Team Building Activity - Use Your Noodle

Use Your Noodle is a team building activity that helps people work together. Have a group of five or six people use a box of spaghetti and tape or string to build anything they want. Give them up to half an hour to build. Emphasize that it doesn't matter what they build and that they can choose anything they want.

When the group is done, ask debriefing questions to focus on the team building aspect, such as:

• What was the feeling in your group?
• What was each person's contribution?
• How was it decided what to build?
• How was the interaction in the group?
• How was the communication in the group?
• What was the level of commitment of each group member?
• How were tasks assigned?
• What was done to give equal importance to all voices?
• What would you do differently?
• Having experienced this activity, what are the elements that lead to team success?

The idea in this team building activity is to have people work together and then think carefully about the interpersonal dynamics in their group. As they process their thoughts and actions they'll think about what it takes to form and maintain a high-functioning team. You can move on from this discussion to having each group write down suggestions for how to build a strong team. You can then merge the ideas and use them as guidelines for effective team building.

Take care,

Guy
Team Building