Team Building Activities for IT Companies: Enhancing Collaboration and Productivity

A typical workplace has a formal setting, which motivates employees to stay professional and build good relationships that allow them to work together easily. Team building activities are informal events that can be organized to motivate teams to work together and build good rapport with each other. Working in a formal setting for a long time without any leisure can affect productivity in teams. By organizing these team-building activities, employers can increase collaboration among team members and improve overall company productivity. So, if you run an IT company and are looking for ways to boost team collaboration, this blog is for you.

Table of Contents

• Why every IT company should focus on team building activities
• Various team building activities for IT companies
• How to select the right team building activity for teams in your IT company
• Things to consider for IT company team building activities
• Conclusion

Why Every IT Company Should Focus on Team Building Activities

Productivity in workplaces, especially IT companies, plays an important role. Working in a confined space for a long time can prevent teams from being productive and affect the overall quality of work delivered. Even research shows that happy employees are more productive in a workplace, almost 13% more than those who are unhappy. This is why fun team-building activities have a huge impact on employee productivity and can also improve team collaboration. Not only this, but a workplace that focuses on team-building activities can retain more employees and attract suitable candidates as well, which is good employer branding. Let’s see other reasons why every IT company should focus on team building activities:

• Increases morale: Team-building activities build enthusiastic individuals, which in turn increases their confidence in the workplace. It can also make employees feel valued because it shows their well-being is cared for.
• Improve team communication: Team-building activities are created in a way that encourages team members to step up and collaborate with other employees. Especially during limited-time activities, team members learn to carefully communicate with others and understand their ideas, allowing them to improve their communication skills.
• Confidence: Confidence that is built during team-building activities refers to both individual self-esteem and employee confidence in their teammates (trust). This greatly benefits teams because each member knows they can trust the other member.
• Creativity: Team-building activities encourage creative thinking, hence, they help teams to get creative in real-world situations when they need to make an informed decision in a short period of time.

Various Team Building Activities For IT Companies

Team-Building Activities To Break The Ice

• Trivia For Office: This activity is all about the office that the team members are in. It helps new interns or newly recruited team members to know about the office. It includes conducting a quiz with particular questions about the office, like “what snacks are loved by teams” or “which team spends the most time in the meeting room”, etc.
• Improve team communication: Team-building activities are created in a way that encourages team members to step up and collaborate with other employees. Especially during limited-time activities, team members learn to carefully communicate with others and understand their ideas, allowing them to improve their communication skills.
• Desert Island: This is a scenario-based activity, where each team member has to answer what is the one thing they would bring in case they were stuck on a desert island, which gives insights into each employee and gives an opportunity for others to know them better.
• Whodunit: Here, all the team members write something interesting they have done on a piece of paper and shuffle them with other pieces of paper. Then, one team member picks up a paper and tries to guess who has done that, which leads to a fun discussion.

Team-Building Activities To Increase Teamwork

• Human Knot: This team activity is great for teams with 3 or more members. First, the team members stand in a circle and cross their hands. They have to hold the right hand of the person standing on their right side with their left hand. They have to untie this human knot without letting go of the hands.
• Treasure Hunt: Treasure hunt is perfect for IT companies with many teams because they have to find the treasure by figuring out various clues that are hidden across the office. There is fun, friendly competition, and a challenge presented to teams, which they have to work towards with the help of everyone in the team. You can hire a professional team building planner to make this treasure hunt activity more challenging and fun.
• Rescue Game: In this team-building activity, the teams pretend to be slowly freezing in the Arctic, and their task is to build a shelter using materials like cardboard boxes, toothpicks, sticky notes, and other office supplies. Only one member will be able to build the shelter, and others have to instruct how to build it by communicating clearly and encouraging the builder. If the shelter stays strong in the fan test, their team survives (wins).

Creative Team-Building Activities

• Ad creation: This is a team activity, where one team has to shoot a creative ad to promote a random office item. Their ad will be judged and given scores based on creativity, performance, and elements like jingles or taglines. The most creative ad wins.
• A compliment circle: All team members have to form a big circle and write a compliment in a small note to the person sitting on their right side (can be left too). The compliments will move in one direction and improve employee relationships.
• Mac & Cheese: A pair is named “Mac & Cheese”, “Salt & Pepper”, “Water & Oil”, etc, but each member will have their name attached to their head. For example, the person named Cheese will have a note on their forehead written “Cheese”, but to find out that they are named Cheese or Mac, they can ask only 5 questions to their partner.

Fun Collaborative Team-Building Activities

• Puzzle Exchange: Each teams get a puzzle to solve, and after every 2 minutes, they have to exchange the incomplete puzzle with another team and figure out how to complete it.
• Passing the Ball: This is a fun team-building activity, where the team members have to somehow figure out a way to pass the ball using half-open pipes without letting it touch the ground.
• Escape Room: Each team is locked in a room, inside which there are puzzles or clues to find the key to the door that will help them escape the room. Most escape rooms have a timer, so teams will have to quickly collaborate and work together to solve clues and puzzles. Explore more team-building activities for stronger teamwork—read our blog!

How To Select The Right Team Building Activity For Teams in Your IT Company

First, understand your team’s preferences, strengths, and areas of improvement. Choose team-building activities that align with your team’s size and desired outcomes, like improving teamwork, improving communication, and creative thinking etc. Also, decide if the activities should be limited in time or with no time limit, strategic or just fun.

Things To Consider For IT Company Team Building Activities

When you are planning team-building activities in your IT company, consider time constraints and project schedules to avoid any disruptions. Block the time in a day and ask all your team members not to schedule any meetings and be present for the activity. Make sure the activity that you choose encourages collaboration and friendly competition. Another important aspect is to consider organizing an inclusive and workspace-friendly team-building activity.

Conclusion

In conclusion, team-building activities are very important tools to improve collaboration, communication, and morale in IT companies among team members. With the right planning and activities, you can boost team productivity and workplace satisfaction for your employees. If you are not sure which activity to organize, you can contact G-Units to help you organize a fun and memorable team-building activity to increase employee productivity and collaboration.