The best teams see solutions where others see problems. Great company culture is built around a collaborative spirit and the type of unity it takes to find answers to big business questions.
So how can you get team members to work together?
How can you develop a mentality that will help them overcome obstacles they have yet to encounter?
One of the best ways to improve your team’s problem-solving skills is through team-building problem-solving activities.
“86% of employees and executives cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures.” — Bit.AI
These activities can simulate true-to-life scenarios they’ll find themselves in, or the scenarios can call on your employees or coworkers to dig deep and get creative in a more general sense.
The truth is, on a day-to-day basis, you have to prepare for the unexpected. It just happens that team-building activities help with that, but are so fun that they don’t have to feel like work (consider how you don’t even feel like you’re working out when you’re playing your favorite sport or doing an exercise you actually enjoy!)
What are the benefits of group problem-solving activities?
The benefits of group problem-solving activities for team building include:
- Better communication
- Improved collaboration and teamwork
- More flexible thinking
- Faster problem-solving
- Better proactivity and decision making
Without further ado, check out this list of the 12 best team-building problem-solving group activities for 2022!
Problem Solving Group Activities & Games For Team Building
1. Coworker Feud
“It’s all fun and games”
Coworker Feud is a twist on the classic Family Feud game show! This multiple rapid round game keeps the action flowing and the questions going. You can choose from a variety of customizations, including picking the teams yourself, randomized teams, custom themes, and custom rounds.
Best for: Hybrid teams
Why this is an effective problem-solving group activity: Coworker Feud comes with digital game materials, a digital buzzer, an expert host, and a zoom link to get the participants ready for action! Teams compete with each other to correctly answer the survey questions. At the end of the game, the team with the most competitive answers is declared the winner of the Feud.
How to get started:
- Sign up for Coworker Feud
- Break into teams of 4 to 10 people
- Get the competitive juices flowing and let the games begin!
Learn more here: Coworker Feud
2. Catch Meme If You Can
“Can’t touch this!”
Purposefully created to enhance leadership skills and team bonding, Catch Meme If You Can is a hybrid between a scavenger hunt and an escape room. Teammates join together to search for clues, solve riddles, and get out — just in time!
Best for Small teams
Why this is an effective problem-solving group activity: Catch Meme If You Can is an adventure with a backstory. Each team has to submit its answer to the puzzle in order to continue to the next part of the sequence. May the best team escape!
How to get started:
- The teams will be given instructions and the full storyline
- Teams will be split into a handful of people each
- The moderator will kick off the action!
Learn more here: Catch Meme If You Can
3. Puzzle Games
“Just something to puzzle over”
Puzzle Games is a fresh trivia game to test your employees and blow their minds with puzzles, jokes, and fun facts!
Best for In-person teams
Why this is an effective problem-solving group activity: Eight mini brain teasers and trivia-style games include word puzzles, a name that nonsense, a name that tune, and much more. Plus, the points each team earns will go towards planting trees in the precious ecosystems and forests of Uganda
How to get started:
- Get a free consultation for your team
- Get a custom-designed invitation for your members
- Use the game link
- Dedicated support will help your team enjoy Puzzle Games to the fullest!
Learn more here: Puzzle Games
4. Virtual Code Break
“For virtual teams”
Virtual Code Break is a virtual team-building activity designed for remote participants around the globe. Using a smart video conferencing solution, virtual teams compete against each other to complete challenges, answer trivia questions, and solve brain-busters!
Best for Remote teams
Why this is an effective problem-solving group activity: Virtual Code Break can be played by groups as small as 4 people all the way up to more than 1,000 people at once. However, every team will improve their communication and problem-solving skills as they race against the clock and depend on each other’s strengths to win!
How to get started:
- Reach out for a free consultation to align the needs of your team
- An event facilitator will be assigned to handle all of the set-up and logistics
- They will also provide you with logins and a play-by-play of what to expect
- Sign in to the Outback video conferencing platform and join your pre-assigned team
- Lastly, let the games begin!
Learn more here: Virtual Code Break
5. Stranded
“Survivor: Office Edition”
Stranded is the perfect scenario-based problem-solving group activity. The doors of the office are locked and obviously, your team can’t just knock them down or break the windows.
Best for In-person teams
Why this is an effective problem-solving group activity: Your team has less than half an hour to choose 10 items around the office that will help them survive. They then rank the items in order of importance. It’s a bit like the classic game of being lost at sea without a lifeboat.
How to get started:
- Get everyone together in the office
- Lock the doors
- Let them start working together to plan their survival
Learn more here: Stranded
6. Letting Go Game
“For conscious healing”
The Letting Go Game is a game of meditation and mindfulness training for helping teammates thrive under pressure and reduce stress in the process. The tasks of the Letting Go Game boost resiliency, attentiveness, and collaboration.
