Fun Without Borders: Agile Games for Distributed Teams

Team building games and activities bring everyone together and improve collaboration, communication, and trust.

Activities like human knots and trust falls are excellent team-building activities for in-office teams. But when you have a remote team that’s spread across multiple continents and time zones, you need to take advantage of technology to enjoy agile team-building games.

Agile gaming is inexpensive and highly engaging. These activities require creativity and open-mindedness, and they’re perfect for distributed teams.

This article explores the concept of virtual team-building games and activities, and shares 12 suggestions that you can bring to your remote teams.

Table Of Contents

• Virtual Coffee Chat
• #Travel Slack Channel
• .gif Battles
• Collaborative Podcasts
• The Desk Photo Contest
• A Walk in My City
• Company Trivia Session
• Write a Story
• Movie Night
• Get Fit Challenge
• Virtual Pictionary
• Virtual Scavenger Hunt

What is Virtual Team-building?

Virtual team-building takes place in the online world with the support of technology. The players are not physically present in the same room, but they are using the same tools for online communication and can play many agile virtual games.

Online games for virtual teams can be played using a range of tools, such as Slack, Zoom, Google Hangouts, Google Docs, Confluence, or PowerPoint. It’s usually the organizer who decides whichever tool is most convenient for the entire team.

The best thing is, they’re universal!

It doesn’t matter if you’re leading a team of WordPress engineers or a team of Shopify developers. You can even have a mixed team of developers, designers, and QA engineers who live on different continents.

These virtual team-building games can engage and excite any team member from any corner of the world.

Why Are We Wasting Time Playing Agile Games for Distributed Teams?

Supportive social relationships have a positive impact on health and well-being. Studies about “social pain” examine the emotional distress that occurs when a person feels rejected and excluded from social activities, and illustrate how crucial strong relationships are to people’s overall happiness.

Missing out on the social side of a group can negatively affect remote employees’ mental health. Organizations want employees to feel physically and mentally well so they can lead meaningful and happy lives. When employees feel included and part of the team, engagement and productivity rates improve.

Being confined to a small space for a large part of the day with no socialization can have a negative impact on employees’ mental health. Along with healthy activities like home workouts and meditating, remote employees can also play online team-building games and enjoy the social connection.

Find ways to keep the excitement going and build a connected remote work culture. The goal is to create opportunities for remote employees to interact in meaningful ways outside of regular meetings. Online team-building games are a great way to do that.

What Types of Team-building Activities for Remote Teams Are There?

There are two types of team-building activities: one-time games and multiple-time activities. One-time virtual activities are a great way to bring the entire team together, but they may not be fun to play a second time, unless a new member joins the team. Multiple-time activities tend to be entertaining for the team no matter how many times they’re played.

There are also activities and online team games that a team can play using tools for synchronous or asynchronous communication. When remote employees play the game at the same time, that’s a real-time game. When employees join the game whenever it’s most convenient for them, that’s an asynchronous activity.

Many virtual agile games and activities are just for fun and result in a lot of laughter. Other games are fun and practical. A mix of games entertains the team and facilitates collaboration in new ways.

Fun Games and Activities for Remote Teams

Let’s explore online games for remote teams:

Virtual Coffee Chat

• Sync. or async.: sync
• Practical or just for fun: practical
• One-time or regular: regular
• Tools required: video conferencing tool like Zoom or Google Meet

This activity only requires team members to join on a video conference call once a month. If you’re the organizer, set up a time that works for everyone and start chatting.

What makes this virtual coffee chat such an amazing activity is that every meeting has a specific topic. You can get together and discuss favorite meals, most-loved places to travel, or tips for working more productively.

#Travel Slack Channel

• Sync. or async.: async
• Practical or just for fun: practical
• One-time or regular: regular
• Tools required: Slack

What makes Slack such an amazing tool is that you can have a separate channel for everything. The marketing team has its own channel, the engineering team its own, and there’s also a general channel where everyone can stay up-to-date with current developments.

But who says that all channels have to be strictly work-related? Why organize only engineering team-building games when you can get everyone involved?

