Team building exercise to reinforce collaboration
General Instructions
Objective : Primarily focusses on the importance of communication and collaboration. This game can be
used to reinforce a lot of agile concepts that help the team to become high performing team.
Time needed: 30 – 40 minutes.
Credits: The puzzles were taken from a book “The big book of team motivating games” by Mary
Scannell and Edward E Scannell.
While this was given as a general team building exercise, after playing with a few
teams, I quickly realized that this can be used to teach and reinforce a lot of agile
concepts. So I put together some rules around it and have had some success with
this among agile teams. (See my debrief notes.)
Preparation: The attached document contains instructions, clues, key cards and answer key for 2
scenarios (Car Pool and Dog Playdate) in different colors to differentiate between them. Cut the clues,
key cards, instructions and answer key, keep them separate by scenario before playing the game. Inform
them that the images in the key cards are for representation only and they themselves do not provide
any clues.
How to Play:

Divide participants into 2 teams of 5 to 9 members each.

Hand out one scenario per team and have them read the scenario

Distribute the clues face down, to the team members

Start the timer for 10 minutes and let them solve the puzzle given in the scenario.

If the teams do not solve the puzzle within the 10 minutes, or get an incorrect solution, give
them 2 minutes to retrospect. Do not tell them the correct solution yet.

After the retrospective, swap the scenario for the teams, and repeat the exercise for the next 10
minutes.
Then, Debrief.
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Team building exercise to reinforce collaboration
The mountain
biker drives a
silver minivan
Kirsten is a rock
climber
The musician does
not drive a black
truck
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The hiker is not a
musician
The engineer does
not drive a silver
minivan
Kirsten is not an
engineer
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The musician is
not a rock climber
The runner drives
a red SUV
Robert is not an
architect
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The architect does
not drive a blue
jeep
Ryan is a partner
at his firm
The teacher drives
a black truck
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The mountain
biker is not a
teacher
Zach is not a
runner
The golfer drives a
black truck
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The golfer’s name
is not Robert
Ryan does not like
to hike
Kirsten is not a
musician
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Team building exercise to reinforce collaboration
Erin drives a blue
jeep
The mountain
biker is not a
lawyer
The rock climber
does not drive a
blue jeep
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Robert does not
drive a red SUV
The lawyer does
not drive a green
hybrid
NAMES
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Robert
Zach
Ryan
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Erin
Kirsten
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Black Truck
Blue Jeep
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Red SUV
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Silver Minivan
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VEHICLES
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Green Hybrid
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PASSTIME
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Team building exercise to reinforce collaboration
Hiker
Mountain Biker
Rock Climber
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Golfer
Runner
PROFES
-SION
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Architect
Engineer
Lawyer
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Musician
Teacher
Karen throws the
tennis ball to her
dog
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Karen does not have
a lab
The poodle does not
chase golf balls
Michelle tosses a
golf ball to her dog
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The collie does not
chase tennis balls
Brooks does not
belong to Alice
Chester is not a
collie
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Team building exercise to reinforce collaboration
Oscar catches his
Frisbee in midair
Gonzo is not a
golden retriever
Karen does not own
the mutt
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The golden retriever
does not like
Frisbees
Zeus is not the name
of Janet’s dog
Alice does not have
a poodle
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The lab loves to run
after golf balls
Chester belongs to
Sandy
Michelle’s dog is not
Gonzo
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The mutt loves his
squeaky toy
Sandy does not
know how to toss a
Frisbee
The poodle does not
belong to Sandy
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Chester is not a
poodle
Brooks is a lovable
mutt
The squeaky toy
does not go home
with Gonzo
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The mutt does not
play with old socks
DOGS
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Oscar
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Team building exercise to reinforce collaboration
