In a way, it is like when an artist is trying to create a masterpiece.  Having the right idea and the right paints does not mean they will create a masterpiece.  Instead, they need to try different combinations of the paint to find out what works well together and what is the best way to achieve their desired goal.  They also need some talent!

For our teams at work, the managers need to help guide them to understand how they complement one another and how they can work together.  And team building activities are a superb way of helping them achieve this.

Barbara

If there can be this much variety and difference when it comes to drinking coffee and tea, surely there can be this much variety when it comes to other areas, such as team building. Everyone enjoys team building activities.  But, not everyone enjoys doing exactly the same thing, and certainly not in the same way.  Again this is because we are all different.  So to ensure you select a team building activity that everyone can get involved in, you need to ensure you can offer them variety – like with their coffee and tea.

For us at Sandstone, we like to have an activity which has a main theme, then we integrate lots of different style tasks and challenges for people to have a go at.  We never force anyone to do anything they don’t want to, rather we let them choose the style things that appeal to them.  That way, everyone is able to get the most out of their team building experience.  And our experience tells us most people will have a go at just about anything we offer them!

Nikki

I was looking through my work calendar and realised this year – 2012 – is a leap year.  It made me realise I either didn’t know, or could no longer remember, why we have leap years every four years.  So I asked someone and they explained it to me.  All these years of not knowing and a simple question meant I now knew the answer.

I realised this is something that we often see on our team building events.  People either forget to ask a question, or don’t want to ask a question for fear of how they will look to their colleagues, and so sit in the dark on subjects they really shouldn’t be.  We always emphasis the importance of asking questions and making sure you fully understand something.  After all if you don’t understand something at work, how can you be working to your maximum effectiveness?  It’s like my Dad once told me: there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.

Jenny

For the monthly entries the following activities were chosen as team building events of the month: Attributes, First Contact, Memory Lane, MiniTreasure, VirtuWall, Vision Idol and Wild West.

After much discussion, the top three events in reverse order are…

3rd: The joint MiniTreasure and Vision Idol event in May at Moddershall Oaks

2nd: The Memory Lane event in December at the Reebok Stadium

1st: The VirtuWall event in November which was global!

Congratulations and thank you to all of our clients for giving us some amazing events during 2011!

Paul

Steve

With it being December, there was a subtle Christmas theme throughout, with each team having their name after the twelve days of Christmas.  With more than 12 teams we had some inventive ones mixed in as well.  We had lots of “gifts” and “true loves” amongst the many “maids a milking” and “lords a leaping”!  Continuing the Christmas theme, we created our very own pop band who played a brilliant rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’ which had everyone singing along, some in the audience even got up on their feet to get a better glimpse at the new pop stars and to dance along!  Whether it would ever rival Band Aid in the real charts is something that you’d have to decide for yourself…

Everyone got involved with all the tasks available, whether they were pouring over the many artists from each decade, competing in PacMan, completing wordsearches, hula hooping or creating beautiful flowers for the origami garden.  The stand out highlight for us, the facilitation team, and quite likely the client as well, had to be the Air Guitar contest.  The winner was certainly one of our best competitors to take part to date!  Even the others guitarists competing were watching the winner rather than concentrate on how to entertain the audience themselves!

All in all, it was a brilliant event to end the year with.  We’re looking forward to 2012 bringing us more of the same!

Nikki

Until 2012 …

Barbara and everyone in our team!

It’s like when someone goes to a restaurant and always orders the same thing.  They never try anything else to see if they like it.  They are scared of change and not enjoying what they select – even though all the ingredients are things they’ll enjoy!  When they do eventually get convinced to try something new, you can pretty much guarantee that they will like it.

So don’t be that person the next time you are going out for a meal or are arranging a team building event.  Instead, order something new.  Either off the restaurant menu, or call us on 01158 715690 and see what new and exciting team building activity we can offer you for your next team building day.

Nikki

It’s hard enough – and expensive enough – arranging a proper team building session for a group of people who all work together in the same place. For geographically spread “virtual” teams, though, the logistics and the expense both go through the roof. Travel arrangements are a nightmare with a price tag to boot. And even those organizers forward-thinking enough to see it as an investment, rather than a cost, struggle to see the relevance of an activity that relies upon people being physically together when the group clearly works in a different way entirely.

Enter Sandstone, team building specialists with a flair for innovation and a proven track record in using technology to deliver great results. Having already created the world’s first team building activity that is delivered 100% online with their “Space Rescue” offering – and the world’s second for that matter with “MiniTreasure” – they have trumped themselves with their latest addition to their portfolio.

