Organize a team offsite
How to guide: Organize the perfect team day with this practical guide
A team day is a great opportunity to improve collaboration, communication, and morale among your team. Here are three steps to organize a successful team day:
Smooth logistics
Set the right topic
Create group dynamics
Smooth logistics
Let’s start with the obvious topic. When you organize a team day you have to take care of logistics. But let’s raise the bar. Truly smooth logistics make your team day fly. Make it feel like a breeze. And allows everyone to be fully present
Here is your ultimate team day preparation checklist:
Find a great location:
A big room: ideal if it could fit 2x the number of your group. Then you have space to move around, and even work in groups.
Light! make sure you get plenty of daylight in the room.
No distractions: try to find a room with little outside noise or visual distractions. another small tip: no coffee machine in the room.
Make sure travel time is manageable.
Re-energize during breaks:
walk-in start: set a start time. Allow 15 minutes to get coffee, and settle in. And then really start. That helps you prevent a late or half-start with your team.
at least 45 minutes for lunch, do go outside for a walk!
Coffee: let’s recognize most of us are caffeine addicts. Allow yourself 2 breaks in the morning, and at least 1 in the afternoon. Big bonus points if you replace the afternoon coffee with a healthy snack!
Plan ahead and communicate:
Agendas fill up quickly, most likely you find a slot 2-4 weeks into the future. That allows for preparation time as well
Communicate the agenda early. Make sure you create clarity on what you expect from your group up front. Don’t let them come unprepared. It makes for such an easier start if everybody is already activated on the topic. Communicate the details and expectations of the team day to the participants. Send invitations, reminders, and confirmations via email, phone, or other channels. Provide clear and concise information about the date, time, location, agenda, activities, and goals of the team day. Encourage participation and enthusiasm.
Communicate already in the mindset or vibe/energy you like the team day to take place. Your preparation is an integral part of the success of the team day. So make sure your first communication on the team day already resonates with the goal of the team day itself.
Be there early:
Arrive at the location ~60 minutes early. Find the location manager or your direct contact. And align your schedule, and your wishes for lunch, breaks etc.
Setup the room (this could be another long blog on the ideal room setup…). In short: no U-shaped setup, get closer to each other, make sure you can all see each other, and if needed the screen. The setup allows much more personal dynamics than an office-based meeting room so use it!
Make sure technology works.
Set your intention and check your own energy level. As you facilitate team day. Your own presence and energy are key. Take a couple of minutes to focus and ground yourself. Set an intention for the day that can guide you.
The goal of coming early is that the group, but most importantly you, don’t get distracted by the logistics.
Set the right topic
Define the goals and objectives of the team day. What do you want to achieve?
Involve your team in setting the topics. You can use the Teamradar from Teambooster to ask your whole team what the most important team topic is.
Below you find a link to start a free trial. It’s always free for a single team.
For most teams, the right topic is highly time-dependent. So best to set it short to the date of your offsite, but allow for enough time to organize it.
You can use the Goal quality exercise in the Teambooster Toolkit to check your agenda for the day (Again, if you are not a Teambooster user yet, start a free trial!). Are your topics ambitious enough and concrete enough? What if you would double your ambition, what would the results of each topic then be? Are your goals realistic for the time you have available?
For each topic complete the sentence. By the end of this <45 minutes> we have achieved …
Can you clearly articulate what the results are? So not “talked about our new strategy” but “created 3 equally interesting scenarios that would help us implement the strategy in the next 18 months.
Create an agenda with diversity in topics and energy. Most teams cannot work on a single topic for a full day. Teams get much more effective if they have focused and energetic time, can then change topic/scene, and then work again intensely on another topic. Some topics require high intensity, and some topics require slower, more reflective energy.
This analogy works wonders for allocating time to topics. Just compare it to how we have learned to watch TV
commercials take 30-45 seconds, and most commercial blocks last 4-7 minutes —> these fit well for short-to-the-point updates. Like a round of short announcements, a market update, or your check-in round.
An update on the daily news takes 10-20 minutes —> use it for a longer round of updates, but it doesn’t allow to go in depth.
An episode of your favorite series takes ~30 minutes —> works wonders for a familiar topic. where you quickly want to get to the next step.
An in-depth documentary takes ~45-60 minutes. —> use it to solve/dive deep into one specific topic. When you are focused you can make a lot of progress
a full movie takes 90-120 minutes —> like a good movie break it up in different scenes. Which steps do you take to solve a complex topic? And do you not get lost in the plot, and bring it to a successful end?
Use well-known color/style methodologies like DISC to balance the topics on your agenda:
Green: where do we personally connect, bond with the group, and build relationships?
Yellow: where are we creative, coming up with new ideas?
Blue: where do we create clarity, structure, and alignment, or take time to analyze or find the root cause?
Red: where are we action-oriented, agree on a goal?
Use the right format for group dynamics
The 2 suggestions above already give a hint on the importance of format. When you have created your topics, build it into an agenda that allows the right time for each topic. And you have masterfully balanced different energy that comes with the different topics. Then it’s time for the icing on the cake.
It’s time to think through the format you can facilitate through each of the topics. The format really matters. In short, it’s the way the group interacts. Compare it to your favorite sport. Let’s say soccer. Format is how you set up your team on the pitch. We don’t all 11 run towards the ball at the same time, we know our place on the field. And we have practiced through multiple game situations (like free kicks and corners).
Workshops and meetings format works the same way. Throwing a topic on your meeting table and saying “let’s discuss” is the same as in soccer running all 11 toward the same ball.
For good format choice, you need to understand the topics as well as the preferences of your participants.
And use all the flexibility you have to create the right interaction
Use the right group size: Some topics need individual work, or in pairs, groups of 3, split your group in 2, or with the whole group together
Use the right props: some topics just need spoken words, others need clarity on a screen or flipchart, or lots of post-its, or any other specific physical or digital tooling
Use the right interaction format: for example do you need a heated conversation with multiple people talking at the same time, a talking stick with one person at a time, or multiple written post-its with single ideas being structured and then presented?
Above are just examples. But if you combine group size, props, and interaction format magic can happen. With the right format, a group can really elevate itself, and be surprised by what you can achieve together in little time.
It’s your role as facilitator to introduce the format with the start of each topic, and then “guide” your group into it!
And as a final tip: make it memorable with just that final spark. A celebration, a special lunch, some singing or dancing, or just enjoying the sun. Whatever makes the day stand-out!
***
Now you have a plan, the perfect team day happens when you let go of your plan. Execute the team day with professionalism and flexibility. Arrive early, set up the venue, and welcome the participants. Follow the agenda, facilitate the activities, and monitor the progress. Be prepared to adjust or improvise if needed, because a successful team day is created by the interaction of your participants!
Use Teambooster with your team
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