizations that can adapt quickly usually come out on top because they can condition themselves to change circumstances and environments and take on board new ideas and concepts.
Helps With: Collaboration
Estimated Time: 20-30 Minutes
Things You’ll Need (per team):
- 20 sticks of uncooked spaghetti
- 1 marshmallow
- A yard of string
- A single roll of masking tape
Ask your team to utilize all the available materials to construct the tallest tower within a specific time period. The tower must stand on its own and be able to support a marshmallow.
And the point behind this problem-solving activity is to train the team to think on their feet while encouraging prototyping and iteration. This activity also helps to promote and build strong camaraderie and leadership.
Why Collaboration Is Essential To Problem Solving –
Peter Singe, in the Fifth Discipline , writes, “ Collectively, we can be more insightful, more intelligent than we can possibly be individually .” This means we can solve problems better when working as a team than we can alone.
This problem-solving activity puts emphasis on team collaboration, which is crucial for the success of any group, irrespective of its size. It also shows that success is dependent upon close collaboration between team members.
Helps With: Decision Making, Trust, Leadership
Things You’ll Need:
- An electric fan
- Construction materials (toothpicks, cardstock, rubber bands, sticky notes, etc.)
Divide your team into groups of 4-5 people each (applicable for large teams). Each team should have its leader to guide them. Remember, team leaders, are not allowed to use their hands in any way to help their respective groups. Now, the fun part of this problem-solving activity is that team members are blindfolded, so they can’t use their hands!
Every team is given 30 minutes to build a tent. The time is set to create a sense of urgency within the team. For example, give your team a scenario where they have to make a tent to save themselves from approaching thunderstorms. The tent should be able to withstand high winds from the storm.
After the game is over, you can turn on the fan to see which tent is able to stand on its own even after withstanding winds blowing at high speed.
This problem-solving activity aims to improve the listening skills of team members in order to execute the task as per the leader’s instructions.
Why Decision Making Is Essential To Problem Solving –
When managing teams and projects , team managers are burdened with the responsibility of making decisions that concern all. Decision-making is essential to problem-solving because if the right decision is taken at the right time, then it could lead to resolving the problem, which eventually benefits the entire team and the organization.
Helps With: Decision Making & Collaboration
- A carton of eggs
- Construction materials (balloons, rubber bands, straws, tape, plastic wrap, etc.)
- A place where you can let things get messy!
How to Do It:
Give a single egg to each team and let it choose randomly from different construction materials. The task that is to be assigned to each team is that it has to create a carrier for an egg that prevents it from breaking.
Once teams are done with creating carriers, place an egg in them and drop them (from over a ledge or a balcony), one by one. The purpose is to find which team’s carrier (s) can save an egg from breaking.
If multiple eggs remain unbroken, you can keep increasing the height of the fall to find out the last egg that survives even after falling from more height. The winning team is the one that created the most durable carrier that survived until the last.
The idea behind this problem-solving activity is to encourage all members of the team to work together towards achieving the common goal.
Why Teamwork Is Essential To Problem Solving –
Joint efforts by a group of individuals to achieve the set target by utilizing limited resources can save valuable time, money, and resources for the organization.
How It Helps: Critical Thinking & Creative Problem Solving
Estimated Time: 15-20 minutes
Things You’ll Need: A piece of paper, pen, and pencil
As the name of this problem-solving activity suggests, the idea is to present a problem to your team and ask them to quickly come up with the dumbest ideas for the problem at hand. This could be a real-world problem that your team is facing, or it could be an imagined scenario.
Once all team members have written down the dumbest ideas, they could think of, evaluate every idea to determine which ones are most likely to work and which ones are least likely to be seen as a viable solution that can work.
How Critical Thinking Is Essential To Problem Solving – There are some problems that need to be solved by out-of-the-box thinking. Creative problem-solving ideas might sound unorthodox to work, but these give you additional options to consider. You can discover some solutions that might not be obvious to start with but can be incredibly effective in delivering expected results.
Brainstorm these dumb (or not so dumb) ideas in ProofHub through online chat. And start your uninterrupted collaborative journey for FREE today.
How It Helps: Communication, Problem-solving, & Management
- A lockable room
- 5-10 puzzles or clue
Hike the key and a list of clues around the room. Ask team members to solve all the clues to find the key and unlock the room to escape within the allotted time. Hide the clues and, most importantly, the key around the room.
Ask all team members to enter the room and lock the door. Give them 30 minutes or 1 hour to find the key using the clues hidden in the room. This problem solving activity can really get your team going up and running as they race against the time to find a solution to the problem in hand.
