Team Training Ideas

• Claim to Fame 
• - a great team training idea for getting to a more personal level with everyone
• Build A Story 
• - based on the popular Mad Libs™ method for creating comedic stories.  I am providing two template stories that are business-related.  This is hilarious when you have a group getting comfortable with each other during team training or during a staff meeting.
  

Start a dull meeting with simple meeting icebreakers.
Scroll Down to see the instructions for these two free Team Training Ideas.

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A quick, easy ice-breaker.

Have each person in the room describe him/herself in one word or phrase. Each word should be descriptive and specific, such ...

Description:
An Icebreaker to get team members to share something personal.  This increases bonding among team members by humanizing each member, thus breaking down potential barriers between individuals.  The process has two major pieces: tabletop sharing, then large group readout.

When to use: 
Use at the kickoff of a team training workshop that requires participation.  By engaging the group in an exercise where they are asked to talk, they will be warmed-up when you need them to participate later in the day during the actual training.

Caveats: 
Some groups are reluctant to participate in "non-work" activities because they see them as games and non-value-added.  As a facilitator, you should emphasize that this ice breaker is to start the interaction process and learn about who is next to them so that they can personalize the workshop activities more readily during the training day and increase team bonding. 

1.  Ask each person the write share the following with each person at their table, or in small groups of 3-5.
   
  Your "Claim to Fame"

        Examples: 
          "I make a world-famous cheesecake",
          "I was the 4H champion for calf-wrangling", or
          "People love me at parties because I end up starting sing-alongs late at night."

2.  If you know each other pretty well, encourage the group to add or correct the "real" claim to fame.  Such as "yeah you start sing-alongs, but it is little-known Broadway show tunes, so it becomes a solo rather than a sing-along!"

3.  If you have a larger group, you may want to hear the best-voted claim to fame at each table, rather then hearing all, which could take too much time,

4.  Share the groups' findings as an entire team.  Facilitate some interaction where the participants are laughing with each other.  Look for opportunities where a claim to fame may be useful in a team environment. An example would be if someone was captain of the high school debate team, they would be a terrific spokesperson for the team when a key idea was to be pitched to management.

By increasing an understanding of team members on a more personal level, trust increases.  A key factor in trust levels being raised is commonality.  When individuals find that they have something in common, they are more likely to trust each other.

Description:
This is my version of the Mad Libs™ stories.  And yes, I have a wicked sense of humor, so I thrive on seeing clients let loose with these potentially goofy exercises.  This one gets exponentially funnier with   twisted vocabulary.

When to use: 
Use this if a team needs warming up.  If they seem a little hesitant, prod them on by getting someone that seems creative to offer up some interesting words.  Body parts are always a hit, along with references to mother-in-laws, duck-billed-platypus, wet cat noses, or other obscure items.

Caveats:
I adapted these 2 stories from real newsletter articles at a client office.  Both of them are aerospace-related and work well for technical environments.  You may want to use this idea by adapting them for your situation or find a local article that you can add blanks to.

Process:
You will need one person looking at the fill-in sheet and asking for words.

But first, have the group come up with their list of required words all at once as a team. This requires that you list out everything they need to create ahead of time, such as: "give me 7 nouns, 4 adverbs, 4 adjectives, and 1 color."  This allows some small group interaction, as well as fine-tuning to get better words.  Then they give you the words as you ask for them.

As you receive the words from them, one-by-one, fill them in on the appropriate blank. Occasionally, it is okay to manipulate where the word goes.  In other words, if you get a noun that makes more sense or is funnier in a blank for a noun later in the story, put it there.  Encourage free-wheeling!

Once you have all the story filled in, read it aloud for great laughs.

Adaptation - you can have small groups fill out different stories concurrently.


Downloads  
   Build-A-Story 1  - The History of Munitions  

This is based on an article about, duh, the history of munitions. And it is mostly about air munitions.  So use this if you are in aerospace or military, otherwise simply substitute the technical words for your industry words.

   Build-A-Story 2  - Our Monthly Award Winner Announcement

This is based on an announcement about someone's achievement. In it, I recommend that the "person" we fill-in-the-blank about is someone in the room, preferably a new person.  This becomes a sort of "initiation" for him or her.  Ha ha.
PS - there is a reference to hardware & software that you may want to change if it makes no sense for your business.