A rotation of eight short, deliberately absurd events built from office supplies: chair-based relays, paper-aeroplane distance, stacking, blind typing, a desk-tidy speed round. It is the archetypal low-cost in-person activity and it works because the skills are so useless that nobody has an advantage.
What it is good for
- Pure funNo learning objective. Sometimes that is the correct answer.
- CollaborationWorking a shared problem where no one person holds all the information.
- Cross-team networkingConnecting people who would otherwise never share a meeting.
What you need
- Stationery, paper cups, tape, a stopwatch
- A visible scoreboard
- Improvised medals
The run sheet
Design eight events, mixed skills (prep)
Two dexterity, two speed, two accuracy, two luck. The luck events are essential — they keep the scoreboard close and stop one team running away with it by event three.
Set up stations (prep)
One station per event, each with a written rule card and a score sheet. The rule cards save you from refereeing eight events at once.
Teams and team names (10 min)
Teams of four to six, mixed across departments. Five minutes for a name and a chant. Yes, a chant.
Rotate, eight minutes a station (60 min)
Blow a whistle, everyone moves one station clockwise. Each station is self-scoring onto the sheet.
Closing ceremony (15 min)
Read scores from last to first with full gravity. Hand out medals. Award a prize for the worst single performance of the day, which is always the most popular moment.
Facilitator notes
- Design at least two events that can be done seated, and say so on the rule card rather than announcing an adjustment for a person.
- Keep each event under eight minutes. The failure mode here is one long event that half the group queues for.
- Ban anything involving throwing things near screens, running on hard floors, or standing on furniture. Someone will try.
Debrief questions
Ask these immediately afterwards, not next week. Fifteen minutes of these is what turns the activity into something the team refers back to — see the debrief guide.
- Who did you talk to today that you have never worked with?
- Which team strategy actually worked, and which one just felt good?
Variations
Virtual edition
Eight at-home events — build the tallest thing from what is on your desk, find a specific object in sixty seconds. Works far better than it sounds.
Department cup edition
Standing scoreboard across four quarterly sessions. The rivalry does more for cross-team relationships than the events do.
Access and inclusion
Build the seated and low-movement events into the core eight rather than bolting on alternatives, and let teams substitute a member for any event without penalty.