How Putting Intensive Efforts Is Essential To Problem Solving – Complex problems require an intensive team effort. Your team can achieve specific, time-bound goals by collaborating closely and thinking quickly under pressure.
What Team Problems Are These Activities Going To Solve?
Trust is the basis of strong relationships . No team can hope to achieve success if members do not want to engage with each other and make that human connection that is so vital for them for better collaboration.
Team members should first know each other well, both professionally and personally, primarily before they are assigned a large, complex project where tensions will run high at some point.
When some team members do not get easy access to crucial information related to a project, it can lead to a dreaded information gap within the team. Scattered information makes matters worse for managers and team members.
Having all the information stored and organized in a single location, in the form of files and folders, makes information accessibility easy for all team members. Team members can collaborate on them effectively , review, proof, and share feedback at one place , which saves a whole lot of time.
“According to an American Psychological Association survey that spoke to more than 1,500 workers , it was found that 50% didn’t feel that their employers shared the information they required to be successful within their jobs.”
For any project to be a success, teams, managers, and clients must be on the same page. Without transparency, the trust will take a backseat within the team, and it can lead to a plethora of problems that can spell doomsday for the company.
The task of establishing transparency starts at the top. Project managers are responsible for setting a prime example for their team members in terms of the way they conduct themselves. Employees are likely to follow their leader’s behaviors, positive or negative, and it becomes your responsibility to inspire them through positive actions.
“David Grossman reported in “The Cost of Poor Communications” that a survey of 400 companies with 100,000 employees each cited an average loss per company of $62.4 million per year because of inadequate communication to and between employees.”
Poor communication happens when it doesn’t happen regularly across the team, and not all members participate in it. It can also occur when team members interrupt one another, maintain silence, indicate problems but fail to address them formally. Some members may nod in agreement but may not agree in reality.
Using different communication modes can bridge the gap between team members. At the same time, encouraging members to share their ideas and concerns openly can also help clear any misunderstandings, doubts, and confusion.
“ One in two employees report that their jobs lack purpose, and an equal number feel disconnected from their company’s mission.”
If I think about the teams I least enjoyed working with, they were the ones that had a vague understanding of what exactly their purpose was and how they plan to achieve that goal . It’s hard to put in your best efforts when you don’t know the purpose behind the work you’re doing. The most satisfying teamwork occurs where the purpose is well-defined and team members are aligned with each other.
“ $359 billion in paid hours or the equivalent of 385 million working days are lost each year due to workplace conflict.”
Conflicts and tension can be healthy and trigger useful debates if managed carefully. However, team members can cross the line often. The negative effects of workplace conflict include, but are not limited to, poor productivity, absenteeism, work disruptions, project failure , lower retention rates, and termination. Different opinions in the workplace are common, but it’s their mishandling that can spell troubles for an organization.
Team leaders can practice constructive criticism to make employees realize their shortcomings without making them feel humiliated. You can appreciate their strong points but should not hesitate in pointing out their weaknesses (in performance or conduct) in an affirmative tone.
This is a common problem, especially among large teams. Some team members are not clear of their roles; what are they supposed to do, and when. At the end of the day, the blame game happens. Team members blame their managers and vice versa, and it’s all due to poor task management.
By creating and assigning custom roles , managers can allow team members or clients to do things that fall under their work domain and job responsibilities.
“When managers recognize employees’ contribution, their engagement increases by 60%”.
Having demotivated employees working for you is probably the biggest misfortune of your organization. However, have you ever tried to find out the reason for some of your employees losing motivation? It can be due to not being appreciated at work , not feeling like a part of the team, personal reasons, etc.
Whatever the reason may be, a team manager should quickly confront the situation to solve it for good. Having one-on-one discussions with team members can go a long way in helping you to know about the exact reasons behind their below-par performance and come up with effective solutions.
4 Reasons Why These Problem Solving Activities Will Work For Your Team
“ But how problem-solving activities are going to help me, my team members, and the organization?” Many readers, especially team managers, must be having this question in mind while reading this article.
I understand that readers want to know how problem solving activities can benefit them. So, I have prepared a list of pros of such activities to develop positivity at the workplace. Read on to know more about it.
Problem-solving activities help in bringing about the best in every member of the team. Every member enthusiastically puts forth his unique idea of solving the problem. This helps team managers to weigh in different solutions for resolving a problem and then choose the most suitable one. In other words, this process stimulates better thinking.
