Designing a Team-building Program

Here is a list of considerations to help you design a winning team-building program that suits and appeals to your team and meets its objectives.

We can use the response to these questions to design the activities for your program or simply to evaluate the activities that you have planned – is it appropriate for your team?

About your Group
1. What is the size of the group? Average age? Gender ratio?
2. What is the history of the group? (Do they know each other well, have they participated in such activity?)
3. What is the culture of the group? (Creative? Academics? Technical?)
4. What is the overall personality of the group? (Serious, good sense of humour?)
5. Is the group competitive or relaxed?
6. Is the group more in favour of adventurous outdoor challenges or prefer indoor activities?
7. Will the group participate willingly or will they resist the idea?
8. Does the group know and understand the objective of the program?
9. Is the group comfortable in a non-work environment or they rarely interact out of the work environment?

About the Activities
1. What is the objective of this program? What do you want to achieve?
2. Are the goals for each activity clearly defined?
3. Do you have to customise a program especially for your group or can you adapt to an existing program?
4. Are these activities relevant to the topics or require any skill learnt during the course of your event?
5. What are the safety precautions?
6. What is the contingency plan for outdoor activities in case of bad weather?
7. Is there any insurance liability?
8. Are the activities challenging and fun enough for your group? Would they motivate the group as a whole?
9. Is there any special skill required? Are there any physical constraints?
10. Is the program realistic?

About the agency that you are engaging
1. If you are engaging an agency to develop and organise this activity, make sure that they have as much information about the group as possible.
2. Do they know what are the goals to be achieved?
3. Are there any references that you can check? What is the largest group of persons they have organised?
4. Are the facilitators/monitors friendly and motivating?