Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1
1 – Find Two People .............................................................................................................................. 2
2 – Matching Games ............................................................................................................................ 5
3 – Presenting to Different Audiences ................................................................................................ 7
4 - Helium Stick ...................................................................................................................................... 9
5 – The Elements of Success .............................................................................................................. 11
6 – Snowballs ....................................................................................................................................... 13
7 – Two Truths and a Lie ...................................................................................................................... 15
8 – Your Ideal Life in Three Acts ......................................................................................................... 17
9 – Table Topics ................................................................................................................................... 19
10 – Mood Boards ............................................................................................................................... 22
11 – Response Cards .......................................................................................................................... 24
12 – Name Volley ................................................................................................................................ 26
13 – Personal Shield of Honour .......................................................................................................... 28
14 – One Word at a Time ................................................................................................................... 30
15 – Both Sides of the Fence .............................................................................................................. 31
16 – Personal Brand Tagline ............................................................................................................... 33
17 – Randomised Q&A ....................................................................................................................... 34
18 – Survival in the Arctic ................................................................................................................... 36
19 – Turn the Sheet .............................................................................................................................. 39
20 – What’s in the Room .................................................................................................................... 41
21 - What’s in Common? ................................................................................................................... 43
22 – Who Am I? ................................................................................................................................... 44
23 – Big Lottery Win ............................................................................................................................. 46
24 – The Follower and Avoider .......................................................................................................... 48
25 – Storytelling .................................................................................................................................... 50
Help for Trainers ................................................................................................................................... 52
Final thoughts ...................................................................................................................................... 53

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Introduction

Thank you for downloading the free eBook: ‘25 Corporate Training Activities That
Will Boost Learning’ from Symonds Training & Research!
Activities are a very important part of every corporate training course. They are
great to introduce participants to each other, actively involve them in the learning
process and help them remember the content of your sessions.
It is not always easy to think about new activities for your classes. So, we have
designed this free eBook to give you a few ideas that you will hopefully find useful
and implement in your training sessions.
Let’s get started!

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1 – Find Two People

Time: 10 to 15 minutes.

Participants: This game is quite dynamic. Participants chat in pairs for about
a minute and then they move on and chat with another person,
until they manage to talk to almost everyone in the training
session.

Purpose: Icebreaker – This is a very good activity for participants to get to

know each other and remember each other’s names at the
start of a training session. As a result, participants will find it
easier to cooperate in subsequent exercises.

Instructions:
1. Give each participant a print out like the one available on the next page,
with a series of questions. Give them also a pen if they already do not have
one.
2. Explain that the aim of the game is to find at least two people who meet
each of the requirements listed on the handout and write their names down.
(See the next page for an example of the handout. You can change the
requirements as needed, depending on your participants and the topic of
the session).

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 3. Explain that they need to find one person to pair up with and then they will
need to move on and talk to another person and talk to as many people as
possible, in order to complete the task.
4. After 10 minutes, ask the participants to stop writing.
5. If there is time, you can ask participants to discuss the results of their exercise
with the class as a whole.

The Benefits:
• This exercise is perfect to put the participants at ease with each other and
create a more relaxed atmosphere.
• It is great to help participants remember each other’s names.
• It can be used for introducing people working for the same firm but for
different departments, who otherwise would not have a chance to get to
know each other.

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Find Two People… Name 1 Name 2

1. Who have the same shoe size as

yourself

2. Who have been to America

3. Whose favourite food is the same as

yours

4. Who have met someone famous

(who?)

5. Whose surnames contains five

letters

6. Who travelled abroad this summer

7. Who studied the same subject as

you

8. Who enjoy crime fiction

9. Who support the same football team

as you

10. Who travelled here today by

public transport

11. Who live within 5 miles of you

12. Who collect something (what?)

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2 – Matching Games

Time: 20 to 30 minutes.

Participants: Divide participants into groups of 4 to 6 people.

Purpose: Revisions and reflection – This is a good activity to either get the
participants to revise concepts covered during the training, or
to reflect and find solutions on a topic.
Each group receives a set of cards, which have information on
them such as sentences, questions, pictures, scenarios. Basically,
almost anything that is significant for the topic. They are then
asked to rank the cards in a particular order, sort them into
categories or to use them as labels on a mind map, chart or
picture. Alternatively, they can match each card (which
contains a question, for example) with a corresponding card
from a different set (which contains the answers).

