How does team building work?

A picture speaks a thousand words. You can have the cleverest ideas, the most expensive equipment and the most comprehensively thought through itinerary, but what really work on the day are the random moments of fun that the particpants create themselves.

Our role, as the professional team building event organiser, is to create a stage and give the players everything they need to have a fun and enjoyable experience. The rest is up to them.

Successful team building away days create memories of fun shared experiences and that is one of the foundations of team building. It's no different from friendship. Your friendships are built on a series of good shared experiences, often hundreds of them going back years. They make a chain that is hard to break.

Conference Icebreakers

Another use of activities and events is the conference icebreaker. These sessions are usually run at the beginning of a conference to help delegates get to know each other and start the conference in a positive way. When these sessions are run during a conference they are generally 'energisers'.

The drumming event shown on the left is a good example of a professional icebreaker. It's fun and enjoyable and not corny, so people will want to participate.

Chocolate Making

Chocolate making is a relative newcomer to the team building market, and it's very popular. Teams are coached in the art of making fine chocolates and then undertake the challenge of producing a box of luxury confectionery.

A chocolate making event is different and appeals to many rather than being more popular with men. It can also be themed to Christmas, Easter and even Halloween.

Catapults

Catapults, or slingshots, are very popular on team building events, people see them as they approach the field and can't wait to pick them up to relive childhood fun and games.

A professional layout is set up using colourful targets and firing mini paintballs, which give a pleasing 'splat'.

This makes an ideal element in a round robin format where teams rotate around a collection of activities in round robin format on their away day. Other activities might include archery, quad bikes, laser clay shooting and so on.

Team Building for Schools

We've done a number of team building events for schools this year and it's been very successful. The activities are enjoyable and feel novel to the participants and they promote skills that will be very useful when they move on into the workplace, for example teamwork, planning and leadership.

It's something that we'd like to do a lot more of. The current generation of school leavers need all the positive experience they can get and having something like this that they could discuss in interviews is really useful.

Roman Numerals

When I started out over 20 years ago I used to use a conundrum as a time filler, when teams finished early or for extra points. What is this word?

100010001000UN1100AT100N

It's based on roman numerals and in those days I would say that half of team members would know what they were. They might not get it straight away, but they knew the principle behind the puzzle.

Nowadays people don't know and they look at you as if you're insane when you explain it. So, after many years of faithful service I am retiring this team building conundrum.

Team Technology

Team Technology is an incredible resource, full of information about team building theory. They do not deliver team building challenges as such, but their website is full of useful information on any number of team theories and management training material.

Team Building Blog

The blog at fun team building activities profiles some interesting team building activities one by one, including Go Mad In The Country, The Parmesan Job and Segways, the two wheeled ride on experience that is taking the event world by storm.

Falconry and Archery

Falconry and archery are good events for relaxed social team bonding. They can be part of a larger day and provide a moment of more sedate tempo. They are also very interesting. Experienced instructors can go into a bit of the history of archery.

Did you know that it's still written into the law that men of fighting age (over 14 years) must practice longbow for two hours every day under the watchful eye of the local clergy? More disturbingly it's still legal to shoot a Scotsman on sight with a bow and arrow in England (except on Sundays) and in certain cities you can shoot a Welshman within the city walls after midnight. I'm not sure how well your defence would stand up in court!

Archery has affected modern language with phrases such as bolt out of the blue, fast and loose, straight as an arrow, brace yourself and highly strung coming from the sport. Having more than one string to your bow is a sensible precaution for anyone, but particularly an archer.

Falconry also has interesting tales to tell. Stoop so low and one fell swoop are phrases from the sport. A 'fed up' bird will be reluctant to perform and when it's under control in the falconer's hand it's 'under the thumb'.

These activities suit certain types of events. They are enjoyable, fun and very interesting.

Teem Esteem

Team Esteem is about the self esteem of a team of people, or how they feel about the group they are in. It's something that we notice on events; some teams have a really good feel about them and enjoy each others' company and with others it's harder work. Generally most of the teams we meet on our team building days seem to have high Team Esteem. That may be because the days we run are enjoyed and looked forward to, or it may just be that teams who aren't like this don't do things like fun team building.

Whatever it is, there's no doubt that a fun team building event is great for morale and high Team Esteem.

Team Building Events

We've in the high season and although business has been affected by the economic situation we've been undertaking plenty of team building events around the country. Treasure Hunts are always popular and we've been doing a lot of our Crystal Challenges and It's a Knockout events.

Earlier in the year we got some Segways and they are very popular. Clients always enjoy them and typically it's their first experience of them. As one of our instructors said, we do these activities all the time and it's easy to take it for granted - but for the clients most of it is a new experience.

Corporate sailing events

Now that summer is coming many clients think about having a day on the water on a corporate sailing event. This is a very popular corporate option because you get a very powerful team building experience in a very nice environment, complete with glamourous locations (for example the Solent) and fabulous restaurants close to the water.