For example – A remote team with widely dispersed members was struggling with a lack of communication . Emails and texting were just not good enough. Mike was leading the team, and he asked all members to suggest ways to improve communication within the remote team .
John suggested using online chat software for instant group or individual chat, Sid suggested using video conferencing software for daily team meetings, and Shane suggested using telephonic calls, texting, and emails for official communication.
As a result of quick thinking and sharing of ideas, Mike and his team benefited greatly by using different communication modes to share information and feedback easily.
Some people can handle a higher amount of risk. It’s because they have successfully dealt with difficult situations before. Team problem solving activities help in conditioning the minds of individuals so they can respond to stressful situations better.
Regular communication between team members can help to solve problems efficiently. Problem-solving activities within teams foster mutual cooperation and intra-team communication, which eventually creates a better understanding between team members.
“Try ProofHub TODAY for on-time project delivery and on-point team accountability.”
When a team works as a strong unit, the company or organization experiences improved productivity, which eventually leads to improved profit margins. The involvement of managers and team members in problem solving activities can have a positive result for the company in terms of overall growth and profitability.
How Management Tools Can Help You Sort Out your Team Collaboration Problems:
Even though the aforementioned problem-solving activities can be amazingly effective in enhancing collaboration and communication within your team, there’s no denying the fact that using a top-rated team collaboration and project management software like ProofHub can help team managers solve quite a few problems efficiently.
Whether you’re having trouble with delayed communication, poor organization of files and folders, poor time management, inadequate task management , or low control over teams and projects, ProofHub is your all-in-one solution to put an end to your managerial woes and help you and your team achieve more in less.
- Workflows and Kanban Boards
- Online Proofing
- Gantt Charts
- Online Discussions
- Custom Reports
- Timer and Timesheets
- Third-party Integrations
- Announcements
- IP Restrictions
Pricing – Simple pricing for all team sizes. For information on our pricing plans, kindly visit our pricing page .
Many organizations face a plethora of problems that haunt their teams consistently. These problems have a rippling effect on the team’s performance, which hamper its productivity as well as cause delay in the organizational goals.
However, problem solving activities can bring all members closer as a team and encourage them to contribute to resolving problems effectively while having fun. These easy problem-solving activities can improve your team’s solutions-generating capabilities, which will eventually benefit everyone.
Sandeep Kashyap is the Founder and CEO of ProofHub — a leading project management and collaboration software. He’s one person always on a lookout for innovative ideas about filling the communication gap between groups, teams, and organizations. You’ll find him saying, "Let’s go!" instead of "Go!" many times a day. That’s what makes him write about leadership in a way people are inspired to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more.
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Top 10 problem solving group activities to work effectively as a team
To work effectively as a team, you need to learn how to overcome obstacles your team encounters.
And while you may find that team-building games can help build cohesion and communication in your team, you’ll also find that problem solving skills are equally as important in leveling up your team’s ability to achieve goals, address issues, and succeed together.
Teams must learn to observe problems critically and find all the possible ways around them, rather than getting stuck in the details or making excuses.
Great businesses have to solve both their customer’s problems and their own internal issues on a regular basis.
Problem solving has been linked to company performance.
Good problem solving skills lead to better decision making, which can improve performance and lead to company growth.
Teams and leaders who can learn how to solve problems in an orderly, planned fashion tend to perform better than those who cannot.
Luckily, the problem solving process is a learnable skill.
While some people are naturally better at it than others, everyone can learn the process of solving problems by thinking critically.
One very effective method for teaching this skill is through problem solving group activities.
How do problem-solving games work?
Problem solving games help teams break a problem down into five5 distinct stages:
Going through this problem solving process helps a team learn basic strategies they can then apply to real-world problems.
By gamifying the process , you’re allowing teams to work out the concepts and apply appropriate strategies in a controlled environment.
The benefits of problem-solving icebreakers for adults
Firstly, problem-solving icebreakers serve as effective introductions.
They’re much more engaging than simply listening to everyone in the group stating their names, and help avoid the awkward “think of an interesting fact about yourself”, too.
When done well, icebreakers are a fun start to any group session, and get everyone ready to start collaborating and networking.
As a non-threatening environment, icebreaker sessions promote lighthearted conversations and laughter—helping alleviate any tensions within the group.
This casual start to problem-solving group activities is a great way to introduce any formal learning sessions and puts everyone in a positive frame of mind.
Other benefits of problem-solving group activities are that they enable participants to share their own thoughts and expectations for sessions.
Implementing a well thought out icebreaker will garner more engagement from participants, as they feel like active players—rather than just listening in.