Instructions:
1. Divide participants into small groups of 3 to 6 people each, depending on
the class size.
2. Give each group of participants a set of cards, 20 for instance, with words,
pictures or statements. If relevant, also give them the items that they need to
match these cards with (another set of cards, a map etc.)

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 3. Explain to them whether they need to sort the cards into groups of
concepts, rank them or match them with other items.
4. Give participants 10 minutes (or a bit more, depending on the complexity of
the concepts).
5. Ask each group to discuss with the rest of the class how they have matched
or ranked the concepts.

The Benefits:
• This activity helps students to ‘construct’ their own knowledge.
• It is very good to help participants take ownership of their own learning by
giving them time to reflect and make associations.
• This is an activity that participants can do on their own but, if they do it in
groups, they will develop communication and team building skills.

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3 – Presenting to Different Audiences

Time: 30 to 60 minutes

Participants: Ideally 12 to 30, divided into 4 or 6 teams.

Purpose: Summarise key points – This is a good strategy to help

participants remember information.

Instructions:
1. Present some content to your audience of participants.
2. Divide the participants into an even number of groups. There should be
between 2 and 7 members in each team. Ideally, there should be between
4 and 6 teams in total.
3. Assign a different type of audience to each team. The types of audience
that you choose should be relevant to the topic you are teaching, i.e. those
for whom the topic is relevant. For example, if relevant to the topic, one
audience could be 15-year olds, another one young professional people
and so on.

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 4. Assign the same type of audience to a pair of teams, which will compete
against each other.
5. Ask each team to work independently to prepare a presentation that is
suitable for the audience that they were assigned.
6. Ask each pair of competing teams to deliver their presentations in turn.
7. The teams that were assigned a different audience will watch and listen to
these presentations.
8. At the end of both competing presentations, ask the other teams to select
the presentation they think was the clearest and the most appropriate for
the target audience.
9. Ask the next pair of competing teams to deliver their presentation and the
other teams to act as adjudicators.
10. Repeat the process until all pairs of teams have given their presentation.
11. At the end of all the presentations, summarise.

The Benefits:
• This activity is useful for training sessions on communication skills.
• This is a good activity to give participants more ownership over their learning,
thus increasing motivation.
• Great activity for a presentation skills training session.

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4 - Helium Stick

Time: 10 minutes

Participants: Groups of at least 4 or 5 people. Each group will have an

instructor, who will watch and/or direct the rest of the group
from the outside.

Purpose: Team building – This game is useful to stress the importance of

group work and communication. You may also be able to see
which roles each person tends to assume in a group, if anyone
acts as a leader and what type of leadership they implement.
The aim of this activity is for the participants to lower the pole to
the ground together (as explained in the instructions below)
without anyone losing touch with the pole.

Instructions:
1. You will need a stick or pole (lightweight and long enough).
2. Ask participants to form groups of at least 4 people each, plus an instructor.

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 3. Ask the group members to stand up in two lines in pairs, with one person on
each side facing each other. It doesn't make any difference if there is an
odd number. Ask each person to be staggered and place a hand in front of
them with their index finger pointed out. Lay the pole on top of all of the
index fingers so it is resting evenly. All index fingers must touch the pole.
4. Explain that the aim is to lower the pole all the way to the ground, without
anyone in the group losing touch with the pole at any stage. The instructor’s
role is to watch them carefully to make sure that they do not lose touch with
the pole.

The Benefits:
• This activity highlights the benefits of good communication and
cooperation.
• During the game, you will have a chance to observe how participants
behave in a group.
• It is a fun activity and will make people laugh. You may notice that
everybody is so focused on keeping contact with the pole that, at first, the
pole will start rising!
• You could transform this game into a competition for which group
accomplishes the task first, if there is more than one group involved.

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5 – The Elements of Success

Time: 15 to 20 minutes.

Participants: Groups of 3 or 4 people.

Purpose: Reflection and discussion – The topic of this game is ‘success’,

so participants will share their ideas on what makes something
or someone successful. Very useful for soft skills and life planning
training sessions.
Instructions:
1. Split participants into groups of 3 or 4.
2. Ask each of them to think of a peak experience of whatever the topic is
(e.g., the best work meeting you ever had; the best-organised conference
you attended; the most engaging speaker you ever heard; the most
interesting presentation you remember; the best piece of work you did etc.).
3. Ask each participant to think about what made the experience so
successful.
4. Ask participants to share their story with the rest of their small group.
5. Get the group to discuss what they think the elements of success are.

