DIY team building sessions can save your organisation a fair amount of money when you cut out vendors like us. Here’s how to conduct your first team building session properly and earn yourself the reputation to be the go-to person in your organisation when it comes to team building sessions.
- Set SMART Objectives:
- Define the specific goals and objectives of the team building training. What skills or behaviors do you want to enhance or address?
- Be sure to involve the stakeholders to clearly identify the goals and objects, using the SMART goal framework (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant & Time-framed).
- Audience and Participants:
- Understand the needs and preferences of your participants. Are there specific activities that they prefer or do not prefer?
- Take into account Age, physical attributes (are they all physically able to perform the tasks for the activities?)
- Budget:
- Work out the budget that is allocated for the session. Are you looking at a 5-star hotel or resort or are you looking for a venue that can provide a simple seminar room for your session?
- Do you have extra budget for prizes as an incentive for participation?
- What type of food will you be arranging? Are there special dietary requirements?
- Timing and Duration:
- Set the duration of the training so that it is sufficient to bring out the required learning.
- Schedule the training during a time when the participants are not rushing for deadlines so they can enjoy the session.
- When planning a retreat that is off-site, you may want to consider giving some time for casual bonding so participants can enjoy the resort facilities or explore the surrounding areas – this is great for bonding too!
- Location and Facilities:
- Choose a venue that can accommodate your group size based on cluster seating, with about 50% more room. Keep in mind that based on your chosen activities, you might need more space than this.
- Also take note what logistical support the venue can provide you with so you don’t have to bring every single item you need.
- Safety Precautions:
- Make sure that the activities chosen do not present any risks, if they do, get a reputable company specialised in this to handle that portion.
- Ensure there is adequate insurance coverage for the participants. Check with HR if company personal accident insurance covers the session (from experience, if it is an office company event, it usually does).
7. Variety and Balance:
- If you have a group size that is bigger than 20 pax, you should consider including both indoor and outdoor activities to satisfy different preferences.
- Generally in singapore’s context, most office workers prefer indoor sessions due to the weather.
8. Materials and Resources:
- Ensure you have all the necessary materials and resources for each activity. This may include props, markers, flipcharts, or technology for virtual team building sessions.
9. Facilitation:
- We cannot emphasise the importance of practices more. It helps you know how to balance standing your ground on the rules and creating a fun experience for your colleagues.
- Having dry-runs with your committee, run through all your instructions with your facilitators and getting them to rehearse those instructions will help you ensure smooth execution for your training.
10. Instructions and Briefing:
- Clearly explain the rules and objectives of each activity before starting, if scores are involved, make sure they understand how you will be scoring them.
- Allow some time for the participants to ask any questions, in the state of excitement, many participants will miss out what you have said, so it’s best to repeat the important ones and give them a printed copy to refer to if it is longer than 3 sentences.
11. Debriefing and Reflection:
- After each activity, it is best to facilitate a debrief session immediately(if possible).
- Ensure that you manage the personalities that are more vocal so the passive ones can voice their opinions as well.
12. Flexibility:
- Ensure that you have backup plans for wet weather (if you are going outdoors).
- Plan for extra mini activities/ challenges incase you have too much time or equipment fails.
13. Follow-Up and Application:
- Get participants to vocalise or write down how they will take steps differently at work to apply what they have learnt.
- Have a follow-up session in 2 weeks to get them to share about how they have implemented those changes and what results they have seen
14. Documentation:
- Keep records of the training, including agendas, participant lists, and evaluations. These details will be very useful when planning future activities so you know what they have done before and what types of activities they generally prefer.
15. Reflect and Improve:
- It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to learn how to facilitate team building sessions, but it does take practice and experience. The more you do something properly, the better you will get at it. Don’t give up when you didn’t do it as well as you had hoped the first time, work on the constructive feedback received and you will do better next time!
Here are some team building ideas to inspire your team building session: team building for salespeople, team building programmes recommended to improve customer service. We also have leadership teambuilding, indoor teambuilding, outdoor teambuilding & remote teambuilding programmes.