MURObjective
To plan a virtual team building session for the Marketing team of Beiersdorf Nivea (Dubai) with the objective of team bonding and having a fun time together
Solution
The opportunity was brought to us by the Marketing Manager of the team, who reached out to us. This was a team comprising individuals who were well travelled, well read and intellectually sharp. The ask was clear – to engage this team in a manner that they also have fun together!
After exploring different options, we narrowed down to the ‘Map the City’ Challenge. This activity was chosen since it was intellectually stimulating and created an opportunity for the teams to discover a different city sitting in the comfort of their homes. The city of London was chosen, due to its many historical, famous monuments and places to visit. The virtual platform to run the session was Microsoft Teams as per the preference of the client. The activity was hence customized so as to run smoothly on it.
The key idea of the activity was to explore London by answering questions using Google Maps. The team with the maximum right answers would earn the maximum points and win the challenge
Execution of the activity:
Time – 20 mins
• At the scheduled time, participants logged in to the session via the MS Teams link
• The facilitator started the session by welcoming the participants and kicked off the session with a few fun virtual energizers!
• The group was divided into 5 teams of 4 participants each (as was pre-decided by Nivea).
• The lead facilitator then briefed the participants about the activity, along with objectives, instructions & end goals
Time – 60 mins
• Every team got 45 – 60 mins to complete the challenge.
• Every team was provided a list of questions that they had to answer in a google form shared with them. In all, there were 20 questions with 1 additional bumper question.
Time – 30 mins
• After the stipulated time for the challenge, all the teams we re-congregated.
• The Facilitator invited participants to share their experience about the session – the challenges of working together as a team virtually, while having fun together.
• The discussion was guided towards intended outcomes of team creativity, team morale in times of social distancing and working from home, team morale & team collaboration.
• The session was brought to a conclusion by announcing the winning team – the team with the highest points from the challenge
• The participants logged off with a great virtual experience and team memories to cherish.
A few points that emerged in the debrief discussion:
1. Team bonding – Participants shared that they had a good time connecting with their colleagues informally and that it was a refreshing experience.
2. Attention to detail – One participant shared that one of the main insights from the activity was the need to focus on details of a problem. “As we searched deeper in Google Maps, we got the answers.”
3. Missing the obvious – One person shared that though the clues were right in front of them, they still missed it because they were busy doing other things.
4. Helping each other – One of the behaviours that emerged was leveraging different people in a team in solving clues.
5. Fun needs to be optimally challenging – Participants enjoyed thinking, brainstorming and answering questions. They had fun playing a new game and experiencing a new online workshop together, because the difficulty level was “just right.”
Impact
Here is what Ajay Simha,Marketing Manager, Beiersdorf Nivea had to say after this workshop:
“Thank you for the great experience yesterday. Overall, I would give a rating of 9/10 and would also recommend FocusU to everyone I meet. Some qualitative feedback received from others:
– The program was very nice
– Didn’t know how the 2 hours went by
– It took our mind off work – created an #escapemoment that all of us need
– The FocusU team was very enterprising, with high passion and energy levels
– The application of zoom in and zoom out done at the end was sharp and very relevant
Thank you once again for organizing this so smoothly and helping us boost the team morale, have fun and drive engagement further. Look forward to more such sessions in the future.”