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 6. Get each group to share the outcome of their conversation with the rest of
the class. You can write down the elements of success on a flip chart
yourself or ask each group to write on their own sheet of A1 paper and
present it.

The Benefits:
• This exercise promotes a positive mindset as it focuses on success.
• By promoting discussion, this exercise stimulates deep learning.

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6 – Snowballs

Time: 15 to 20 minutes.

Participants: From 6 upwards.

Purpose: Reviewing – This is a fun and active way to review a topic.

Instructions:
1. Supply each participant with pen and paper.
2. Ask a relevant question and ask participants to write their answer on a piece
of paper.
3. Form a circle, away from any obstacles such as tables and chairs.
4. Ask participants to scrunch up their sheet of paper to make a ‘snowball’.
5. Say ‘Let’s start a snowball fight’ and allow participants 30 seconds to throw,
catch and throw as many snowballs as they can.
6. At the end of the 30 seconds, stop the fight by blowing a whistle.
7. Ask each participant to pick up a snowball and open it.
8. Ask participants to take turns in reading aloud the response on their piece of
paper.
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 9. Repeat the process with another question, playing as many rounds as the
number of questions you want to ask.

The Benefits:
• Through this activity, participants can give their input anonymously.
• As a trainer, this activity can help you evaluate what the participants have
learnt or want to learn.

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7 – Two Truths and a Lie

Time: 10 to 15 minutes.

Participants: Small groups of 4 to 6 delegates.

Purpose: Icebreaker – This activity is also useful for groups whose

members know each other, if you need a warm-up activity that
stimulates creativity.

Instructions:
1. Split the class into small groups of 4 to 6 people.
2. Ask each person in the group to write three statements about themselves: 2
true and 1 false.
3. Explain that each person, in turn, will need to share their three statements
with the rest of the group, who will have to guess which statement is the false
one.
4. After the first person has shared their statement and the group have
decided which statement is false, the first person will reveal the truth.
5. Move one until each person in the group has shared their statements.
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The Benefits:
• This is a fun and creative activity.
• This activity can be useful as an icebreaker or also to resume the training
after a lunch break or to lighten the mood.

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8 – Your Ideal Life in Three Acts

Time: 15 to 20 minutes.

Participants: This exercise can be carried out individually or in small groups of

3 to 4 people.

Purpose: Reflection and planning – This is a good exercise for a training

session on focus and life planning, happiness or mindfulness. It
could also be a useful exercise for talking about the importance
of prioritising, during a session on time management.

Instructions:
1. Ask participants to write the story of their ideal life in three acts, as though it
was a play:
• Past dreams achieved.
• Present situation (good and bad parts)
• Their ideal future
2. You can ask participants to share this exercise with a small group and
discuss, or it can be used as an individual reflection. Some discussion with

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 the rest of the class after the activity is always useful though, even if
participants carry out the exercise individually.
The Benefits:
• By asking participants to focus on their ideal life and finishing with their ideal
future, it gives them a positive perspective about what they can still achieve.

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9 – Table Topics

Time: 10 to 15 minutes

Participants: This is an activity that is suitable for any numbers of participants.

They can interact in pairs, in small groups or with the whole
class, depending on the size of the class.

Purpose: Icebreaker – Table topics are a set of cards, which you can find
for sale online, on sites such as Amazon. Each card has a
question on it to start a conversation and every pack of cards
contains just over one hundred questions. They are a great way
to start a conversation for participants to get to know each
other or to start a discussion on a specific topic.
Some examples of questions include:
• Is there such a thing as perfect?
• Where would you most like to go and why?
• Who's the funniest person you know?
• Would you rather live for a week in the past or the future?
• What is the meaning of ‘peace’ to you?
• Who do you trust and why?
• How would you describe your future in three words?
• If you can go back in time to your 15-year-old self, what advice
would you give your 15-year-old self?
• What is your definition of being wealthy and why?
• What can you do today that you were not capable of a year
ago?

