Short workshop games, ice-breakers, and energizers are a great way to engage participants and keep up the energy throughout several hours of intense working sessions. Additionally, they bring in fun and laughter which is needed to foster creativity and an open flow of ideas.
As Pioneers we are always on the hunt for short and sweet activities. As many moderators use the same games such as the Marshmallow Challenge, we have gathered top 10 less known workshop games for you. After part #1 about Energizers HERE, we follow up with part 2 – Warm-Up exercises. We hope they also bring engagement and laughter to your workshops.
Download Top Workshop Games – Edition #1 and #2 with a detailed description of our favorite 5 energizers and war-up games HERE.
#1 The Elephant
People need to build an elephant out of a piece of A4 paper in 60 seconds.
- Each workshop participant gets a piece of A4 paper.
- You explain the activity and put a timer to 1-minute.
- And goo.
- After the activity make a debrief where everybody shows their elephant
Building a nice elephant in 60 seconds is impossible. And that’s the purpose of the game. It helps people let go of their perfectionism and critical attitude and build whatever they can with the given time. In innovation development and especially early-stage prototyping and testing, a similar approach should be used. Nice but not perfect products and services act as a perfect way to get fast customer feedback. Use the debrief to explain this and take the attitude into your working session.
#2 Lego Fun
People build stuff from Lego and talk about their creations.
You can use Lego in multiple activities to engage people in a workshop. For each activity first split people into groups of max 5 (on a table or through a breakout room), then give people 5 minutes to build something in Lego and then present it to the group (1-2 min per person). Here is a list of things to be built depending on the workshop, goal setting and teams:
- Get-to-know each other: Create your favorite hobby; Create what you are proud of in your job / company; Create your secret skill
- Inspire team spirit/ Connect people: Create what is most important for you in team work;
- Do a team check-in or retro: Build something that represents how you feel at the moment; Build your highlight, low-light of the day / month / year regarding this project / team / company
- Many other things like solving conflicts, building strategy…
Stupid question… Everybody loves lego! And building something physically opens up people for great conversations.
#3 Creative Assembly Line
Make a nice drawing together and get creative as a group.
Tell people that Assembly Lines are the best example of strong team work. Every person plays a key role and only together the product can be finished perfectly. Today we want to challenge if we can also use the assembly line model for creativity and jointly with the help of each team member create a final creative product.
Separate people into groups of 5 and let them sit around a table each with white A4 paper in front of them. Tell them to follow 5 simple instructions of you to jointly get creative.
- Draw a form shape, pass it on to the right
- Make something out of the form (person, object, animal, – be creative), pass it on to the right
- Add environment to the form (forrest, universe – where could the object be in?), pass it on to the right
- Add action or drama to the paper, don’t use text, but drawing, pass it on to the right
- Add text (speech bubble, description)
It provides a great mix of sparking and fostering creativity as well as team spirit. The outcomes will be quite unique and something to talk about for a long time. Additionally, it’s a great starter for a team-intensive workshop.
For warm-up games 4 and 5 download our free pdf Workshop Games Toolkit – Edition #2 HERE.
Do you like the workshop games and want to know more about the Pioneers corporate innovation services?
Book a short intro call with our workshop master @Michael Wlaschitz who will introduce you to the Pioneers offerings.
Just send a quick mail to michael.wlaschitz@pioneers.io
Michael Wlaschitz
Senior Venture Designer
