Top Team Building Game Ideas
A company’s success depends as much on its people as on its strategies. One of the most effective ways to foster collaboration, enhance morale, and improve overall workplace dynamics is through team building activities. These games are not just a fun break from the daily grind; they are a strategic investment in your workforce, with benefits that ripple across the organisation.
Team building games play a crucial role in strengthening interpersonal relationships among team members. They encourage open communication, foster trust, and build a sense of camaraderie that transcends job titles and departmental silos. This sense of connection is vital to creating a positive workplace culture where employees feel valued and included - the question is, how best to do this?
There are a number of ways to work your way towards a thoroughly engaged workforce - we may be biased, but at MAKE there’s nothing better than a good game. We’ve rounded up our favourites below - all playable with large numbers of participants.
Explore:
- Best for team icebreakers
- Best for virtual or remote team building
- Best for team problem solving
- Best for creative team building
Best Team Icebreakers
Icebreaker activities are a fantastic way to ease tension, spark conversations, and create a welcoming atmosphere, whether in a meeting, classroom, or team-building session. These quick and engaging exercises help participants connect, break down barriers, and set the stage for productive and enjoyable interactions:
Orientation games
Whether you’re looking to engage a new cohort of university students on campus, or some fresh faces in the office, nothing gets people working together and having a laugh quicker than staring at a tiny map on their phone and using clues to find specific locations - whether they relate to your organisation, or just a fun way to explore the local area.
We love an orientation game, and will soon be launching GPS orientation games with a number of templates in the MAKE by Wildgoose app for specifically this purpose. Go check them out!
Two truths and a lie
Two Truths and a Lie is a classic icebreaker game that’s perfect for fostering connection and sparking curiosity among team members. Each participant takes turns sharing three statements about themselves—two of which are true and one that’s fabricated. The rest of the group must guess which statement is the lie.
It's an excellent way to ease tension in a group, learn something new about colleagues, and kickstart conversations that go beyond work-related topics. To gamify this, you can use one of the MAKE by Wildgoose Trivia templates with a “question” for each participant, with the answers being the two truths and a lie - ask gamers to identify the lie.
Best for virtual or remote team building
Virtual or remote team-building activities are essential for fostering connection and collaboration in distributed teams, bridging the gap created by physical distance. These activities leverage technology to create engaging, interactive experiences that strengthen relationships, improve communication, and maintain a sense of unity, no matter where team members are located.
Virtual escape rooms
Virtual Escape Rooms are an innovative and engaging team-building activity that brings colleagues together to solve puzzles and complete challenges, all from the comfort of their own devices.
Participants work collaboratively to "escape" a virtual scenario—such as solving a mystery, defusing a bomb, or finding hidden treasures—within a set time limit. By creating a shared goal and encouraging creative thinking, virtual escape rooms offer a unique opportunity for remote teams to connect, bond, and build trust, even when they’re miles apart.
Collaboration training
Collaboration Training Games are structured activities designed to improve teamwork and enhance the way colleagues work together. These games simulate real-world scenarios that require participants to communicate effectively, solve problems, and coordinate their efforts to achieve a common goal.
Examples include role-playing exercises, resource allocation challenges, and brainstorming sessions where creative solutions are encouraged. By emphasising active participation and shared decision-making, collaboration training games help teams identify strengths, address weaknesses, and build stronger interpersonal relationships.
Best for team problem solving
Problem-solving activities are a powerful way to sharpen critical thinking and collaboration skills, helping teams tackle challenges in innovative ways. Here are a few of our favourites:
Trivia
A part of working together as a team is coming to a conclusion as one - and nothing does that better than a good old fashioned round of Trivia! We like to mix up the categories and question formats, to enable different skillsets within the team to really shine.
Who will be the secret movie buff in your midst, and who can remember every sports star in 90s football? You can try our Trivia templates to build your own - you could even make the questions specific to your organisation!
Murder mystery
Hosting a murder mystery game in the office is a fun and immersive way to engage employees and foster team collaboration. The game involves assigning roles to participants, who act as suspects, detectives, or witnesses in an unfolding mystery. The plot typically revolves around solving a fictional crime, with clues and twists revealed throughout the session.