Chester
Gonzo
Zeus
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OWNERS
Brooks
Alice
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Janet
Karen
Michelle
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Sandy
TOYS
Tennis Ball
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Squeaky Toy
Old Sock
Frisbee
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Golf Ball
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DOG
BREEDS
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Poodle
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Team building exercise to reinforce collaboration
Lab
Collie
Golden Retriever
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Mutt
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DOG PLAY DATE – Answer Key
Dog
Breed
Brooks
Mutt
Chester
Golden Retriever
Gonzo
Poodle
Oscar
Collie
Zeus
Lab
Owner
Janet
Sandy
Karen
Alice
Michelle
Favorite Toy
Squeaky Toy
Old Sock
Tennis Ball
Frisbee
Golf Ball
CARPOOL – Answer Key
Name
Vehicle
Erin
Blue Jeep
Kirsten
Green Hybrid
Robert
Silver Minivan
Ryan
Red SUV
Zach
Black Truck
Profession
Engineer
Architect
Musician
Lawyer
Teacher
Passtime
Hiker
Rock Climber
Mountain Biker
Runner
Golfer
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Team building exercise to reinforce collaboration
Dog Playdate:
Instructions: The women who work at AnyCo are all avid dog
lovers. In fact, they have a standing “play date” every week.
The five women and their dogs, Oscar, Chester, Gonzo, Zeus
and Brooks meet every Saturday morning at the dog park. The
dogs get along so well, that even though they bring their own
favorite toy to the park, they have no problem sharing with one
another. Toys are scattered everywhere as they run and play
together. When it is time to leave, it can get confusing – who
goes home with which owner and what toy?
Your job is to figure out each dog’s owner, breed and favorite
toy. You may verbally share your information with your team,
but you may not show anyone your cards at any time.
Good Luck.
CAR POOL
Instructions: Robert, Erin, Zach, Kirsten and Ryan are friends
who live in the same neighborhood and carpool to work
together. They are all outdoor enthusiasts with five different
pastimes, five different types of vehicles and five different
professions.
Your job is to figure out each person’s pastime, vehicle and
profession. You may verbally share the information you have
with the other members of your team, but you may not show
anyone your cards at any time.
Good Luck.
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Team building exercise to reinforce collaboration
Some of my common observations to debrief:
1. An agile team is a problem solving team. Everyone has the knowledge and skills required to
contribute to the solution, but cannot do it alone and need to collaborate.
2. Most often, the teams figure out how to solve it the second time around after retrospecting and
finding out the best way to share information among themselves.
3. Sometimes, teams struggle by starting with the negative clues first. Teams that solve this,
quickly find out that they have to build using the positive clues first. This can be used to explain
the idea of not waiting for every answer and starting with information that is true.
4. The interactions between the different team members will tell you about team dynamics. Is
there space for everyone to share their ideas? Or is someone dominating the proceeding,
thinking he/she can figure it all out. (Use this as an opportunity to talk about working agreement
for the team to effectively collaborate).
5. Are team members actively engaged, or is there someone who is mentally checked out? What if
he/she have a critical piece of information and how does it affect the team when information is
withheld?
6. Sometimes, one team member will make a pairing based on the information in his/her clue and
someone else will change the pairing based on interpretation of some other information on
his/her clue, while the first person is working on their next clue. You can use this to talk about
how another story worked upon by your team member has a potential to affect you and how
you need to be actively engaged during the standup so that you can identify the impacts.
7. I have had teams that thought they finished in 6-7 minutes, only to find out that they did not go
back and verify all their clues and validate that their assumptions were correct.
8. If you have a larger team (> 9 members), then you can play the first round with a large group.
Does it help to have more team members or is the complexity in communication increase
because there are 10-12 people in the team?
9. I have not tried this with a distributed team yet. May be I can send the clues randomly via webEx
private chat to the individual team members in the distributed location and see how they
collaborate with the nearshore team.
10. The possibilities with this game are endless, and I hope you and your team have a lot of fun
playing this game. I am definitely interested in learning from your experiences with this game.
Please feel free to write to me at [email protected] or message me on linkedin.
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