Instructions:
There are various ways to play this game. You can:
• Give each person a card. Then ask them to stand in two parallel rows facing
each other and ask the question to the person in front of them. They can
then swap cards and ask each other their new question. After each pair has
asked a question to each other, they can move along the line to the next

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 person. Keep going until everyone has had a chance to ask a few different
questions to a few different people.
• Ask one participant to be the host and ask a group of volunteers to answer
the questions. Give each person 1 or 2 minutes to answer as many questions
as they can.
• Ask participants to form small groups. Give each group one or two questions
and let each person in the group answer.

The Benefits:
• This exercise is a great conversation starter.
• You can choose questions pertinent to the topic of your workshop. The
discussions that answering the questions will generate will give participants
the chance to engage in reflection and deep learning.

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10 – Mood Boards

Time: 15 to 20 minutes. You can also ask the participants to return to

this activity at different points during the training session.

Participants: This activity can be done in small groups or the whole class can
contribute to the same board and then engage in a final
discussion.

Purpose: Brainstorming and creativity – Mood boards give a chance to

people to be creative, work by associations and use a variety of
media, such as words, drawings or photos. Mood boards also
help participants work as part of a team, as each participant
will give input to the creative process. They are particularly
good for creativity workshops.

Instructions:
1. For this activity, you will need:
• An empty wall or a board on which to attach items

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 • Blue tack, stick tape or drawing pins (depending on the board
material)
• Scissors
• Post it notes
• Old magazines for cutting out photos
• Pictures
• Markers and/or pens
• String if you want participants to create connections between items
2. Decide on the focus, or purpose of your mood board. Is there a specific
question you would like the participants to answer? A specific problem to
solve? A certain point you would like them to reflect on? Are you trying to
get your participants to brainstorm?
3. Place an ‘anchor’ in the middle of the board. This can be a word or an
evocative photo.
4. Ask participants to add new elements (words or pictures), thinking about
how the new item complements or adds to the anchor and the following
elements. The mood board can develop various branches.
5. Once the mood board is finished, start a discussion, which can include
questions such as:
• What themes come out or repeat?
• Do we notice any trends?
• Are there any negative issues?
• Do we spot any opportunities?

The Benefits:
• Mood boards are hands-on activities that encourage participants to use
actual materials. So, they are good at stimulating the kinaesthetic learning
style.
• Because of the variety of media involved (e.g., visuals and words), they can
stimulate different types of learning styles.
• This type of activity stimulates team building and communication.
• Participants are encouraged to think holistically and make associations
between different ideas.

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11 – Response Cards

Time: From 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the number of questions

you want to ask.

Participants: Any number, in groups of 4 to 6 people.

Purpose: Revision, reflection, discovery – This is an interesting alternative

to asking questions to participants with the trainer writing the
answers on a flipchart. Unlike the flipchart activity, this activity
gives everyone the chance to give an answer.

Instructions:
1. Ask an open-ended question and ask each participant to write their answer
on a card. Give them a suitable time limit.
2. Separate the participants into small groups of 4 to 6 people per group.
3. Collect the responses from each team and give them to another team.
4. Ask each group to select two responses: the ‘best’ one and the response
that is the most different from the others. Give them a suitable time limit.
5. Ask each team to read the responses they selected.
6. Comment and discuss on each response.
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The Benefits:
• This activity gives participants time for reflection.
• It is a good way to involve even the shyest participants, who would not
answer in front of the whole class otherwise.

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12 – Name Volley

Time: 10 minutes

Participants: Participants play individually in turns with the whole class. This is
suitable for relatively small classes.

Purpose: Icebreaker – This is a great activity to share people’s names in a

dynamic and active way. It helps to improve the energy levels
in your group of participants.

Instructions:
1. With everyone standing in a circle, grab a ball.
2. Shout your name and throw the ball to someone else in the group (it helps if
you make eye contact with the person you are going to throw the ball at).
3. Then, after catching the ball, that person shouts their name and throws the
ball at someone else.
4. Continue until everyone has had a chance to shout their name.
5. Then, instead of shouting their own name, ask participants to shout the
name of the person they want to throw the ball at.
6. As participants get comfortable you can introduce more balls.

The Benefits:

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• Remembering each other’s names can be quite hard at first. This activity
helps memorise names in a fun way.
• It is always good to raise energy levels at times, to avoid apathy and
distractions.

