13 Fabulous Team-Building Exercises for Large Groups

From one end of the building to the other, coast to coast or around the globe, you likely have some large teams within your organization.

And large groups need team-building activities specific to their unique needs.

Why Team-Building Activities are Essential

Researchers have found it’s critical for leaders to host — and possibly mix up — team-building activities for large groups. The results are better than you might imagine, considering the pushback you often get when you mention team-building.

A study in the International Journal of Management and Entrepreneurship found team-building activities improve decision-making processes, productivity, job satisfaction, interpersonal relationships and organizational commitment.

What’s not to love?!

Here are 13 team-building activities geared toward large groups.

1. Acts of Kindness

Acts of Kindness is a fulfilling and heart-touching team-building activity that groups across divisions and continents can play together.

The point is to do and tally up as many good deeds as possible in a short period of time. Some ideas include helping at senior citizen centers, cleaning up parks, giving food or clothing to local charities or collecting items for disaster relief.

You can give them suggestions on where and how to execute acts of kindness. Check with local charities on ways they can help. You’ll want to create a way to record and list what’s done. Sure, there will be one group winner, but everyone will likely feel like a winner as they all do things to help their communities and people in need.

2. Tower of Strength

This will promote teamwork, creativity and effective communication. For the Tower of Strength, you break large groups into smaller groups and challenge them to build the tallest freestanding tower using limited materials. The structure needs to stand freely for at least one minute.

You provide specific materials (ideally, they’re flimsy, too!). For instance, give them paper, tape, straws, string and paper clips. Give them about 30 minutes to build and name their towers.

3. The Marshmallow Challenge

Call this a two-fer team-building activity. You start with one activity, then your team gets to eat the results in another activity.

Break your large team into several smaller teams and give them a bag (or bags) of marshmallows. Their mission: Be the first team to build the tallest free-standing structure.

After the building process, the team can roast marshmallows to celebrate the victory (for some) and the fun (for everyone). Even better, this is a quick activity — ideal for the busy season. 

Note: You don’t need a live fire to roast the marshmallows, but you might want graham crackers and chocolate on hand to make s’mores after they’re roasted on a safe flame.

4. Incredible Egg Drop Challenge

The Incredible Egg Drop Challenge is a classic that large groups can play together. First, they think and problem-solve together. Then they laugh at the disasters that likely happen.

Since it’s a competition, you’ll want to break the large group into smaller teams. You can provide “tools” — tape, rubber bands, balloons, straws, newspaper, foam, sponges, toilet paper, etc. — or you can just give them raw eggs and have them search their workspaces for materials.

Let teams work for 30 minutes on either packaging the eggs so they don’t break in a fall or creating structures to drop the eggs so they break. Then, have each team drop their egg from the same height and see which one stays uncracked.

Unlike the marshmallow challenge, you probably won’t be using the food material again for this event.

5. The Puzzle Relay Challenge

You can encourage collaboration and mental agility with a Puzzle Relay Challenge. Give every person or small group the same puzzle and turn on a timer.

You can set the rules from there. In one case, you might have one person add a piece of the puzzle and pass the next move to another team member. Or just let the team members have at the project and get it together as fast as possible. Either the first one done, or the person or team with the most intact puzzle when the buzzer goes off, wins.

Bonus: You can get custom-made puzzles with the company logo, values, mission or anything significant to your group.

‍ 6. Trivia Showdown

While you can do this activity with any group, it’s especially good for virtual teams.

You can use platforms like Kahoot for trivia with a mix of categories such as pop culture, history and cooking. Or you can create your own company trivia on platforms such as Canva.

From there, the setup is simple: Smaller teams or individuals submit their answers, and the one with the most points wins when time is up.

7. Office Olympics

Here’s the good news: No one has to be an athlete to win at Office Olympics. And you can turn just about any ordinary workday into an extraordinary event with Olympics. Of course, you don’t want to make people participate in anything athletic, even if this isn’t sprinting, twisting and downhill skiing. So keep this activity a volunteer-only event.

