Clock Blog
Team Building. Meet; the Mycrowave, Ironman, Crapology and the Spidge!
Two weeks ago, I ran a team building exercise to get the creative juices flowing and have the team work with people they haven't necessarily worked with before.
Previously I have run the excellent Marshmallow Challenge which is great fun and interesting - this time round I wanted to create my own team building exercise that would focus on creativity and collaboration. So I found a two hour slot the whole company could attend (which is a task in itself!), booked an event in everyone's diaries and began preparations.
Heres a quick summary of what I came up with, how I ran it and the results.
I split the entire company (all departments) into 4 teams (I used this online tool: http://chir.ag/projects/team-maker/)
Then, I told the teams that they had 1 hour to:
"Create a 5-15 minute TV commercial for an ‘improved’ everyday household appliance."
More specifically, I asked that within the team, they choose/create a Company Name and Appliance and that the commercial should be either:
- 1) Acted
- 2) A video commercial
- 3) A presentation of ideas
*(or a mix of each)
I stipulated that everyone must speak or take an active role in the presentation/commercial (e.g. Just acting as a extra would not suffice).
I informed the teams that after the hour was up, no matter how complete, we'd all watch each teams efforts and individually score the commercial on the following (out of 10)
- Feasibility (is it likely)
- Buyability (would you buy it)
- The Team’s X-Factor (how good was the commercial/presentation)
and I promised the winning team…. CHOCS (they could hardly contain their excitement!).
The teams organised themselves into separate rooms and began the task, some superbly hilarious product ideas ensued - and for some reason a certain team member was fixated on putting a fish bowl into every product ("How about an iron with a fish swimming in it") - naming no names, Duncan :)
After "brainstorming" and then settling on an idea - the teams really set the creativity to full throttle.
I won't go into too much detail on each product as you had to be there to get the true experience of each pitch.. but a quick summary of each team:
Team #1 - MyCrowave
A social and cloud enabled (and frankly quite frighteningly powerful) microwave.
A mannequin style ironing experience. Wake up to crisp and perfectly fitted and ironed clothes :) (oh and there is a Ironwoman/child too)
Team #3 - Healthcheck3000's crapology
Dr. Sheißenburg's stool sampling device to check you are still healthy. (We never knew about our CTO and IS Director's hidden acting/accent skills!)
Always getting food on your clothes when trying to get food from the back of the fridge? well fear no more....
The 2 hours flew-by and much was gained by all.
....oh and the winning team was Team 1 (The Mycrowave).
Have you run a team building exercise lately?
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