Authentic Connection: Team Timeline Opener Activity
Strong team cohesion – how bonded people feel to one another – is a key element for success in distributed teams.
– Jonathan Thompson
INTRO
While this activity functions as an icebreaker, it’s best for deeper team-building for established teams. This exercise helps show, in a visual way, the different experiences, priorities, and generations within your team. It leads well into talking about shared experiences, breaks down barriers and creates a mindset of authentic communication.
OBJECTIVES
- Begin developing deeper, more authentic connections by getting the group comfortable sharing ideas and communicating with each other
- Facilitate thoughtful reflection on shared experiences and diverse timelines among team members
OPENER ACTIVITY
Prepare a loose timeline (even just by decades, with space in-between) for whichever shared space works for your experience.
REMOTE/DIGITAL
- Each team member takes four slips of paper, jotting down an important moment from their life on each
- When they’re done, people take turns showing the camera what they have written, and each is added to a shared timeline on a shared digital space.
- Or participants can directly add their 4 moments to the shared space via Padlet, Miro, Doc, whiteboard, etc.
IN-PERSON/ANALOG
- Each team member takes four sticky notes, jotting down an important moment from their life on each
- When they’re done, people take turns sharing what they have written, and each is added to a shared timeline on a shared space (poster paper, whiteboard, etc).
Responses