14 Team-Building Activities for Small Teams

Just the mere mention of these three little words – team-building exercises – and you might make some people cringe and call out sick.

But experts agree: Team-building efforts can be successful when they’re done right. In particular, one study found the exercises designed to build interpersonal relationships and enhance problem-solving abilities were most effective.

Best Team-Building Activities for Small Teams

Exercises that foster trust, promote communication, increase collaboration and boost on-your-feet thinking help most.

So team building is important. But not just any team-building activities will do.

“For team-building activities to work, you can’t just understand each other,” says David Burkus, an organizational psychologist and team-building expert. “You have to understand each other’s behavior.”

Whether you have a team of two or 12, you want to build connections and creativity — and it can be done in-person or virtually — when you get together. Then team members can use the momentum to work together more effectively going forward.

Here are 14 team-building activities for small groups.

1. Blind Drawing

This game focuses on interpretation and communication.

Break your team into pairs and have them sit back-to-back. Give one person a pen and a piece of paper, and give the other person a picture. Then without actually saying what the picture is, the person describes it to his partner who does her best to draw the picture from the verbal description.

After a set time, partners share their drawings with each other and then the group for a few good chuckles!

2. Question Time

You can help employees peek into their co-workers’ personalities with this exercise. Just think of an interesting or silly question and have everyone in the room give his or her answer.

Some questions you could ask:

• If you could have one superpower what would it be and why?
• If you could be any animal what would it be and why?
• What was the first concert you ever attended?
• Who would your 12-year-old self say is their biggest hero? 
• What’s one thing your parents constantly nagged you about?
• What is one thing on the very top of your bucket list?
• If you had a million dollars, what would be the first thing you bought? 

3. Throw Your Troubles Away

Every team and workplace has its issues. Want a constructive way to deal with them? Have everyone write down a work issue that’s been bothering them. Then crumple the papers up and throw them into a big pile.

Break into two-person groups and have each take two pieces of the crumpled pile. Let them brainstorm solutions for a short time, then come back together and share the solutions with the entire group.

Not only do you get some free advice with this exercise, but it helps people work together on problems and strengthens your team.

4. Salt And Pepper

For this quick activity, all you need is tape, a pen, small pieces of paper and a list of well-known pairs — such as salt and pepper, peanut butter and jelly, Sonny and Cher, Bert and Ernie, cookies and milk, etc.

Take the well-known pairs and write each word on a separate piece of paper. Then tape a word on each person’s back – don’t let them see the word.

Once that’s done, have everyone mingle asking yes or no questions only to figure out the word taped on their backs. Once they’ve figured out their word, they need to find the other half of their pair. After they do, have them sit down and find three things they have in common or three interesting facts about each other.

5. Paper Airplanes

Who hasn’t made a paper airplane at some point in time? Now you can take that skill (or lack of skill) into a team-building exercise.

All you need is a long hallway, tape and a measuring stick.

Break your group into two-person teams or have each person create a paper airplane. You can give each one a variety of directions on how to build paper airplanes. Then they can decide how to construct the plane they think will fly the farthest. Some may even want to decorate their planes. When everyone has completed their planes it’s time to see whose plane flies the farthest.

Not only does this exercise teach teamwork, but it also helps you identify natural leaders in each group.

6. Concentration

Here’s an activity that refreshes and energizes the team and is just fun: A quick game of concentration.

Arrange people in two equal lines facing each other. Choose one line to go first – for clarity purposes let’s call it line A. The people in line A have to study the people across from them in line B. Then line A turns around and faces away from line B.

Line B then has 40 seconds to change 10 things among themselves, like removing or adding glasses, untucking a shirt, taking off jewelry, adding a sweater, etc. When the 40 seconds are up, line A turns back around and tries to find all the changes line B made. Once they find all the changes, it’s line B’s turn to guess.

7. Truth Or Lie

This game allows team members to get to know their co-workers a little better.

