10 Activities to Strengthen Teamwork Skills
Learning Objectives
- Work through a range of activities with your teammates to scaffold discussions and strengthen teamwork skills.
Getting Started with the Project
No bad ideas…
There are no bad ideas when it comes to a team project, right?
Sometimes it can be challenging to know where to start with your project, so this activity is designed to set you up for success, by allowing the team to have a laugh together and generate some ideas for the project.
For this activity, you will need a whiteboard, a large piece of paper or a digital collaboration tool like Google docs.
- As a group, briefly discuss the topic your project is on, or the problem you are trying to solve.
- Using the whiteboard or paper, have everyone write down their worst ideas. This might be something like ‘copy an existing project’, ‘take a nap’ or anything, really! There are only bad ideas!
- Once everyone has written their ideas, step back and have a good laugh.
- Discuss your favourite worst ideas.
You now have a starting point for your project; you know what you will not be doing/ working on as a team which now means you can start brainstorming some good ideas! This activity also helps your team to resist the urge to self-censor when it comes to good ideas, because all the bad ideas are already on paper.
The above activity has been informed by Atlassian (n.d).
Navigating Conflicts
This activity will help scaffold your discussion if you find yourself disagreeing as a team. If you can practice this activity early in the project, you will be better equipped to work through disagreement without a heated argument! It can also help you clarify ideas.
1. Discussing without arguing
Instructions:
- Agree the subject the team is to discuss (eg. one person not contributing as much to the project).
- Choose one or two people to present each side of the discussion. The rest of the team acts as an audience.
- While the discussion is held, follow these rules:
- You can ask for clarification, but you can’t disagree with what the other side has said
- You can point out areas of agreement between the two sides, but you can’t point out areas of disagreement.
- The audience can’t intervene in the discussion.
- After each side has had their chance to mount a case, the audience can join in by asking questions. They still can’t argue or disagree.
Suggested time required: 20 – 30 minutes
Copyright note: The above image is used under the Pixabay Content License.
This next activity will help you to look at both sides of a conversation, so you can consider the situation from a different angle. The aim is to encourage insight into other person’s point of view.
2. Making a case for the opposite
Instructions
This is a quick and simple way of trying to diffuse arguments between members in a team who disagree strongly.
- The two people who disagree literally swap seats.
- They then take turns to make a case for the opposite point of view (without being sarcastic).
- They try to reach a mutually acceptable decision, or to agree to disagree where practical
Suggested time required: 15 – 20 minutes
This final activity will help you to weigh up ideas or choose what to do. It is a good way of reducing discussions that keep going around in circles.
3. Pros and cons
Instructions
- List the competing ideas and divide up into pairs (A small group can list pros and cons as a whole group)
- Each pair lists the pros and cons of each idea
- Each pair then decides, based on the number and strength of the pros and cons, which ideas they think are the best.
- You come back together as a whole group, compare results and look for agreement.
Suggested time required: 15 – 20 minutes.
These activities can be useful to help you see a problem from a different perspective. Often, working in teams requires making a compromise. It can be very difficult and frustrating when you are so sure you have the right approach but no one else can see it. In a team, it is more important to be able to agree on a solution together than have one person making all the decisions, or always getting their way. Working together to resolve a conflict or issue is one of the most valuable team skills you can develop.
Interested in Trying More Activities with Your Team?
Follow the link below to browse a range of different activities that you can complete as a team or in your classroom to strengthen your skills and ability to work thought challenging situations.
Key Takeaways
- Engaging in different activities with your teammates can help increase communication within the group and strengthen your ability to work constructively together.
These are some of the words you make have come across in this chapter:
Where two parties/ people with opposing views are able to come to an agreement on a solution. Generally, this involves both parties/ people modifying their initial viewpoint to consider the other persons.
