Team building ideas for companies – 27 ideas for small and large teams

If sustainability is at the forefront of your team-building idea

• Litter picking · 2–3 hours · any group size · low effort
  Equip your team with bin bags, gloves and litter pickers and head out for a joint clean-up in nature. You may be able to arrange with your town or municipality that the bags can be handed in there. And do not forget a small reward for the team. We think this is one of the simplest and most worthwhile ideas there is. A sportier variant, “plogging”, can be found under team building games.
• Repair café · 3–4 hours · 6–30 people · medium effort
  Meet in a workshop or another suitable space. Everyone brings things from home that need mending. The point is to make use of the different talents in the team: one person darns holes in clothes, the next gets a phone working again, repairs the toaster or looks after everyone’s morale with a cake.
• Plant trees · 3–5 hours · 10–50 people · high effort
  This idea needs preparation to find a suitable plot, and some budget for the saplings. In return you create something lasting – an idea your colleagues will be enthusiastic about.

Regional team events (self-guided)

Of course, we cannot list all the team-building ideas in your region here. But here are three ideas that are sure to be available in your area.

• High ropes course · 3–4 hours · 6–30 people · medium effort
  Take particular care that nobody is excluded – because of a fear of heights, for example. Ask everyone about this in advance. To find a suitable course in Germany, use the Kletterpark Guide.
• Guided city tour · 2–3 hours · 10–40 people · low effort
  A guided city tour can be meaningful team building too, as long as there is enough room for conversation. When choosing one, make sure there are longer pauses in the commentary. Stadt Führungen lists a wide choice of cities.
• Event cooking · 4–5 hours · 8–30 people · medium effort
  A regional format that needs a little more time and usually depends on local premises – but it almost always goes down well. Here is a ranking of cooking schools in Germany (as of 2023).

Summer & winter ideas (self-guided)

• Summer party · 4–6 hours · from 50 people · high effort
  Organise a summer party with market stalls on the company grounds and invite food trucks and fairground operators. This concept only works for large groups. With small groups, each department builds a small stall of its own – and the participants simply set the cans back up themselves after each throw.
• Snowshoe hike · 3–5 hours · 5–25 people · medium effort
  Hire snowshoes and pick a beautiful route. Winter sports regions usually have special maps with marked tours, for example in the Black Forest.
• Barbecue evening around the campfire · 3–4 hours · 10–60 people · low effort
  Reserve a barbecue site – often several weeks in advance – and order a barbecue buffet from a local caterer. Remember the vegans and vegetarians; there are very good plant-based barbecue products these days.

Online team building ideas – do it yourself

• Virtual scavenger hunt · 45–90 minutes · 6–40 people · low effort
  As with a scavenger hunt on site, the team that solves all the tasks first wins. Have your staff research information online in small groups, look for particular elements on websites or solve tricky puzzles. Creativity is what counts here.
• Guess the desk · 15–30 minutes · 5–20 people · low effort
  Everyone photographs their desk or the view from it, out of the window for instance. Have the pictures sent to you and show them one by one on the shared screen. The team guesses who each picture belongs to.
• Letter hunt · 15–20 minutes · 5–25 people · low effort
  You or another team member call out three random letters. As fast as they can, everyone then holds three objects starting with those letters up to the camera. Whoever finishes first scores points – and off you go again.