Games
Training Exercises and Resources

Back in 2013 we released a software tool on our website called Clock Buddies. Clock Buddies refers to a traditional tool used to pair people up in a classroom setting. Each person was given a blank sheet resembling the face of a clock. Students then filled this in with their names. The clocks would then allow the teacher to group the students quickly by simply calling out a given hour; for example, the teacher would say, “pair up with your buddy at 3 o’clock”. Students would then look at their clock faces, find the name of the person written at 3 o’clock and pair up with him.

The new age of virtual reality (VR) is upon us. We are still at early stages of VR development, but the field has shown a strong promise. Of all the new technologies that we are about to fully experience in everyday life, such as self-driving cars, drones or 3D printing, VR and AR (Augmented Reality) prove to be the strangest and the most magical technologies ever developed. Just imagine that in a few decades, when the technology has matured enough, as soon as you put on a VR headset, you will be transferred to an alternative universe the like of which you might have never seen before. It is the kind of environment that might feel more interesting than real life to the point that you may not want to leave it!

It could also be the opposite; you may go through a hellish environment and see how the world may look like if we don’t pay attention to important environmental issues or let greedy politicians bully us to annihilation. Either way, you will come out of the experience better informed and with a strong vivid memory.

This is an entertaining team building activity where delegates get to practice working together towards a common objective while following certain rules. It is ideal for exploring leadership, planning, strategic thinking, communicating and creative thinking.

In this team building exercise, delegates work together to complete a task. It requires concentration, planning and fast execution. Here, the decisions made by one team can affect the performance of another so planning has to be as dynamic as the changing environment. This exercise is ideal to train people on quick decision making, leadership, persuasion skills and team work.

This is a team building exercise where delegates need to solve a problem while deprived of a particular sense. The purpose is to see how the group self-organises, communicates, understands what needs to be done to achieve the goal and executes their plan efficiently. This exercise is ideal for large groups.

This is a template for a creativity exercise centred on making monsters. It can be used for kids and adults depending on how you bias it and setup the exercise.

You can consider assigning the task to groups for an exercise on teamwork, teambuilding and management or run it individually for focus on creativity.

Ideally, you should run this exercise as a competition between participants to keep it fun and focused.

In this team building exercise teams work together on a common problem. The problem is intentionally designed to be simple to understand though when several people are involved it may not be as obvious as on how to go through it. The exercise will highlight weaknesses and strengths. To succeed a team must work cooperatively and with foresight.

This exercise is also ideal to examine how a group of people self-organise, assign a leader or approach a problem solving task under pressure.

This is a great teambuilding exercise that helps to cover several areas on leadership, teamwork and problem solving. You can run it like a competitive game for a large group. Allow the delegates go through the exercise several times to see if they can become better at the task. In the process they can learn how to work as a team towards a common objective.

The task is also fun to perform so it can be used as an energiser or even as a fun exercise to run during seminars and conferences. It provides a shared experience and an opportunity for people to have a laugh while also being able to address subjects related to teams and task completion.

Use this icebreaker to help delegates get to know each other better. You can also use the training exercises as a test to see who knows most about others. It is fairly easy to run. You can customise the exercise by changing the questions provided in the “About Me Form”. For example, you can increase the number of work-related or project-related questions to bias the exercise towards a specific direction.

If you run this exercise for people who don’t know each other at all, it would work like a test on stereotyping and first impressions. In other words, the person who identifies most people’s qualities correctly, when he has never met them before, must have a sharp eye in paying attention to detail and a good judgment in placing people in society with respect to their interests. This can be a fascinating training topic to explore at the end of the exercise.

This exercise is based on the use of modern tools that can give us an insight on people’s current interests. The exercise provides a template for a variety of exercises that you can conduct based on your specific training needs. Here are some applications:

• Marketing. You want to get the delegates explore the popularity of certain terms in a given market in your marketing training course.
• Team building. You want to help delegates find a particular topic to talk about and get to know each other better. The exercise provides a framework about a trending topic to discuss.
• Branding. You want to get the delegates explore the popularity of certain brands in relation with each other and see if it fits their perception. You can then focus to see what this means in practice.

Optionally you can also consider running this exercise as a competition between groups.