Serious play: crafting meaningful team activities

In today’s dynamic work environment, fostering a cohesive team spirit and preserving company culture are more challenging than ever. This challenge is magnified in hybrid work settings where casual, spontaneous interactions are scarce. Especially with distant teams, we often only connect during formal All-Hands meetings. However, offline meetings provide a unique opportunity not just for random network, but for organizing streamlined activities that enhance team collaboration.

The “Play Serious” Principle

As a company, we value offline collaboration. We are willing to invest time, energy, and resources to ensure that teammates get together, get to know each other, and build bridges for future collaboration. And, of course, we do this in a “play serious” style, through fun and games.

The Power of Casual Introductions

Quick, casual introductions are crucial. They allow everyone to get to know each other through teamwork, immediately observing each other’s working and thinking strategies, as well as behavior patterns. These introductions help in quickly establishing team agreements on preferred work styles, all within a fun and engaging context, making future communication much easier. They get to know each other, establishing initial connections and learning names, which simplifies reaching out, messaging, or calling each other later on.

Spreading Company Culture

A significant challenge is how to preserve and spread the company culture. While some aspects of culture may evolve or fade, the core values must be maintained. Activities like these play a crucial role in helping teams feel the shared vibe, spirit, and values of the company, reinforcing the collective culture. This time our biggest challenge was onboarding a large number of new employees, spreading our culture while scaling up, and maintaining inclusivity. We needed to ensure that people could relate to our culture, rather than having it imposed from above.

Game-changer

At the last Manychat birthday event, we held an activity for 160 people from 10 different countries.

As our party was held in a tropical island setting, we decided to embrace that theme.

We had 15 teams, or “tribes,” each with its own name and sound. The concept was based on islands, an archipelago, where tribes needed to move between islands to establish connections, mirroring the diversity of our teams and locations. They had to create innovative vehicles, reflecting our company’s innovative spirit.

We manually distributed team members to ensure a mix of languages and varied skill sets. There were three iterations, each requiring the tribes to build a transportation device to connect their islands through 3 different challenges.

The first iteration involved creating a flying vehicle that had to travel 8 meters, symbolizing our 8th anniversary. Teams launched these devices across a pool, adding a real sense of island-hopping.

The second iteration required them to build a driving vehicle 8 meters, and teams were rewarded more if they started from scratch rather than improving their previous design.

The third one involved creating a floating vehicle to cross 8 meters of water, with teams crafting yachts, bottles, and even blowing their creations to propel them.

The jury evaluated the teams based on three criteria: teamwork, adherence to the requirements, and their willingness to start from scratch. The winning team achieved the highest scores across all categories.

This activity was not just about fun; it mirrored how Manychat operates with iterative processes and frequent releases, fostering innovation and collaboration. It reinforced our culture and values, helping new and existing employees feel connected and engaged. These activities are crucial for preserving and spreading our culture, enabling us to grow while staying true to our core principles.

The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive. The most common reaction was disbelief at how fast the time had passed. People were saying, “What do you mean 3.5 hours have gone by? It felt like 15–20 minutes.” There was a lot of gratitude for creating such an immersive experience that allowed participants to interact with diverse Manychatters that they don’t get to work with every day.

From talk to walk

At Manychat, we create activities from scratch, based on previous experience and current tasks. We use our own framework and brainstorming techniques. Here’s how it works:

1. We generate ideas and then filter them.
2. We alternate between individual and group brainstorming, share ideas, and apply design thinking methods.
3. We use a framework to select activities, clearly agreeing on the goals and outcomes.

At a recent event, we had several meta objectives:

• Onboarding new employees to the corporate culture.
• Introducing people from different teams and countries.
• Inclusion and understanding of the company’s values.
• Participation in activities related to our daily work.

We organized a creative engineering task with three iterations: creating a vehicle that could fly, drive, and float 8 meters using limited resources. There were 15 teams of 10 people each, and we achieved all our goals.

The stages of our process include:

1. Defining a clear set of desired outcomes
2. Assigning areas of responsibility within the team.
3. Setting the boundaries of the activity (space, venue, theme).

Preparation from idea generation to implementation takes about one and a half to two months.

Do or don’t

We might not have the exact numbers to show off, like how much productivity or engagement has skyrocketed, but we’ve created an unforgettable, transformative event. Our efforts have brought people together, boosted spirits, and made work feel like a place you want to be. If you’re ready to invest in your company culture, it’s totally worth it.