“I am a mango”.
First, mangoes are in-season, and I still remember the juicy sweetness of the mango I had just the night before. So, when the coach asked each of us to be a fruit, I didn’t think twice. One of my coworkers was a kiwi, another one apple, and so on. The idea was to group us by color, then by size. This got us, twenty people in the class, moving and engaged. It was part of a two-day design thinking course. The coaches used the fruit game to bring some energy into the room as well as to pave the way for the next exercise - grouping a bunch of ideas by cost and the level of innovation.
I find that professional trainers bring play at work, especially for sessions that span hours or days. However, on a typical day to day business, I don’t see much play activity at work. Hoping to bring in some play activities to my work going forward. Here are some ideas for play activities based on what I saw so far:
Paper planes: Having small groups build paper planes and the winner has the most number of planes crossing a line.
Catch and throw: A ball or a ball-like object changing hands and the person catching must find someone that didn’t catch it already.
Portrait: Everyone draws a portrait of another person looking at their face without looking at the paper.
Quiz: An online quiz that maintains a leaderboard throughout a session.
Exercise: Getting everyone out of their seats to do a quick one-minute exercise.