You’ll often find that icebreakers, like team building exercises, can help break up any existing cliques within groups and encourage participants to engage with people they might otherwise not interact with.
This is a good way to help build effective work relationships for the future.
10 problem-solving activities for employees
With these benefits in mind, let’s take a look at 10 team building activities to try with your employees.
All of these activities promote quick problem solving, critical thinking, trust, and a positive culture within groups.
Plus, as they’re quite simple activities, you can try them anywhere with minimal equipment.
1. Human knots
This is a simple activity you can do with any team.
It teaches communication and clear thinking in the face of a complex, frustrating problem.
There will likely be a number of solutions proposed by different members of the team, and each will need to be evaluated and implemented by the whole group.
Helps with: Communication skills, collaboration.
Time: 10 – 15 minutes.
What you need: Nothing (other than a small team of people).
Instructions:
- Have your team stand in a small circle (form multiple circles if you’re a larger group). Each person should hold the hands of two2 other people in the circle that are not standing directly beside them. This should create a messy knot of cross-crossed arms.
- Instruct your team to untangle themselves without releasing hands at any point. They may not be able to fully disentangle to form a circle again, but by the end of the activity time, they should have started working together to solve the problem.
2. Frostbite
Oh no! Your team is stranded in the barren Siberian wastelands and a sudden winter storm is approaching.
Using only the materials on hand, you need to build a structure that will withstand the harsh winds of the storm.
Unfortunately, the leader of your expedition has been struck with frostbite in both hands, and all the others are suffering from severe snow blindness.
Helps with: Leadership, trust, decision-making, adaptability.
Time: 30 minutes.
What you need: Blindfolds, an electric fan, and simple building materials such as card stock or cardboard paper, toothpicks, rubber bands, straws, masking tape, sticky notes, etc.
- Split into small groups of 4 – 5 people. Each group should elect a leader.
- Team leaders are not allowed to use their hands in any way to help the group, and group members must be blindfolded during the exercise.
- Teams have 30 minutes to construct a small tent structure that can withstand the wind from the highest setting on the fan.
3. Dumbest idea first
Thinking outside the box can stimulate your creativity and lead you to solutions that would normally sound too crazy to work.
By looking at these crazy solutions first, you can expand your options and discover the possible solutions that might not be as obvious.
Helps with: Creative problem solving, critical thinking, quick problem solving.
Time: 15 – 20 minutes.
What you need: Piece of paper, pen or pencil.
- Present a problem to your team. This could be a real-world problem that project management is actually facing, or it could be a made-up scenario. Example: Your company is trying to beat a competitor to secure a contract renewal with a high-paying client, but the client is leaning towards your competitors. You have a short time to change their minds before they make the official decision.
- With the problem presented, instruct your team to come up with the dumbest ideas they can think of to address the problem. Write them all down.
- Once each person has presented a few ideas, go through the list and evaluate each idea to see which ones are the most viable. List them down from the most likely to work to the least likely.
This is a particularly great problem-solving exercise for remote teams, as you can easily organize it via video conferencing with a whiteboard app for brainstorming.
4. Wool web
As difficult as it is to replicate the complexity of real-world problems, that’s no reason not to try!
Wool web creates a problem that seems impossible in the beginning, but with the right direction and working together, teams can learn to break down impossible situations into solvable problems one step at a time.
Helps with: Communication, leadership.
What you need: A few small balls of yarn.
- Divide the group into teams of equal size. Each team gets a ball of yarn.
- Instruct each team to make a large web from the yarn ball. Give them 5 – 10 minutes to do so. Once they’re done, rotate all the teams so that each team is at a yarn web they did not build.
- Each team should select one person to unwind the web. This person will be blindfolded, and the rest of the team should direct them on how to unwind the web through verbal instructions only. The first team to do it wins the game.
5. Tallest tower
One the classic group problem-solving activities, simple construction projects can help teams develop strategies to overcome out of the box problems.
Using only two materials, teams will compete to make the tallest marshmallow spaghetti tower in a set amount of time.
Helps with: Collaboration, creative thinking .
What you need: One pack uncooked spaghetti noodles, one bag of marshmallows.
- Divide your group into two equal teams. Give each team 20 – 30 uncooked spaghetti noodles and 3 – 4 marshmallows.
- In the given time, teams will compete to create the tallest tower using only the materials provided. A marshmallow must be placed at the top of the tower.
6. Spider web
A crafty spider has trapped your group in its lair.
To escape, you must pass through its web to get to the other side safely.