Best for: Small teams
Why this is an effective problem-solving group activity: Expert-guided activities and awareness exercises encourage team members to think altruistically and demonstrate acts of kindness. Between yoga, face painting, and fun photography, your employees or coworkers will have more than enough to keep them laughing and growing together with this mindfulness activity!
How to get started:
- Reach out for a free consultation
- A guide will then help lead the exercises
- Let the funny videos, pictures, and playing begin!
Learn more here: Letting Go Game
7. Crack The Case
“Who’s a bad mamma jamma?”
Crack The Case is a classic WhoDoneIt game that forces employees to depend on their collective wit to stop a deadly murderer dead in his tracks! Remote employees and office commuters can join forces to end this crime spree.
Best for: Remote teams
Why this is an effective problem-solving group activity: The Virtual Clue Murder Mystery is an online problem-solving activity that uses a proprietary videoconferencing platform to offer the chance for employees and coworkers to study case files, analyze clues, and race to find the motive, the method, and the individual behind the murder of Neil Davidson.
How to get started:
- Get a custom quote here
- Download the app
- Let the mystery-solving collaboration begin!
Learn more here: Crack The Case
8. Wild Goose Chase
“City time!”
Wild Goose Chase is the creative problem solving activity that will take teams all around your city and bring them together as a group! This scavenger hunt works for teams as small as 10 up to groups of over 5000 people.
Best for: Large teams
Why this is an effective group problem solving activity: As employees and group members are coming back to the office, there are going to be times that they’re itching to get outside. Wild Goose Chase is the perfect excuse to satisfy the desire to go out-of-office every now and then. Plus, having things to look at and see around the city will get employees talking in ways they never have before.
How to get started:
- Download the Outback app to access the Wild Goose Chase
- Take photos and videos from around the city
- The most successful team at completing challenges on time is the champ!
Learn more here: Wild Goose Chase
9. Human Knot
“For a knotty good time”
The Human Knot is one of the best icebreaker team building activities! In fact, there’s a decent chance you played it in grade school. It’s fun, silly, and best of all — free!
Best for: In-person teams
Why this is an effective group problem solving activity: Participants start in a circle and connect hands with two other people in the group to form a human knot. The team then has to work together and focus on clear communication to unravel the human knot by maneuvering their way out of this hands-on conundrum. But there’s a catch — they can’t let go of each other’s hands in this team building exercise.
How to get started:
- Form a circle
- Tell each person to grab a random hand until all hands are holding another
- They can’t hold anyone’s hand who is directly next to them
- Now they have to get to untangling
- If the chain breaks before everyone is untangled, they have to start over again
Learn more here: Human Knot
10. What Would You Do?
“Because it’s fun to imagine”
What Would You Do? Is the hypothetical question game that gets your team talking and brainstorming about what they’d do in a variety of fun, intriguing, and sometimes, whacky scenarios.
Best for: Distributed teams
Why this is an effective group problem solving activity: After employees or coworkers start talking about their What Would You Do? responses, they won’t be able to stop. That’s what makes this such an incredible team building activity. For example, you could ask questions like “If you could live forever, what would you do with your time?” or “If you never had to sleep, what would you do?”
How to get started:
- In addition to hypothetical questions, you could also give teammates some optional answers to get them started
- After that, let them do the talking — then they’ll be laughing and thinking and dreaming, too!
11. Crossing The River
“Quite the conundrum”
Crossing The River is a river-crossing challenge with one correct answer. Your team gets five essential elements — a chicken, a fox, a rowboat, a woman, and a bag of corn. You see, the woman has a bit of a problem, you tell them. She has to get the fox, the bag of corn, and the chicken to the other side of the river as efficiently as possible.
Best for: Small teams
Why this is an effective group problem solving activity: She has a rowboat, but it can only carry her and one other item at a time. She cannot leave the chicken and the fox alone — for obvious reasons. And she can’t leave the chicken with the corn because it will gobble it right up. So the question for your team is how does the woman get all five elements to the other side of the river safely in this fun activity?
How to get started:
- Form teams of 2 to 5 people
- Each team has to solve the imaginary riddle
- Just make sure that each group understands that the rowboat can only carry one animal and one item at a time; the fox and chicken can’t be alone; and the bag of corn and the chicken cannot be left alone
- Give the verbal instructions for getting everything over to the other side
12. End-Hunger Games
“Philanthropic fun!”
Does anything bond people quite like acts of kindness and compassion? The End-Hunger Games will get your team to rally around solving the serious problem of hunger.
Best for: Medium-sized teams
Why this is an effective problem solving group activity: Teams join forces to complete challenges based around non-perishable food items in the End-Hunger Games. Groups can range in size from 25 to more than 2000 people, who will all work together to collect food for the local food bank.
How to get started:
- Split into teams and compete to earn boxes and cans of non-perishable food
- Each team attempts to build the most impressive food item construction
- Donate all of the non-perishable foods to a local food bank
