Just wanted to say how effective the Remote Teams activity is - I used it today with a team of 18 people who work in 3 different locations/buildings. I was a little apprehensive of using it as it seemed quite complicated but once they had been given their brief, it just took off and ran by itself. It definitely raised the key points. I would think with a larger group, you may need a helper but with 18 it was manageable with just one facilitator. The delegates virtually debriefed themselves, not needing much facilitator input. A really fun and useful activity, thanks!

This is a great exercise that was well received by a team of 35 managers who work in several different locations but came together for a team building day. We started the exercise the night before when they arrived for a dinner. They were given instructions that they were to find their fellow team members by the colour of star they were wearing. Then during dinner they were invited to get to know their team with the understanding that they would want to know what special skills and abilities each member brought to the team so they could allocate roles for the following day. After dinner they were asked to take 3 team photographs which included training their astronaut for flight. The cards from the digital cameras were then loaded quickly onto a laptop in the bar and within minutes we had a slide show of amusing photos set to music which set the scene for the following morning.

The ice breaker on the morning was then to name their planet and to design a flag that represented their planet.

Once the director had introduced the purpose of the event with his own amusing presentation we moved into the Remote Teams exercise properly. What I have discovered is that it is very difficult to do this with only one ‘Faseel Tater'. I was so busy dealing with the astronauts coming to ‘Lurn Ing’ with their responses that I failed to notice that everyone had started to move around the tables. The next time I do this I will brief the whole room and not just the Astronauts and will ensure they understand the basic principles including where their Alliance are based.

The puzzles are shaded from blue to green and yet by the end of the exercise one planet had a huge stack of green pieces and another table had a huge stack of blue pieces and nothing had been assembled! Needless to say there were many lessons to be learned and in future I would build in a second exercise on a similar theme so that they could apply what they had learned.

The response that I had to the whole day was fantastic and it has already led to several further developmental days. I would heartily recommend this exercise for any team that is having communication issues or the old ‘working in silos’ issues due to lack of geographical contact.

After being given the task to conduct a team building event around a Christmas party conference I turned to Glasstap for some inspiration.

The company’s main objective was to bring all the remote teams together to increase better independent relationships and communication across all areas of the business. Glasstap (Zoe) gave me advice on how to run the team building exercise ‘Remote teams’ and it was a roaring success.

The scene was set with me dressing up as Faseel Tater (optional of course) and giving instructions to the teams of what was required for them to do. This got everyone in the mood and the astronaughts were selected to represent each team.

I would advise anyone running this with a large group to have additional helpers to give out the mosaic pieces (jigsaws) as it was very difficult to control and co-ordinate the activities happening throughout the exercise. Great idea to give them names and they also got into character as well; Dick Tater and Con Troller!!!!

The teams all worked together to build their mosaic and communication was strong within their chosen teams. At times the negotiations between other teams (not in their alliance) were fraught with individuals being combative and wanting to win out against the opposition.

When the exercise had finished you could see that strong independent relationships had formed. The debrief happened almost instantaneous and all of the participations recognised immediately what accelerated or impeded their progress which they then linked back to the organisation's objective.

Laughter and fun was had by all – Thanks Glasstap for a wonderful activity to run!!!!!!