Indoor Team Building Activities Your Team Can Do

• Team building activities help teammates bond with, understand, and learn about each other in a setting outside the office.
• For indoor team building, options range from puzzle games to physical challenges.
• No matter the nature of the activity, team building is successful when employees are able to apply the lessons and strategies they used in an activity to their day-to-day tasks at work. 

Team building is more than a break from routine. It’s a worthwhile recess from office duties and allows each member to better understand how their coworkers think, work, and solve problems. 

These participatory activities help in fostering a type of work culture that encourages motivation and collaboration from employees. Aside from improving the team’s communication lines, team building activities can also enable creativity among its members, eventually leading them to become more productive in the office. 

There are many kinds of team building activities, from quick, simple games to "field trips" with your officemates. No matter the time frame or budget, all it takes for team building to be successful is a positive attitude and adequate planning. 

Drawing sheet

This team building activity only requires pen and paper. Break up into groups of three to four and give each group a sheet of paper along with a writing instrument. The first person holding the paper must draw a line on it. It doesn't matter how thick or thin, long or short, just draw one line. Next, they pass it to the person next to them. That person, too, adds just one line on the paper. The line doesn't necessarily have to touch the first one. It's totally up to you.

Continue circulating the paper up to 30 times, giving each person five seconds or so to add their line. You don't need to think about it too hard. Pictures will often develop naturally as the paper gets passed around. Have everyone put their pens down and show their work.

As each group presents their masterpiece, they can talk about what images were formed. Some questions may come up such as, how did the time limit affect their work? What did they learn from the game? Doing a drawing sheet is a fast, fun way to let teammates connect in a creative way and collaborate without the usual pressures of the workplace.

Talking in circles

This game is challenging, but fun. And it only needs a long piece of string or yarn. Some thin rope can work, too. Make sure it's at least a few meters long and tie it at the ends so that it forms a circle. Put it on the floor and have all the participants stand around it.

The goal is to create shapes with the string, from squares to triangles to figure eights. Once everyone has gotten the hang of it, increase the difficulty by having them close their eyes or wear blindfolds while forming the shapes. Then to make it even more challenging, before a new round, designate a few members who will be "muted" for the remainder of the game. They have to continue contributing to the task, but without talking to any teammates.

Talking in Circles isn't a goofy, random time killer. It can get pretty funny, but at its core, it's an activity that tests leadership in a group. This doesn’t mean that one person has to take on the role of a leader and do all the work - it’s about each member showing leadership qualities when it is required of them. It challenges teammates to accomplish a fairly simple agenda with obstacles like having many hands working at once, being unable to communicate, or having to work blindly. 

Scramble puzzle

This game requires teammates to put together a puzzle. The puzzle can be as easy as preschool level, no more than 30 pieces. The tricky part is that all team members except one must be blindfolded.

The participant without a blindfold acts as the leader. The leader has a copy of the completed picture, which their teammates have never seen. The leader must work with their team to complete the puzzle, from getting all the pieces facing upwards to piecing all the pieces together. 

The scramble puzzle is mainly an exercise of trust. Team members must trust that their leader knows what they are doing, and in turn, the leader must communicate with them clearly and efficiently to get the job done. In this game, either party can be faced with confusion or frustration. The only way to put the pieces together successfully is to overcome those negative feelings and create solutions that work for everyone, as one unit.

The barter puzzle

Another game you can play if you have some jigsaw puzzles on hand is the barter puzzle. Before getting everyone together, mix different kinds of puzzles and put them in boxes for each team to solve. Make sure each box is full of diverse puzzle pieces. On game day, divide the team into groups with an equal number of members and give each group one puzzle. In order to get the missing pieces of their puzzle, they must bargain with other teams. This doesn’t have to be only with puzzle pieces. Teams may barter their time and effort, propose mergers, or even exchange a teammate for some valuable pieces. The first team to complete a jumbled puzzle will be crowned the winning group. 

The barter puzzle encourages creative teamwork, not just among in-game teams, but with all the participants as a whole. Aside from combining their logic and visual intelligence to put together a puzzle, they must also strategize to get the pieces they need from the other teams.

4-way tug-of-war

Tug-of-war is a no-brainer: teams band together and pull on either end of the rope until one of them falls over. However, this version comes with a twist. Instead of having just two teams battle it out, you can have three or four teams compete to be the ultimate winner. Let them strategize, whether they’ll simply go all out, or form alliances to end with a final face-off between two surviving teams. Participants will have to put all of their strength and energy together for this game. Don't be surprised if people quickly show their competitive side.

At the same time, this is a great moment to appreciate - and teach, if needed - good sportsmanship. There's nothing wrong with being competitive and getting into the spirit of the game, as long as no one feels bad at the end of the day and everyone had fun. Graciously celebrating a victory is just as important as graciously accepting that you were beaten or outshined in a competition. The same rules apply when it comes to projects, duties, and other activities in the office.

