by Emanuela Giangregorio, posted 4 June 2010

An annual team building event is essential for strengthening intra-team relationships and team identity, problem solving and energising team members.  If done correctly, remote workers find the event motivational and a form of reward and recognition.  This article summarises my recommended best practices for planning the event, facilitating the event and following-up after the event.

1. Pre-Meeting

Proper planning and preparation is important to ensure that the company’s spend on the event is realised through a return on the investment and that the event participants feel that their time away from home was well spent.  Below are some considerations for pre-meeting planning and preparation:

1. Evaluate effectiveness and cost-benefit of previous meeting - factor in adjustments to process etc if necessary.
2. How big is the team ? Is a team of 200 really a team ? Consider whether the entire division/department needs to attend a team event or whether team events should be smaller in size.
3. Create a results-focused, structured agenda.
4. Include time for fun activities, awards and recognition.
5. Research and secure dates and location.
6. Rotate and vary meeting location.
7. Rotate responsibility for organising meetings.
8. Factor in all expenses in the budget.
9. Factor considerations relating to cultural sensitivities, personal sensitivities, language ability, health & safety issues, etc
10. Circulate agenda to all participants and others that need to be aware of the event agenda.
11. Remind participants of pre-meeting activities: e.g. read an article, prepare a presentation, read a briefing on a current business challenge, research (dependent on meeting subject).
12. Pre-meeting activities should not take more than one to two hours of participant’s time to prepare for.
13. Advise participants of how expenses need to be dealt with in getting to and from the venue and at the venue.

2. Team Meeting Activities

2.1 Beginning

Introduction & Welcome

- state the goals
- begin with the end in mind
- set the scene

 2.2 Middle

The types of activities below should be mixed to create a focused but interactive schedule of events that will keep participants engaged.

Team Building Activities
- Structured fun activities for team building, interaction and learning
- 1-2 hours per activity; two activities per full day
- Where relevant, summarise learning points from activities and relate these back to workplace scebarios

Business Challenges

Participants to brainstorm and sanitise a list of important challenges that need resolving on focused subject matter (do not keep it too broad)

Solutionising
- Focused groups to engineer solutions to the challenges
- Solutions should be practical and actionable. Avoid actions like ‘improve communication across the regions’. This is too broad - be specific about exactly what needs to be done, by whom and by when.

Learning
- Depending on duration of the off-site event, allocate about 2 hours per day of knowledge and skills upliftment through training on a focused subject matter.
- This can be done by one of the participants or an external consultant.

2.3 End

Action Planning

- Action plans should be practical and implementable.

- Challenge:  

“What is the impact if this action is not implemented in the desired timeframe ?”

“How will we ensure that this action does in fact take place ?”

- Designate an Action Plan Owner - someone that will take responsibility for updating status against the actions.
- End with the beginning in mind - summarise and discuss next steps

3. Post-Meeting 

Within a week

- Action Plan Owner to schedule actions according to the agreed plan.

- Feedback from participants regarding the offsite. 

Within a month- review the total meeting cost against budget and evaluate cost-benefit

Two months later - formal check on plan status

Four months later - designate responsibility for next off-site.