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13 – Personal Shield of Honour

Time: 15 to 20 minutes.

Participants: Groups of 4 to 8 people.

Purpose: Reflection and discussion – The aim is to focus on what is done
well at their workplace, as well as on what it could be improved.

Instructions:
1. You will need:
• A1 pieces of paper
• Writing implements such as pen, markers and crayons
• Possibly even a magazine and scissors
2. Explain that each group will create a ‘shield’ out of a big piece of paper.
3. Each group will need to divide their shield into 4 quadrants, each containing
the following elements:
• Quadrant 1: What skills and abilities do you bring to the workplace
• Quadrant 2: What skills and abilities do you need to improve upon in
the workplace
• Quadrant 3: What frustrates you about our workplace

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 • Quadrant 4: What is a source of pride at your workplace
4. Ask the groups to use only images, photos, drawings and graphics. No words
are allowed.
5. Give them 10 minutes to create their shield.
6. Give every group the chance to share their results by asking them to present
their shield to the rest of the class. Allow 1 to 2 minutes for each presentation.

The Benefits:
• By promoting discussion, this exercise stimulates deep learning.
• This activity engages visual and kinaesthetic learning styles.

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14 – One Word at a Time

Time: 10 to 20 minutes

Participants: It can be done with any number of participants but it works

better if there are at least 5.

Purpose: Icebreaker – This is a good warm-up activity and it can also be

useful to discuss the importance of adapting to changing
situations and thinking on one’s feet.

Instructions:
1. Ask everyone in the group to stand in a circle and agree on a random topic.
It can be anything from food to dogs, to rugby.
2. Hand out a stick to one person in the group.
3. Explain that each person should contribute with one word to the story (and
one word only at a time) but only while they are holding the stick and then
they should pass it on to the next person (decide whether the stick should
move clockwise or anticlockwise).
4. Encourage the participants to say the first word that comes to their mind. It
does not matter if it makes sense or not.
5. Try to move around the circle quickly and increase the speed gradually.

The Benefits:
• This exercise is fun and will guarantee a laugh or two.
• It is a great way to break the ice or lighten the mood during a long session.

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15 – Both Sides of the Fence

Time: Between 20 minutes to 1 hour and 15, depending on the class

size and how much time you want to spend on each discussion.

Participants: This is suitable for any number of participants, divided into

groups of three.

Purpose: Reflection and discussion – participants will discuss both sides of

an argument, focusing on the positives and negatives of each
position.

Instructions:
1. Depending on the topic you want to cover, come up with a number of
dichotomies containing conflicting advice related to that topic. For best
results, come up with at least 12 dichotomies.
2. Introduce the topic and the conflicting dichotomies to your participants.
Explain that different guidelines can make sense in different contexts.
3. Ask participants to form groups of three. If two participants are left over, they
can form a group of three with you. If there is only one participant left over,
s/he can play the part of the observer.
4. Ask participants to choose one of them to be the neutral listener for the first
round. The other two will be respectively: the right and the left advocate.
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 Explain that the left advocate for each round will become the neutral
listener for the following round.
5. Explain that the neutral listener’s role is to listen attentively (and actively by
maintaining eye contact, nodding and smiling) to each advocate. The
neutral listener though is not allowed to express any opinion in favour or
against the argument that the advocates put forward.
6. The role of each advocate is to be assigned one side of the dichotomy and
give a presentation defending their assigned position, while attacking the
opposite position. The first advocate will talk for 60 seconds, after which the
other advocate will speak. The advocates have 30 seconds to prepare their
short presentation beforehand.
7. As a trainer, you will be the timekeeper. So, you will give advocates 30
seconds to prepare and blow a whistle at the end of the 30 seconds. Then
time 60 seconds for each presentation and blow the whistle at the end of
each presentation.
8. After the advocates have both presented their arguments, select a neutral
listener at random and ask them to summarise the key points of both
presentations.
9. Continue the same process for other dichotomies. Announce the second
dichotomy and ask participants to swap roles. So, the left advocate from
the previous round will be the listener, the right advocate will become the
left advocate and the listener will be the right advocate.
10. Repeat the same process with every dichotomy.
11. You can also encourage participants to come up with their own additional
dichotomies.
12. Conduct a class debrief at the end to summarise the discussions.