VirtuWall is a fully facilitated, 100% on-line, full-blown team building activity designed exclusively for virtual teams. Team members join in from wherever they are – all they need is an Internet connection and a browser. It combines fun with team learning that has direct and real relevance to virtual teams. And it isn’t just Sandstone claiming that – the first client of theirs to benefit from this new experience is in full agreement:

“We had a fantastic day and I have had great feedback from all regions.” says Glynis Moreton, Marsh & McLennan’s Director of Finance Infrastructure Solutions – Global Support. With over 50,000 employees, Marsh & McLennan companies are among the world’s leading global advice and solutions providers in risk, strategy and human capital. The FIS team supports the whole group, with a presence on every continent except the Antarctic.

“It’s not practical for us to all get together.” Moreton continues. “There are some 120 of us and as much as we’d love to get everyone in the same room, the negatives outweigh the positives for that to happen. Apart from the logistics and the cost there’s the fact that we work together through technology and any team activity that didn’t duplicate that would be missing a key parallel back into our workplace. We wanted something that everyone could enjoy – whether they were in an office with a few colleagues or on their own at home – and that offered some insights that would help us develop as one, big global team. VirtuWall certainly delivered all of that for us.”

Sandstone’s web-based technology is the glue that holds it all together. For those with a technical interest, it is AJAX based, hosted on a dedicated server with partners Titan Internet and incorporates the lead facilitator through an embedded, dedicated “pro” video stream served by Livestream.

Describing the action is best left to Sandstone’s Nikki Hunt. She explains “VirtuWall is fundamentally collaborative. The ‘wall’ part of the name refers to a large client-supplied image that is relevant and of interest to the group. At the start, it is covered up and, organized into teams, the group as a whole need to work together to uncover it by tackling a huge variety of tasks the system sets them. The sheer variety means people can choose to do things they enjoy, whether cerebral in nature, creative, lightly physical and so on. Some tasks can be tackled quickly by individuals while others require a few people to work together, sometimes across locations. Others still require all teams to work together. A few of the tasks are competitive, and these often generate the most laughter.”

Hunt concludes “At the end of the session, we’ve delivered many parallels for the client to the way the team works day-to-day. Sometimes people have to get on with individual tasks, sometimes they need to work in their teams and always for the good of the group as a whole. They’ve had to use technology to co-ordinate their actions in order to deliver the most that they can and communicate across locations effectively. We’re able to use those parallels in a focused debriefing session at the end to send teams away ready to improve and with huge smiles on their faces.”

The last word should surely be from the client, though. Glynis Moreton again: “I’ve already recommended it internally.” Perhaps it will not be long until there are more faces with huge smiles on them.

Nikki Hunt, Lead Facilitator, Sandstone

The VirtuWall Interface

Formed in 1992, Sandstone is a family-owned and family-run business that cares about quality and client satisfaction.  It develops and runs unique activities that mixes participant enjoyment with team, departmental and organisational improvement.  Based in the UK, it operates both nationally and internationally through a worldwide network of partners and its innovative web-based activities.

Just like at all of our events, our team were fully prepared and excited to start.  We were all watching the clock waiting for the lead facilitator to start the event with the opening line “Hello all, and welcome to VirtuWall“.  It was just like any other event, but with one major difference… we couldn’t actually see the client!  VirtuWall is run over the Internet.  No one involved even has to be in the same room.  We had participants from 5 different continents, many countries and time zones!  Even our facilitation team, while all in the same country, unlike our client, were in two locations – our lead facilitator was some 80miles from the rest of us during the event.

I can tell you now, seeing only our lead facilitator from the live video and not being in touching distance with those involved made no difference to our client’s experience.  Using the “Chat with Your Team” and “Chat with Everyone” function there was plenty of banter going back and forth not only within teams, but across teams as well.  If anything, it enhanced the banter, it was written down for all to see and join in with!  Our team facilitators even found themselves getting involved!  The level of competition was high and not just between the teams – our team facilitators were racing to tell their teams good news before the lead facilitator could “steal their thunder” when announcing it to everyone over the live video.

It was clear to see from the various chat boxes and the number of tasks being attempted that everyone was engrossed in VirtuWall and our facilitation team were no different.  At the facilitation team ‘hub’ where most of us were based, we had a colleague at the ready to get us drinks – however, everyone got so involved following their teams progress the need was quickly forgotten.  They were busy marking answers in the team chat, looking (and occasionally laughing) at the pictures the teams sent in, watching how the teams were faring on the leaderboard and following the numerous banter-filled conversations.  The ‘drinks-getter’ ended up hovering over everyone’s shoulders to keep up with the action herself!

Our client mirrored our facilitation team’s enjoyment during the event and delight after at the success of it.  We received many thanks from all those involved, including some amazing feedback the next day.

All in all, it was one for the books and we can’t wait for the next one!

Alan

P.S. Keep an eye out for our press release in the coming weeks!