Helium Stick

Deceptively simple but powerful exercise for learning how to work together and communicate in small to medium sized groups. Helium Stick

Estimation Game

Credit to @ChrisSims who I first saw running a session like this at an AONW conference. I have used this exercise to help teams understand how a they can reach consensus in estimating work regardless of the differences in experience and skill-set amongst them. Part 1 Divide your room into equal teams (6 – 10 people on a team works well). […]

Check-ins

Open your meeting with a Check-in. This is a really effective method to bring everyone into the meeting to get them mentally present and ready to start. This space creates knowledge and insight about each other and perhaps what else might be here. For example: Tell us about your shoes? Take about 30 seconds to […]

Space Counting

Partner activity in which one person traces the identical path of their partner’s fingers as they draw numbers in the air.

Crossed or Un-Crossed?

A quick and easy way to gather everyone’s attention. All you need is a pair of scissors. http://www.ultimatecampresource.com/site/camp-activity/scissors-or-crossed-uncrossed-game.html

Big Ball O’Questions

Open a meeting using a beach ball covered with 50 to 100 questions written in permanent ink. Have everyone stand in a circle and toss the ball to each other. When the ball is caught the question closest to the left thumb is the one to read aloud and answer. Note: White beach balls work best otherwise avoid […]

Multitasking is Evil

A great exercise to demonstrate the effectiveness of working on one thing at a time. Support the idea of working through a prioritized list by taking each item to completion before pulling in the next piece of work. Multitasking is Evil

Ball Toss Name Game (Introductions)

Play this with a group who do not know each other, make the introductions memorable and get your meeting off to a more interesting start. Form the group into a circle. Use a ball or any object which can be easily thrown and caught between participants. The concept is very simple, before you gently toss the […]

Ro Sham Bo Rockstar

A high energy variation on Rock, Paper, Scissors. The link takes you to a student game page but this is awesome for the workplace too. Ro Sham Bo Rockstar

VisualsSpeak

Use their images to start conversations. Watch team formation surface in powerful ways. Highly recommend this for every facilitators toolkit. Thanks to Sylvia Taylor for introducing me. VisualsSpeak