Common book

Unlike outdoor games, some indoor team building activities can be stretched over a long period of time and still be collaborative. To make your culture book or common book, leave a big blank scrapbook in a common area with some art materials and tape. You can write a question for team members to answer at the top of each page, or give them some guidelines and suggestions for what to write or draw there. You can go sentimental and ask them, “If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?” Or you could be random and wacky and tell them to try to draw a giraffe with their eyes closed. When the team attends events, one person can gather memorabilia like ticket stubs and printouts from a photo booth to stick to the pages. Creating your own book is a great way to let team members collaborate, and later on reminisce about what they’ve been through together.

With the advent of technology, you can also make your common book digital and let everyone contribute from their personal devices, no matter where they are. Set it up on Google Docs, Mural.co, or a similar app or website. This opens up some fun possibilities like sharing gifs and videos, too. Additionally, sharing is easier since anyone can view it, even when they’re not in the office.

Online games

For those who have a relatively small team (12 people or fewer), you can share the nostalgia with classic board games like Scrabble and Monopoly, or card games like Uno and Cards Against Humanity. All of these have online platforms where you can play on a computer, smartphone, or tablet. If Pictionary is more your speed, try Scribbl, which has the same "Guess the drawing" format but uses a virtual whiteboard instead of a real one. You don’t have to be an artist to win, but quick thinking and a good eye will definitely give you an advantage.

Big teams can get in on this action, too. Pair people up or split them into groups for a tournament-style series of games and keep playing until one champion finally emerges. This will take more planning, but it’s also exciting to see team members progress and engage in a fierce (but friendly!) competition.

Bridge build

Indoor team building games should foster camaraderie and creativity. Bridge build does that by splitting the team into two, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be working together. The task that the two groups share is to build a bridge. Sounds easy, right? But there’s a twist, and that twist makes it challenging. Each group must build only half of the bridge, and the design must be identical. At the end of the game, their construction skills will be tested by putting the two halves together. They must mirror each other, and more importantly, they must be sturdy enough to stand without the support of the team members’ hands.

Another aspect of the game that makes it tricky is that the two teams must be separated so that they can’t see each other or their bridges until the “reveal” at the very end. They can communicate verbally through an app like Slack, or over phone call, or by having one representative from each team meet to talk to each other. To build their bridges, provide teams with materials like popsicle sticks, straws, cardboard rolls from toilet paper, pens, paper, and something to hold it all together like tape, glue, or staplers.

Reverse charades

There’s a good chance that everyone on your team has played charades at least once, whether it was at a birthday party, a family reunion, or an office function. One person acts out a word, name, or phrase, and everyone else guesses what it is. In reverse charades, the roles are flipped. One person guesses the word or words, and the rest of the group works together to act it out for them. To move things along more quickly, you can use the Reverse Charades app. But it might be more fun to come up with your own words and phrases. They could be related to your company, something found in your workplace, or even abstract ideas that are harder to act out. 

Before the acting out begins, allow the team (except for the one guessing, of course) to take a minute or two to talk among themselves and plan out what exactly they’re going to do. Remind players that pointing at people or objects to give obvious “hints” isn’t allowed, so they’ll need to get creative with their charade. It’s also important for them to keep in mind that everyone must play a role in the charade. This means no one should sit back and just wait while the others do all the acting. Making use of the bodies and facial expressions of every member of the team is part of the fun!

Obstacle course racing at Pretty Huge Obstacles

If you and your team are up for something more physically demanding, taking an obstacle course racing class together might be perfect for you. OCR is an exhausting but satisfying workout that lets you get messy while testing your physical limits.

Team building should be transformative, and that's a tall order to fill for an activity that usually lasts less than one day. Whatever the team takes away from the team building session should somehow translate into how they work when they get back to the office. This is why obstacle course racing has been gaining popularity as a fitness regime and a team building activity. It doesn't just build physical strength. It also enhances mental strength, your sense of determination, planning skills, strategic thinking, and of course, your ability to work as a part of a team.

Pretty Huge Obstacles in Bonifacio Global City is the first-ever OCR training facility in the Philippines. They offer over a hundred obstacles, as well as a 100-meter elevated indoor racetrack, and obstacle zones for adults and kids.

You don't need to be crazy prepared to do OCR training - but it's definitely worth a shot if you're interested. Spend your team building day climbing walls and hanging from ring sliders with your coworkers. No obstacle is too tough when you have your team to push, pull, and cheer each other on.

Do your team buildings differently

There is something to be gained from every kind of team building. Whether you’re passing around a piece of paper or helping each other climb over a high wall, it’s important for teammates to show each other support. This paves the way for smoother collaboration, higher productivity, and more successful communication. Team building temporarily erases the hierarchies and formal roles within the company, allowing teammates to relax and have fun together. In the process, they are also picking up useful new strategies that can translate to more efficient work in the office and other big and small transformations.