The Benefits:
• This activity promotes deep learning by encouraging discussion.
• This is an exercise that gives participants a chance to contrast, compare
and make connections within the topic at hand.

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16 – Personal Brand Tagline

Time: 5 to 10 minutes

Participants: Any number of participants. This activity is done individually and

the results can then be shared with the rest of the class.

Purpose: Marketing, creativity, self-reflection – This activity can be used

for training sessions on copywriting, marketing (including digital
marketing), soft skills, writing CVs. It can be quite a versatile tool.

Instructions:
1. Provide participants with pen and paper if they do not already have them.
2. Ask participants to write a tagline as a tweet, using only 140 characters to
promote themselves.
3. Share with the rest of the class and discuss.

The Benefits:
• This is a good exercise to help participants focus on the essentials and on
what is important.
• The results can be funny, so this may be a useful activity to lighten the mood.

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17 – Randomised Q&A

Time: 10 to 15 minutes.

Participants: It can be done with any number of participants but it works

better if there are at least 5.

Purpose: Icebreaker – This activity is good to help people to get to know

each other better, even people who work for the same
company but never had a chance to talk to each other.

Instructions:

1. Give each participant a note card and ask them to write down the first non-
work-related question they can think of. For example, “What was the last film
you watched like?”.
2. Each person should then pass their card to the person on their right and
write an answer to this question on the back of their new card.
3. Encourage people to think out of the box and have fun.
4. At this point, each participant should be holding a note card with a question
on the front and a separate answer on the back.
5. Mix the cards in a bag (or shuffle them) and hand one to each participant.

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 6. Select someone to introduce themselves and to read out the unconnected
question and answer, written on the card they are holding.
7. Then ask a different participant to do the same and continue moving on like
this, until everyone has both asked and answered a question.
8. Many of the sequences won’t make any sense, but some connections will
be hilarious and make people laugh.

The Benefits:
• A fun way to know more about each other.
• The participants will laugh and relax in preparation for the training session
ahead.

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18 – Survival in the Arctic

Time: 30 minutes.

Participants: Participants are separated into groups of 4 and each receives a

handout (see table on the following page for the printable
handout) and a pen.

Purpose: Team building – This is a very efficient game for team building
and for encouraging participants to strategize and think in a
creative way. The rules are simple: participants need to choose
only 5 items out of 21 listed, in order to survive, imagining they
get lost in the Arctic.

Instructions:

• Ask the participants to form groups of 5 or 6 (depending on the number of

people attending the session).
• Then, provide each group with the handout (see table on the following
page) and a pen (if they do not already have one).
• Give groups 15 minutes to discuss which 5 items they would choose to keep.
• At the end of the 15 minutes, choose 3 groups to explain to the rest of the
class which items they chose and why.

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• The length of this game can vary. You can keep it short (up to 30 minutes), or
you can extend the activity to last longer in order to spend time debating
and discussing the advantages and disadvantages of each item.

The Benefits:

• This game is very good at encouraging players to communicate and work

together as a team, as they discuss the different options.
• This is an activity that can help identify who the leaders in a team are, as
they take control of the group.
• If there are participants from different departments within a company, an
option is to separate participants so that they play with people that they do
not normally work with. This way, employees can get to know each other
better.

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 Survival in the Arctic
Rules: You can only choose 5 items

Item Keep? Reason

a backpack

matches

Sleeping bag

25kg of rice

canteen of water

compass

portable gas stove

5 chocolate bars

portable TV

6 pack of beer

knife

books

magazines

pack of cigarettes

mirror

toilet paper

4 pack of baked beans

machine gun

snow skis

pistol

map

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19 – Turn the Sheet

Time: 10 minutes.

Participants: 6 or more (but it can be done in smaller groups if

needed).

Purpose: Team building – The aim of the game is to turn the sheet
onto the opposite side, without any participant in the
group stepping off the sheet. As a result, participants will
have to communicate and work as a team.

Instructions:

• For this activity, you will need one or more (depending on the number of
groups) bed sheets cut in half, so that you can give each team half a sheet.
• Separate the class in groups of 6 people.
• Instruct participants that all people in their group need to stand on the same
sheet.