‍You won’t need much more than regular office supplies such as paper, chairs and rubber bands. Some sample events:

• Desk Chair Soccer: Set up goals and use office chairs as “players” for a fun, office-friendly soccer game. 
• Rubber Band Archery: Use rubber bands as projectiles for targets to test accuracy and coordination. 
• Pencil Javelin: A simple game where participants throw pencils at a target.
• Office Relay Race: Teams compete in a series of tasks, such as typing, drawing or solving puzzles, to see who can complete the relay first.
• Paperclip Chain Challenge: Test your team’s dexterity and teamwork by seeing who can create the longest paperclip chain in a set amount of time.
• Typing Race: A quick and easy game to test typing speed and accuracy.
• Flags of the World: Participants identify flags of different countries.
• Name the Anthem: Employees try to quickly identify national anthems.

And if you can, celebrate with a medal ceremony and catered meal after it all.

8. Collaborative Mural Painting

This activity is artistic by nature. You can have teams dispersed together across different locations work on their team mural in sync or asynchronously.

Set up large canvases in communal areas at your locations and divide them into sections. Provide paints, brushes and markers. Give them a theme — for instance, “Our Team’s Vision” or “A Day in This Office.” Then members of each team can draw in their individual section, making efforts to create a cohesive piece.

Invite people who aren’t involved in the activity to vote on the best mural.

9. Build a Bike

You read that right: Build a bike! The best thing about this challenging activity is that it’ll benefit the community.

Break your large group into smaller groups and give them bicycles to assemble. The first group done wins, but every group needs to finish the project (maybe with the help of the winners) because they’ll donate the bikes to charity. It’s a great way to do something for the community while fostering good work ethics and collaboration.

10. Purses, Pockets and Wallets

Don’t tell employees you’ll be doing this team-building activity ahead of time …. or they might get the chance to fill their purses, pockets and wallets with winning items.

In this activity, leaders call out everyday objects. Then smaller groups within your large group look for the items in their purses, pockets or wallets.

The team that reaches five points first wins the game.

11. Rock-Paper-Scissors Tournament

Before you laugh off this activity, thinking you aren’t in elementary school anymore, hear us out. The activity is based on the well-known Rock, Paper, Scissors game. But when you do it for a large group, people play against each other in pairs until someone finally wins.

Now … instead of the losing players becoming eliminated from the tournament, they become a fan of the winner, and they cheer for them as the winner plays against a new opponent. You repeat the process until there are only two players left with a huge fan base cheering for them. The last two players have to play until one has won twice.

Here’s the fun part: People actually rally around this game and as the excitement grows, so does the noise. (It might be best to play it outside.) It scales easily, can be played by any size group and requires very little preparation.

12. The Potluck

It’s as old as the hills, but a good potluck still brings people together and builds camaraderie. People often like to show off their culinary skills. Other people like to enjoy their culinary skills. And many like to learn how to make what their colleagues made.

You can add twists to your potluck, too. Make it a competition — perhaps a chili cookoff where non-cooks eat and vote. Or pick a theme, such as favorite ethnic dish, summer foods in the winter or cake for lunch.

13. The Picnic

Like a potluck, a good old-fashioned picnic is still a hit with employees of all ages and ranks. It’s particularly perfect for a large group that needs to mingle and get to know each other on a personal level. Being outdoors and enjoying classic picnic food makes people feel relaxed and personable.

Plan to provide lawn chairs, food, drinks and games. Then, let the team mix and mingle in a non-structured social setting.

You can even work on some team-building by asking people to volunteer to organize the picnic activities — such as cornhole, checkers, chess and frisbee.

More Resources from HRMorning

Here are more resources on team-building from HRMorning:

• 51 Best Virtual Team-Building Activities to Try Now: Tips, tools and ideas if you’re leading a remote team.
• 14 Team-Building Activities for Small Teams: Ideas and strategies for motivating smaller teams within an organization.
• Savoring the Season: 11 Fun Fall Team-Building Activities Your Employees Will Love: The best part is you don’t have to wait until fall to enjoy some of these activities.