Jason M. Hanley :: Custom Software Developer

This past Friday was something called a “Team Building Day.” This took place in a big field about 20 minutes outside of Waterloo with a company called Innersee Initatives. We participated in a bunch of activities during the day that were designed to make us work together as a group, and highlight individual strengths and weaknesses.

We first played a game where we tossed various objects from person to person in a specific order but had to call their name out first. My group members were Adam, Ben, Brian, Jose, Neil, Shiv, Sonia, and Tom. Our instructor was named Tina.

The first real activity of the day was called “Communication Bridge.” In this exercise the team is divided into two, and situated on either side of a dividing wall. Each side has a platform with a gap between the ledge and the dividing wall. Each team is given a box full of about 30 random objects to build the bridge out of. The trick is that you are only allowed communication with the other team through one member, and this only happens three times. As it turns out, our group was a bit weighted to the engineering and computers side of things, so we ended up building and extremely simple bridge that only used 3 pieces (one of which was the box itself). This made the exercise a lot easier and we had it syncronized by the second communication. I think after this one Tina decided she needed to challenge us a bit more.

The next one was pretty fun. The group is blindfolded except for one person who is the leader. They are taken off to a remote location where they have to stand on a square and observe the others with binoculars. Andrew was our team leader. He had a walkie-talkie, and one blindfolded member had the other radio strapped to his chest. The leader was to give us commands but the group could not communicate back. The group task was to take a pole with a hook (looked like a swimming pool “people catcher”) and carry a bucket full of water through a series or markers, then hang it on a pole. We managed to do pretty well, although at the end people started to lose a bit of trust when Andrew started turning us back and forth, trying to line us up with the pole. I recall hearing things like “What the heck? I think he’s just messing with us.” and similar commnets. He mentioned it was very difficult from his vantage point because standing in one place, you have very little depth perception.

After this we did two activities that involved a “Spider’s Web.” The first had a series of ropes attached to a frame such that there were about 12 different-sized holes. The object of the game was to get the entire team of 9 to the other side without touching the rope with any part of your body or clothing. The hard part was that you could only use each hole once. If anyone touched, the entire team had to start over again. We planned it all out and managed to get 8 people to the other side — when the very last person ended up having a piece of clothing touch. I was surprised how well the group took it. We all just went back to the other side, confident that our approach was correct, started over again going through the exact same holes, and finished up shortly after. The second spider web activity was a three dimensional criss-crossing of ropes that the group had to put a rope through as many holes as possible. I didn’t really enjoy this activity much, but I think we managed to get it through 22 or so holes in total.

Next came lunch. I’ll continue on with the afternoon in my next post.