Each member of the team must pass through the web without touching it, but each hole in the web is only accessible once.
Helps with: Resource management, critical thinking, collaboration .
Time: 30 – 40 minutes.
What you need: One long ball of yarn, strong tape, scissors.
- Create a large web between two stationary objects (walls, trees, desks, etc.). The web should have 2 – 3 more holes than the number of people in the group, and holes should be of varying sizes with some being simple to pass through and others more difficult. Position your team on one1 side of the web.
- The goal is for them to go through the holes in the web without touching it. Each team member can only get to the other side through the web, not by going around the web.
- Instruct your team to pass through the web one at a time, with each hole being closed as it’s used. The activity is over once the entire team is through to the other side.
7. Shrinking vessel
Your whole team is stuck within a slowly shrinking vessel.
It’s up to them to figure out how to stay inside the given space as it gradually closes in.
Helps with: Adaptability, quick thinking, collaboration.
Time: 10 minutes.
What you need: A rope, ball of yarn, or similarly thick string.
- Put a large circle of rope on the floor. Position your entire team within the circle.
- Slowly reduce the size of the circle. Instruct your team to work together to keep the whole team within the circle as it gets smaller. No one should step outside the circle. See how small you can make the space before they’re unable to stay inside.
8. Minefield
The concept of this one is simple: The team has arrived on a battlefield laid with mines.
One person at a time must attempt to cross the battlefield without stepping on one.
Once a team member steps on a mine, they must return back to the start.
Helps with: Communication.
Time: 60 minutes.
What you need: An empty room or hallway, blindfolds, and a collection of common office items.
- Place the items (chairs, boxes, water bottles, bags, etc.) around the room so there’s no obvious path from one end of the room to the other.
- Split your team into pairs and blindfold one person on the team.
- The other must verbally guide that person from one end of the room to the other, avoiding the “mines” (The partner who is not blindfolded can’t touch the other).
To make Minefield more challenging, set it up so that all the pairs go simultaneously—teams must find ways to strategically communicate with each other.
9. Egg drop
While this one does involve a little bit of equipment (and potential mess), it’s great for helping your team practice making choices quickly.
Train your team’s decision-making muscles to help them become more adept at problem solving.
Helps with: Collaboration, decision-making.
Time: 20-30 minutes.
What you need: A carton of eggs, basic construction materials such as newspapers, straws, tape, plastic wrap, balloons, rubber bands, etc. You’ll also need an outside space where it doesn’t matter if you get messy!
- Give each team an egg and ask them to select from the construction materials.
- Allow 20-30 minutes to construct a carrier for the egg and protect it from breaking.
- Drop each egg carrier off a ledge to see whose carrier protects the egg from breaking.
- If multiple eggs make it, keep increasing the height until only one egg is left.
10. Stranded
If you think your team might have communication problems, Stranded can be a great way to spot them.
It’s easy to see who’s a strong leader, who’s happy to just go along with things, and who’s most likely to butt heads.
You can even intervene during the icebreaker to smooth out these problems, hopefully laying the groundwork for better communication in the future.
Helps with: Communication, decision-making.
What you need: An office and your team.
Your team is stranded in the office. The doors are locked, and knocking down the doors or breaking the windows is not a possibility.
Set the timer and give your team 30 minutes to decide on the ten items that they need for survival in the office, and rank them in order of importance.
The goal of the game is to have everyone agree on the ten items and their rankings within 30 minutes.
After the activities
If you choose to do team building problem-solving activities, take the time after you finishto dissect the game and understand what happened, why it matters, and how to apply those skills in a real-world scenario.
It’s not about frustrating people or just playing a fun game together. These exercises can have a real impact on the way your team works, and are the building blocks of a better future.
Take the time to sit down and talk over the lessons of the games, including what could have been done better in terms of team collaboration. The end result should be a team that understands itself a little more and is better equipped to solve problems that come up in the workplace.
Improve collaboration with problem-solving group activities
Problem-solving group activities are a great tool to foster efficient inter-departmental collaboration .
The key to any group activity is communication .
When everyone is communicating effectively, problems get solved faster, and groups learn to work together efficiently.
As professionals, problem solving is a crucial skill, and one which needs to be practiced on an ongoing basis to be applied effectively.
By using fun problem-solving activities, you can help improve your teams’ problem solving abilities and foster a positive culture of collaboration and honest feedback.
The ideas for problem-solving group activities we’ve covered are just the start, you could expand into things like scavenger hunts or even escape rooms.
Why not give them a try?
Originally published November 10, 2020, updated February 23, 2023
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