Team Building for Project Teams

When you are given a project to manage more often than not there is neither time nor budget available for formal team building exercises. So the big question is how can we build our team?

I have successfully worked with the following tricks:

1. Have an introduction round during the first team meeting, where everyone shares a fun fact about themselves
2. Have a Value Session – where all say what their 3 top values are. Then you help them align these to the company’s values. You’ll be surprised
3. Start each meeting with a short catch up, where everyone has 1 minute to talk about the biggest achievement of last week. This can be either work related or from their private life
4. Bring coffee / tea and some cake or cookies for tense meetings and spend a few minutes socializing. Start the meeting celebrating a project success with the team.

Go out for a drink after work – at each person’s own cost just to bond. During longer projects, make it a fixture, for example once a month. Take pictures and share them with all

If there is someone who never shows up, spend time with that person and find out what is going on. Involve your team in decisions that need to be made and ask them for input – yes it sounds common place and simple. However in the heat of things often

• Celebrate achievements – for example if a team members got a certification or finished a degree or such, then celebrate it during the next meeting. Have a cake. If no budget is available, you can ask all the others to contribute a little.

The same applies for family events. If someone got married or had a baby etc, then celebrate it

• Spend time with each team member – during this time, do not just talk about the project. Find out what is going on in their life.
• Let the team know – with permission of course – if any team member has someone sick in the family or has lost a relative. Shared sorrow and problems are easier to bear
• Brief your bosses about exemplary performance and ask if it can be rewarded.

Other things that I have seen used successfully:

1. Create a Team Charter, in which the team decides how the team will work together. Questions like, how do we conduct meetings, do we have our computers with us? Do we have our phones with us etc. are agreed in advance. During virtual meetings, how do we prepare ourselves, so that we can avoid disturbance. How do we “punish” those who do not comply with the rules? This could be something like a small contribution into a kitty and the next social drink will be financed together. Agree on the escalation process and on which communication channel is used for what. You can even decide on a secret team name. Have all this put in a poster and hang it up in your office / near your desk.
2. Have a Team event calendar in which you note the fun dates like birthdays, weddings, social drinks etc.
3. Have a social channel, for sharing achievements and family events – I have seen whatsapp groups, Telegram groups, Yammer and similar tools used
4. Do something together over the weekend. This should not be a drink, but maybe go out for lunch, visit a park, go for a hike, go swimming, watch a movie. If you create enough hype about it, most will want to attend. Let the team decide the date.

I think these points already give you ideas. The main aspect is to be creative! Ensure the team has fun together in some way. Ensure that meetings are interactive and that fun also has it’s place.

You do not need formal team building or fancy events to pull your team together. It can be done without a budget and without special time allocation.