Getting Teambuilding Rolling

Teambuilding can be explained in a long lecture.

Best with PowerPoint and flipchart.

This ensures that the participants have no more questions.

Because everyone is fast asleep...

To really help participants understand what a team means, experiencing it is a much better method. To literally get the coaching session rolling and wake up the participants, movement games are perfect. The participants get their circulation going and the atmosphere in the team improves significantly.

A good game for training with teams can be the "teambahn". This game perfectly conveys the team spirit because the goal can only be achieved together.

In good teams, everyone knows their role and looks out for their teammates. This achieves the best possible result. Mindful interaction and good communication balance out the strengths and weaknesses of individual team members. This significantly improves the results.

How can good teamwork be trained and visualized at the same time?

Just as many processes in companies build on each other, the Teambahn game reflects this. The participants have to roll a ball into a target using pipelines. However, there are fewer pipe segments than participants. And the path to the goal is longer than the sum of the track segments. This adds momentum and simulates scarce resources in the real world. To reach the goal, participants are forced to work as a team. This ensures that no participant is left out and everyone learns to look out for each other.

How the Teambahn Game Works

The participants line up and hold the Teambahn segments roughly horizontally in front of their bodies to form a track. Now the ball starts rolling on the first track segment, and after a successful handover to the second segment, the first team member runs to the end of the track and hands over their track piece so the track can be extended. This continues until the ball rolls into a predefined target. The rules can be customized to the team.

What Rules Apply in the Pipeline Game?

The rules can be freely defined, but the following can generally be set:

• The ball must not be thrown
• fewer track elements than participants
• the ball may only roll in one direction
• the ball must not stop rolling
• running is only allowed without the ball
• the ball must not be touched

 Additional rule options and variations:

• fewer track elements
• forming a curved rather than a straight track
• time limits
• adding obstacles (stairs, doors, furniture, narrow passages, etc.)

Defining Goals, Finding Solutions

In the game with the track glider, participants face various problems. The solutions lie in good teamwork and communication. This applies right from the start of the game. If the first participant starts too low, all the following must choose a very shallow angle for the Teambahn elements so that the path to the goal slopes downward. Here the team can already pay attention to its strengths and place the tallest members at the front.

It is also very interesting to have two or more interdependent teams play. Two opposing teams each form a Teambahn with the goal of reaching the target as simultaneously as possible. Thus, not only must the teams function internally, but they must also pay attention to the partner team to achieve a good result. Similar to the collaboration of two departments in a company. To coordinate, one team member acts as an ambassador who communicates with the ambassadors of the other teams.

What Does the Coach Do?

 Trainers or coaches have the task of explaining the game and (if necessary, together with the participants) defining goals. The first attempts are often left free to allow the team to come together and develop solutions independently. For the coach, these first attempts are perfect to observe individual team members and get an overview of the group composition. Later on, technical tips can be given. For example, the track elements can be slightly shaken to slow down the ball. With this information, the team can reorganize accordingly. 

To properly organize what has been learned in the participants' minds, a debriefing follows the game, where participants exchange their experiences and relate them to their daily tasks in the team.

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