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 • Give groups 10 minutes to turn the sheet to the opposite side. The only rule is
that no one can step off the sheet in the process. If somebody steps off the
sheet, the group will have to start all over again.
• It is possible to make this game harder by reducing the size of the sheet (for
example, you can cut the sheet in quarters), or you could increase the
number of participants in each group.

The Benefits:

• This activity can be quite fun and it can be a good one to use after a lunch
break, to avoid people becoming sluggish.
• It is a great team building activity, as it stresses the importance of working
together as a team to accomplish a task.

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20 – What’s in the Room

Time: 30 – 60 minutes (the length will depend on the number of groups

you have).

Participants: 6 or more (but it can be done in smaller groups if needed).

Purpose: Team building and creativity – This activity focuses on

developing a marketing strategy for an item that is located in
the room.

Instructions:

1. It might be useful for you to bring some objects with you, as props. The lighter
the better, so you will be able to carry them more easily. The groups can also
choose to use anything else that is already in the training room.
2. Ask participants to form small groups (between 4 and 6 people per group is
ideal).

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 3. The groups have 20 minutes to select any item they want in the room and
then devise a marketing and promotion plan, with the aim of advertising
and selling that product.
4. At the end of the 20 minutes, allocate 5 minutes per group to explain their
plan to the rest of the class.

The Benefits:

• This is an activity that is very useful for encouraging creativity.

• Another area that this activity helps develop is team building, as team
members have to plan, discuss and agree on strategies together.
• This is a fun activity, which also encourages thinking and reflection, as each
group listens to other groups’ presentations at the end.

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21 - What’s in Common?

Time: 15 minutes.

Participants: 3 or more.

Purpose: Team building and icebreaker – The aim is to learn information

about other people. Hence, this activity can be either a great
icebreaker or a way for people within an established team to
know each other better and communicate.

Instructions:
Part 1: Split your participants into groups of 3 or more. Then ask each group to write
down as a list on a piece of paper all the interesting things that they all have in
common (ask them to avoid obvious things, such as all being men or women).
They will have 5 minutes for this task. At the end of the 5 minutes, ask a member in
each group to read their list to the rest of the class.
Part 2: Ask participants to form new groups. Each group will then list, on the same
sheet of paper, two tracts that are unique, within that group, to each member.
Give participants 5 minutes for this task. At the end of the 5 minutes, ask a person in
each team to read out the unique attributes of two persons in their groups. The
other groups will then try to guess who those attributes belong to.

The Benefits:

• This activity can be fun as it allows participants to communicate and talk

about each other.
• It is a great way to let work colleagues know each other better.

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22 – Who Am I?

Time: 15 minutes.

Participants: This activity can be done with any number of participants.

Purpose: Icebreaker – The aim of this game is for each participant to

guess what celebrity they are. In order to do so, every
participant will receive a piece of paper to tape onto their
forehead or back. Each piece of paper will have the name or
the photo of the celebrity that they will need to guess.
Then, participants will walk around the room and ask each other
questions in order to try and guess their celebrity. Only closed
questions are allowed (whereby the answer can only be a yes
or no). This activity should take 15 minutes, before participants
get to find out which celebrity they are.

Instructions:
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 1. For this activity, as the trainer, you will need: Sellotape and pieces of paper
(as many as you can) each with the name of a celebrity. If you can, have a
photo of the celebrity on the pieces of paper. This is even better than just
having names, as some people may not recognise celebrities by their
names but may recognise their faces. Also, choose mainstream celebrities
that as many people as possible will know.
2. Explain the activity, as per the purpose section above.
3. Participants should NOT be able to see their own name. So, make sure that
each person picks a name and then tapes this to another person’s
forehead.
4. Allow 15 minutes for the activity to take place.
5. When the 15 minutes is over, ask participants to KEEP their name tag on and
to return to their seat.
6. Each person must then say aloud who they believe they are.

The Benefits:

• This is a great icebreaking activity, and also a fun one where participants
are required to walk around and interact with as many people as possible in
the room.
• This activity can also be useful as a team building exercise, to improve the
team’s communication skills.

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23 – Big Lottery Win

Time: 15 – 20 minutes (depending on class size).

Participants: Start as an individual activity and then it can be discussed in

groups of 3 to 6 people or in front of the whole class (depending
on the size of the class).

Purpose: Icebreaker, creativity or reflection activity - This game is good

as a warm-up, for participants to familiarise with each other and
also to think creatively.
This activity also lends itself to be used as part of a life planning
training package, to think about what it is worth focusing on in
life.