Have each person in your group come up with two truths and one lie about themselves. Encourage them to make the lie realistic so it’s not obvious. Then go around the room and have each person read their statements out loud.

After the last person is done, have the group mingle for about 15 minutes trying to find out more about the statements and to convince each other they’re all true.

Once the 15 minutes are up everyone sits down, then one person stands and the group decides as a whole which statement is false.

My go-to two truths and a lie have been: I spilled spaghetti on Richard Petty. I am an expert shoe shiner. I ran three marathons. (Can you guess which one is a lie?! The answer is at the bottom of this story.)

8. Office Trivia

This is helpful if you’re bringing together a hybrid group or have new hires on the team. The goal is to learn more about each other through trivia questions.

Pick some questions that pertain to your workplace, the company culture, or things they might have observed in colleagues.

Some examples:

• What brand of coffee does the break room have?
• Who eats Lucky Charms for breakfast each morning?
• Who drives the white Camry and what is the reason behind their vanity plate?
• How did the owner come up with the name of the company?
• Who won the office pool last year and what was their pick?

 9. Penny for Your Thoughts

All you need are enough dated pennies (or other coins) for each person on the team to have one. Place them all in a bowl, and have everyone choose one.

As they draw the coin, ask them to share the year inscribed. Then, if they were alive during that time, they can share a personal story or something that happened that year. Or, if the coin was from a year before they were born, they can share any facts they know about that year.

And if they can’t come up with anything, they might share another date that’s important to them. This exercise ensures everyone gets a chance to speak, and it offers opportunities for people to learn about and from each other.

10. Compliment Circle

This exercise will help boost the morale of your team, too. Strong teams regularly recognize and appreciate each other. Simply have everyone stand in a random circle, and give a compliment to someone in the circle.

Then, that person gives out a compliment to someone else, and so on until everyone in the circle has received some praise about something they do well or a positive characteristic they have.

It’s also similar to — and could have a long-lasting impact — like the story of a teacher who had students write the nicest thing they could about each other. Turns out, it impacted them all so much that they carried those lists for much of their lives.

11. Spread the News

This activity helps with goal setting and plants the seed for success.

Ask everyone to think about what the coming quarter or year holds for them. For instance:

• What big projects or clients are on the horizon?
• What career advancement do they hope for?
• What kind of personal growth do they intend to pursue?
• What would success look like?

Then ask them to write three or four “headlines” that announce the achievements. You can place those in a common space like a whiteboard or pin them to an internal communication app.

Some examples of headlines:

• Innovative Team Wins Major Contract
• Top Salesperson Retains 25 Top Clients
• Persistent Employee Graduates with Honors

Then give everyone time to read them and move into a discussion about just how all of these things will come to fruition and how everyone can support each other.

12.  What Do We Have in Common?

You can use this exercise to improve relations if you meet virtually more often than in person.

Ask the group to come up with five or 10 things they all have in common — and they can’t be related to work. Maybe it’s a pizza flavor or Starbucks order, the ability to speak another language or a love for music. Teammates will need to talk quite a bit to learn about each other and come up with their commonalities. And that can improve relationships and collaboration.

13. Pantry Pop Quiz

This one works for on-site and virtual teams. Plus, you can learn about colleagues’ favorite foods and culinary skills (or lack of them!)

Ask each person to send a photo of the inside of their fridge or pantry and then show them during a meeting. Then ask everyone to guess who each picture belongs to.

Many people will think it’s the bachelor in the group who has only ketchup and beer in the fridge. Or the mother of three to have a staple of fruit snacks and juice boxes. But this exercise will likely evoke smiles and a fun peek into each others’ lifestyles.

14. Paper Tower

The Paper Tower game is a simple, yet challenging team-building exercise for teams of two working together. It only requires a few sheets of paper.

Ask them to to build the tallest possible tower using several sheets of paper and a few other materials such as scissors and tape. They’ll have to get creative, collaborate more and maybe even get a little competitive.

And the answer to my two truths and a lie … I only painstakingly finished two marathons.