If you are leading a virtual team, you’ll need to find some fun virtual team building activities to help your team truly “gel together”. In your typical office environment people will get to know each other through everyday contact, the office “chit chat” and face-to-face conversations. Often co-workers will go out together, take a lunch or coffee together and many times office colleagues become great friends. A lot of team building is done “off the job” so to speak. But with a virtual team building, it’s different.
The thing is, in a virtual office or virtual team environment achieving that level of togetherness is a challenge. As a virtual team leader you need to find virtual team building activities and/or virtual team building games to help your virtual team bond together in a way they can connect and get creative with each other.
“Get To Know You” Virtual Team Building Activity
If you want your virtual team to work successfully, to really perform at their best, you need to facilitate a team building activity that will help them learn and understand each individual working style within the Virtual Team. For a really dynamic, creative virtual team environment your individual team members need to make a connection and enjoy working together toward a common goal. Florence Littauer’s bestselling book Personality Plus: How to Understand Others by Understanding Yourself
How to Facilitate the Team Building Activity
- Have each member of your virtual team read the book and complete their personality profile. (copies available for as little as $2 each).
- After the profiles have been completed, the team meets virtually together (we recommend ShowMyPC Meetings and Remote Support as a virtual meeting room)
- The virtual team discusses what they learned about their personality and how this will impact a virtual working environment. Discuss what the team can do to harness the strengths within the team and how possible conflicts may arise – especially in a virtual team environment.
- As the virtual team leader you can prepare specific questions to help your virtual team get a better understanding of each other and how the virtual team can improve.
When facilitating this virtual team building activity remember to adapt it to your specific virtual team needs. Think about what particular team challenges you want to overcome and how communication can be improved in your virtual team. Consider the size of your team, the roles within the virtual team and how much time you have. When you’ve completed the Virtual Team Building Activity make a note to follow-up with another team discussion – strive for continued communication improvement and team bonding.
Finally, remember – just doing one team building activity will not produce a “well-oiled” virtual team Machine! Follow-though with a whole virtual team building plan. For more ideas on what activity to do with your team next check out this article here: http://virtualteamintelligence.com/virtual-team-building-activities/ultimate-remote-team-building-activities/
Useful Virtual Team Building Resources