A real test of a team is to spend a couple of days living in close quarters on a yacht. Facilities on board are limited and you really do have to work together and learn to compromise to survive this event!

Solent Events are an excellent provider of corporate sailing events and we work alongside them for this activity.

Istanbul Treasure Hunt

March saw a crack Progressive team head out to Istanbul to carry out a spy themed treasure hunt. A day's travelling each way hat the team installed in the luxurious Hyatt Regency hotel. The event itself was centred in the Grand Bazaar and involved plenty of local interaction and even a visit to a Turkish bath.

The event was a great success in spite of rain and even hail at some points early in the event. Meanwhile, back at home everyone had enjoyed a glorious sunny Spring day.

We're good, but we can't control the weather! Mission accomplished:- client delighted.

Why is Rob so excited?

Rob Baxter is our logistics manager based in the warehouse at Progressive. He also looks after all the vehicles.

Rob is delighted because tow new vans have arrived. They are Citroen's and the new models are a full 18 inches longer. They also have Trafficmaster built in. This provides satnav and an interesting little feature which tracks the vans, so Rob can log in and see exactly where they are at any moment in time. The question is whether to tell the crews of his new all-seeing powers!

We buy new vehicles every three years because reliability is of critical importance in our business. A van broken down on the motorway can mean 50 people standing around with nothing to do and a very embarrassed organiser. We believe that we have the newest vehicles and equipment in the business.

You don't get a second chance with events. It has to be 'right first time'.

Nicola Abad is one of our project managers

At the moment I’m working on putting together a new event which is based on a “Going Green” theme. The teams will each have their own low carbon vehicle with driver along with GPS, maps, clues, riddles etc which will help them make their way around the New Forest finding activities along the way. All of the activities have a“Green” theme that is eco friendly, they then finish with a Tree planting group finale. My job is to ensure that all of the details for the event are in place and all staff as well as the client knows how the day will run by putting together a detailed Event Schedule and Itinerary for the day.

David Getzig's blog

David is Progressive's Director of Operations and has responsibility for the warehouse team in Ringwood and the entire field operation, ranging from vehicles to equipment and managing our team of more than 50 instructors. It's a key role in the Progressive Resources team.

What is David up to at the moment?

I am currently in the process of introducing a new activity into our event portfolio. We have purchased a Pinzgauer, which has been described as one of the most “competent off-road vehicles in the world”. This will be used for delivering 4 x 4 activities to clients up and down the country.

The Pinzgauer is a remarkable offroad vehicle Its capabilities are comparable to that of the American Hummer.

45 degree approach and departure angle
100% slope or until tyres lose traction
700 mm (27.6 in) fording depth
Can climb down a 360 mm (14.2 in) wall
43.5 degree side-slope
1000/1500 kg of payload (4x4/6x6)
335 mm (13.2 in) of clearance (lowest point when fully loaded)
110 km/h (68 mph) / 100 km/h (62 mph) top speed(4x4/6x6)
Full engine power available at 4 km/h (2 mph)
M body type carries 10 people (4X4), 14 people (6x6)

Hannah from the Projects team

Hannah is with us on a placement and, sadly, will be going back to uni soon. However, she's determined to come back and work for us after her studies, so we won't lose her for long. What has Hannah been up to recently?

"I am currently working on updating and finishing a few larger projects before returning to University. The first of which, event analysis, has involved recording all events and activities within the events to identify which are most popular and what equipment does or doesn't get used. This goes with the dot board analysis to find out hot spot days and which months are busiest at Progressive, such as a record July this year with 84 events.

I am also analysing expenditure on suppliers and where operations buy equipment from. This will allow us to see where we spend money regularly and find out if we can set up trade accounts or bulk discounts for loyal custom."

Newsletter and new website

Our Spring Newsletter headed out this afternoon. We publish this quarterly and send it out to our steadily growing database of now 5,000. We hope you all enjoy it!

We have also launched a new website; www.productlaunch.co.uk. We were able to get this url towards the end of last year. We feel that only having the best domain names underscores our commitment to any service that we promote and we now have an impressive stable of names. We added www.treasurehunt.co.uk earlier last year.

We feel that this approach says that we're serious about what we're doing and that if we do something we do it well.

Sea Business Launches

Sea Business, the water based event division of Progressive Resources, has officially launched with a mailshot to the company database. Chris Welch has moved from Progressive in Ringwood to head up the new division backed up by experienced event manager Sam Griffiths. Sea Business is based on the historic Quay Hill, the cobbled street at the bottom of Lymington High Street which leads down to the Quay.

Business is reported to be brisk after the launch. Sea Business arranges a variety of events including team building on yachts, ribtec treasure hunts and sailing regattas.

Preparing for the 2008 Season

It's all hands on deck at the moment preparing for the main season. We're painting, reparing and building to get our kit up to scratch and cope with higher demand this year. The world seems to be full of doom and gloom but we're experiencing a higher volume of enquiries than usual. One theory is that companies who are doing well are organising team building events to keep their employees feeling positive and motivated in the face of the media onslaught of negativity.