Instructions:
1. First of all, provide each participant with a pen and paper, if they do not
already have some.
2. Explain to the participants to imagine that they have just won the lottery.
They have won 25 million Euro, GBP, dollars or any big amount in the local
currency of the country they are in.

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 3. Give participants 5 minutes to list all the things they would do with the
money. There is no limit to the number of things they can put down, as long
as they can write them within 5 minutes.
4. After 5 minutes are up, ask everyone to talk about their list and discuss.
5. If you wish to, you can stand at a whiteboard as people read their list and
write the items on the board and group them into logical groups that you
will find naturally evolve according to:
• Material items
• Friends and family
• Travel and luxury
6. Some other categories may also emerge
7. Allow 5 minutes for the group to discuss the list. This normally will occur very
easily.

The Benefits:
• This game is fun and helps participants to relax and create a positive
environment.
• This activity is suitable for most training packages.
• This is a game especially suitable for training about happiness, life planning
and focus and mindfulness. Basically, training packages that require the
participants to think about their life and what direction they would like to
take it towards.
• This is a very easy game to organise, that only requires minimum equipment
(i.e. pen and paper).

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24 – The Follower and Avoider

Time: 10 minutes.

Participants: Any number of participants. They play the game individually.

Purpose: Icebreaker – This is a very good activity to either allow

participants to know each other or to use as a warm-up for the
session, if participants already are familiar with each other.
This activity requires very little organisation and it can be a fun
way to get participants to relax.
The aim of this activity is very simple. Participants must focus on
two people: one whom they want to avoid and the other one
whom they want to follow. They do not say who those two
persons are to anyone.
Once the game starts, they then will try and get as close as they
can (without touching them or being unfairly close) to the
person they are following and as far as they can from the
person they are avoiding, in the room.
As everyone in the room has chosen their two people and
moves around trying to avoid or follow someone, it can be a fun
situation to see what happens.

Instructions:
1. Ask each person to silently select one person that they will follow and one
person that they will avoid. Aske them to keep this selection to themselves
and not share it with anyone.
2. Advise that they can choose anyone in the room who is involved in the
training session, but avoid picking their best friends, as the aim is for
participants to get acquainted with each other.
3. Explain to the participants that when the game starts, they will try to get as
close to the person they are following and as far away from the person they
are avoiding, whilst staying in the confines of the training room.
4. Give participants 5 minutes to complete the game.

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 5. Once the 5 minutes has ended, stop the game and ask participants to take
their seats.
6. Ask participants for their thoughts on the game and leave a few minutes for
discussion on the experience.

The Benefits:
• This activity is very easy to organise and it can be a lot of fun.
• This game can be organised at very short notice. So, you can decide to run
this activity if you feel that the energy levels in the room are dropping and
you need a way to revitalise your participants.

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25 – Storytelling

Time: 30 minutes.

Participants: Groups of 4 people.

Purpose: Icebreaker or team building – Because of the creative

and cooperative nature of this game, it is a good activity
to use either as an icebreaker or as a team building
activity. It can also be useful for a training session on
creativity.

Instructions:
1. In advance of the training session, print out some handouts with a set of 4
pictures on each.
2. On the training day, separate the participants into groups of 4 people and
hand each group one of the print-outs with the photos.
3. Give the groups 10 minutes to look at the photos and to create their own
narrative that creates a story that connects the four images.
4. When the 10 minutes are up, ask 1 person from each group to pin their
storyboard (their A4 images) onto the board at the front of the room and to
spend up to three minutes to tell the story of their images. Allow other groups
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 to then suggest how they might have developed the story and if they would
have used the images differently.
The Benefits:
• This activity is good for a team building training session.
• Because it is a fun activity, it is a good way to bring participants’ energy
levels back up when needed.
• This activity gives participants a chance to be creative in a cooperative
way.

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Help for Trainers

Are you a trainer who is looking for new ideas or for structured training packages
to deliver?
If so, you may be interested in our:
• Pre-designed training packages on topics such as soft skills and marketing.
• Free resources for trainers.
• Additional articles with useful information and tips for trainers.

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• Conflict Management Training materials
• Unconscious Bias Trainers Package
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Final thoughts

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