The game begins with an introduction to the storyline and distribution of character details. Participants are encouraged to dress up, stay in character, and interact with others to uncover secrets and gather information. Clues may be hidden around the office, provided through scripted dialogues, or delivered by a moderator or game host. Teams work together to piece the puzzle together, analysing evidence, interrogating characters, and forming theories.
Most creative team building ideas
Creative team-building ideas bring a unique twist to fostering collaboration, ensuring that participants are not only engaged but also challenged to think outside the box. By breaking away from conventional activities, these ideas spark excitement and create memorable experiences that strengthen team dynamics and drive meaningful interactions.
Innovation Training
Creating an innovation training game simply challenges your participants to get creative in thinking about what innovation means in practice. You might want to do this with a range of task types, for example asking participants to take photos or videos, or you could create a simple trivia format.
Some examples of the questions or tasks that you might like to include are:
Example task
Take a picture of an innovative technology you use for work
Create a 15 second video of you explaining an innovative product idea
Capture an image of an everyday object that was a major innovation when first introduced
Who invented the first commercially successful aeroplane?
Which industry has been significantly transformed by 3D printing technology?
Which platform is known for crowdfunding innovative projects?
Scavenger hunt
With a little bit of creativity, this one could either be done in person, or it could be done remotely (especially handy if you have groups in different parts of the world). The idea here is that you challenge your teams to go and find specific items, or take photos or videos of themselves performing a certain task.
Each task might have a different number of points, where harder challenges are worth more. Some examples of challenges you might set:
- Balancing books on your head
- Perform a dramatic movie scene/breaking news segment
- Record an advert for a product
- Do a magic trick
- Find 5 items that are a particular colour
Our MAKE scavenger hunt templates make it easier than ever for your teams to submit their photo and video entries to start collecting those precious points.
Explore the scavenger hunt template on the MAKE app.
Why team building games make a difference at work
Team-building games play a transformative role in fostering strong relationships and creating a sense of belonging, whether in the workplace or among students new to a university. In the office, these activities break down barriers between colleagues, encouraging open communication and collaboration.
By stepping out of their usual roles and engaging in shared challenges, employees learn to appreciate each other’s strengths, build trust, and work more effectively as a team. This not only boosts morale but also contributes to a positive workplace culture, leading to greater productivity and job satisfaction. Employees who feel connected to their colleagues are more likely to engage meaningfully with their work, reducing turnover and creating a thriving organisation.
7 C’s in team building games and exercises
When looking for which team building games might be the best fit for your employees, it’s best to reverse engineer this thought process and consider which characteristics you’d like to see flourish the most during the exercises. For this, we like to consider the 7cs of effective communication as a rough guideline to knowing what you’d like to get out of it:
- Communication - Most team games will require effective communication among participants for it to work. Encourage participants to engage and be free-thinking in speaking up with their ideas!
- Collaboration - Team members collaborate to achieve a shared goal, leveraging teamwork to enhance problem-solving, creativity, and innovation. This process enables teams to blend their diverse skills and perspectives effectively.
- Commitment - Commitment is reinforced through team-building games as they inspire individuals to invest in collective goals, support their teammates, and stay dedicated to achieving shared success.
- Competence - Competence is enhanced through team-building games as they provide opportunities to develop skills, showcase abilities, and build confidence in contributing effectively to the group.
- Confidence - Confidence is both a driver and a result of team-building games, as they encourage individuals to step out of their comfort zones, share ideas, and trust their abilities within a supportive group setting.
- Creativity - Creativity thrives in team-building games, as they challenge participants to think outside the box, solve problems innovatively, and explore new ways of collaborating with their peers.
- Cohesion - Cohesion is strengthened through team-building games as they unite individuals around shared goals, foster trust, and create a sense of belonging within the group.
How MAKE by Wildgoose Can Help
MAKE by Wildgoose makes creating team building games easy. We offer a range of templates for different game formats, all so your participants can join in online. This makes it an ideal solution for managing large groups, and creating combined collaboration between people who are able to join in person and those who may need to participate remotely.
At MAKE by WIldgoose, we understand how time-consuming crafting these kinds of activities can be. That’s why our platform is AI-driven, so it can quickly generate anything from trivia questions to tasks for your chosen games.
Ready to give it a try? You can sign up for free to try our templates, or get in touch with us for a free, no-obligation demo of the platform.
