Team Building Ideas, Please

[+chrisandjanet]

The company I work for has periodic "health blitzes" where we try to encourage employees to participate in some physical activities. I let slip to a supervisor about Geocaching and he seemed interested. So now I need to come up with some sort of team building activity. I'm looking for ideas for about 30 people and about a two hour timeframe. I'd like to work some sort of "team building" exercise into it.

 

I know there's a company out there that does this, but they want a couple thousand bucks. I have a budget of about $1.98.

 

All ideas are appreciated - thanks!

[knowschad]

The company I work for has periodic "health blitzes" where we try to encourage employees to participate in some physical activities. I let slip to a supervisor about Geocaching and he seemed interested. So now I need to come up with some sort of team building activity. I'm looking for ideas for about 30 people and about a two hour timeframe. I'd like to work some sort of "team building" exercise into it.

 

I know there's a company out there that does this, but they want a couple thousand bucks. I have a budget of about $1.98.

 

All ideas are appreciated - thanks!

 

Boy... that's a tight budget! How many GPS receivers have you got at your disposal?

[+A & J Tooling]

What are the physical limits of the group? Broad ranged? Ages? I'd suggest an obstacle/confidence course with caches hidden at the end of each obstacle. Of course, these types of events usually require some people being in decent shape.

 

Or just have everyone attend the next local event in your area.

[+LukeTrocity]

Do the people have smart phones? If yes, search for tougher caches with clues, and have everyone split into teams. Searching is a great team building exercise.

 

Or find a nice rail trail and have fun!

[+JBnW]

Split into small groups of 2, 3, 4, or whatever suits you. Let each member have a specific part of finding caches, but no one can share what they have with other group members. For instance, one person has the GPS, but has to give directions to the driver to get to the cache (not show where they're going); one person has the cache information, but someone else actually does the finding. Could be fun with newbs explaining to each other what a blinkie is and where it might be!

[knowschad]

Without knowing more about it, I would suggest hiding your own temporary caches over trying to send a group like that after a bunch of actual published geocaches. You could emulate a cache page, providing coordinates, container size, difficulty and terrain ratings (1-5 with 1/2 step increments) and a nice writeup and fun cache names.

[7rxc]

If you do decide to use published caches, make sure that people understand the game thoroughly please.

 

I had the pleasure of following a 'team building course' like that last year. I only hit a few of their chosen caches, but in each one there were the same non member names... and logs about enjoying collecting the treasures.. (yep, Geocoins and TB's) all with no online logging and so far as I can tell never being seen again locally. Not a lot for sure, but IF I ever find the course instructor, I will try to educate them for sure... There was actually a cacher on that course, but it still seems to have happened without their knowledge... Right now there is no recourse other than to try to make sure that participants understand the entire game, including handling trackables, and SWAG.

 

Other than that Geocaching is a good training medium, especially when used with unpublished 'private event' caches. We have been using it (along with other groups) for SAR training, both for navigation and actual searching practice, usually with unpublished targets though, since we need variety and quick placements.

 

Doug 7rxc

[+chrisandjanet]

Well, now the head cheese of my department has heard about this and is interested. Hoo boy, teach me to open my big mouth.

 

There is a pretty big (several acres) city park, wooded, with a pavillion. I figure I can place 15-20 caches just for the event no problem. We're a pretty tech-heavy company, so I figure I can put out a call for folks with GPSr's or i-phones. Teams of 2-3 people, pretty much everybody is in decent physical shape (under 50, anyway).

 

I think I can set up the event with a little effort, but I need some help with the "team building" aspect. How do I involve everyone on the team, how can I tie in the activity to something useful to the department? I suppose I can give points based on FTF, sencon TF, etc. What are some good "team lessons" I can get out of Geocaching (almost by it's nature a loner activity)?

[+chrisandjanet]

Split into small groups of 2, 3, 4, or whatever suits you. Let each member have a specific part of finding caches, but no one can share what they have with other group members. For instance, one person has the GPS, but has to give directions to the driver to get to the cache (not show where they're going); one person has the cache information, but someone else actually does the finding. Could be fun with newbs explaining to each other what a blinkie is and where it might be!

 

Hmm...I think I can work with that - puts the focus on "communication". Great ideas!

[+JBnW]

Split into small groups of 2, 3, 4, or whatever suits you. Let each member have a specific part of finding caches, but no one can share what they have with other group members. For instance, one person has the GPS, but has to give directions to the driver to get to the cache (not show where they're going); one person has the cache information, but someone else actually does the finding. Could be fun with newbs explaining to each other what a blinkie is and where it might be!

 

Hmm...I think I can work with that - puts the focus on "communication". Great ideas!

Doesn't sound like you need to sell the idea any more, but also reinforces that other members of your team may have talents, experience or information needed to solve problems, and that whole "working together" stuff.

[+niraD]

For short team-building exercises, artificial requirements like "only you can look at the GPSr, only you can see the cache info, only you can look for the cache" can work. For a longer activity, I think it would be better to build the restrictions into the event. For example, challenges could require teams to use information from multiple locations. The whole team could go from one location to the next to the next, but it is more effective to split up and have each member collect a different bit of information. That builds roles and multiple information sources into the activity, rather than making it an artificial rule.

 

IME, the best team-building activities have involved just working with people on something, without artificial rules about who can do what. Just divide into teams and let each team learn how to paddle a dragon boat, or plan its "weapons" and tactics for a water war, or figure out how to find the most temporary geocaches in a limited amount of time.