Our suggestion is to create a #Travel channel on Slack where everyone can send pictures and share stories of their travels. Though it’s not the most engaging agile game, it is a practical way to connect, share, and discover something new about the world and other team members.

A #Travel channel is only one idea. Consider #Cooking channels, #Podcasts, #Workout, or #ProductivityTips. Ask your team for other suggestions.

.gif Battles

• Sync. or async.: async
• Practical or just for fun: just for fun
• One-time or regular: regular
• Tools required: Trello board template

.gif Battles is one of the funniest just-for-fun games on this list. This is a team-building game that uses this Trello board template.

The game has four rounds, each with a different theme. Use Giphy.com to search for a gif that best fits the theme of the round. For example, if the theme of the first round is “remote work,” start browsing gyphy.com for the most hilarious gif and attach the gif to a card. These team-building gifs are simple yet so effective in improving team chemistry.

When all team members attach their gifs, it’s time to vote for the best submission. The goal of the game is to pick an ultimate winner after four rounds. The gif battle winner is crowned “The Sommelier of Gifs”, and they’ll retain the title until another team member defeats them in a subsequent gif battle.

Collaborative Podcasts

• Sync. or async.: async
• Practical or just for fun: just for fun
• One-time or regular: regular
• Tools required: Slack/Google Sheets

Do you and the team talk about podcasts? Chances are you do. Podcasts are such an entertaining way to fill up your time with knowledge. You can listen to a podcast when you’re walking your dog, commuting, or enjoying a midday rest.

So, why not create a collaborative podcasts list? You and the team have two ways of doing so. One way is by creating a Slack #podcasts channel where everyone will get the chance to share a podcast they love.

Or, you can create a Google spreadsheet where everyone will be able to drop their favorite podcast. Consider setting up different sheets for different topics, such as “engineering podcasts”, “remote work podcasts”, or “travel podcasts”. Ask the team for other ideas.

The Desk Photo Contest

• Sync. or async.: async
• Practical or just for fun: just for fun
• One-time or regular: regular
• Tools required: Slack

Looking at your coworkers’ desks is a simple team-building activity that often reveals more about a person’s personality and daily life than quick virtual agile games.

How the activity works is that you ask your remote employees to snap a photo of their desk and share it with the team. Get the person to post the photo on a Slack channel together with a short story about an accessory on their desk.

This is a simple way for team members to get to know each other better.

A Walk in My City

• Sync. or async.: async
• Practical or just for fun: just for fun
• One-time or regular: regular
• Tools required: Slack

This is a fun activity that helps team members learn more about other cities or countries.

Ask the team to share some interesting tourist sights, secret spots or favorite places around their city. It can be through uploading a photo on Slack or sending a pre-recorded video. The activity also includes writing a short story about what’s so special about the place and reasons to visit.

This team-building activity is a wonderful way to give remote employees context about their coworkers’ daily lives and adventures in their city.

Company Trivia Session

• Sync. or async.: async
• Practical or just for fun: just for fun
• One-time or regular: regular
• Tools required: email/QuizBreaker

To play Company Trivia Session, pick one person to prepare the questions and send them over to the team. The team is then given 24 hours to send their answers.

This is a favorite remote game for many teams. Learning interesting details about your coworkers brings people closer together, even when they’re in different countries. You can use the QuizBreaker tool for this game.

Here are some agile games examples of fun questions:

• Which team member lives closest to the head office?
• Which team member’s favorite book is “Cosmos” by Carl Sagan?
• Who recently got married?
• Which team members can breakdance?
• Which team member has been working at the company the longest?
• Who recently celebrated their third-year work anniversary?

Write a Story

• Sync. or async.: sync
• Practical or just for fun: just for fun
• One-time or regular: regular
• Tools required: group chat/Slack

If you’re looking for a team-building activity where employees can exercise their writing skills and creativity in a fun way, then try playing agile online games like Write a Story.

This is an easy agile game for virtual teams to implement. It works well with any number of team members. All they need is their computer and a group chat.

The host types an opening sentence to begin the story and then each team member takes turns adding one sentence to the story. The activity can last for 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the number of people, and is a wonderful way to spark creativity.

Movie Night

• Sync. or async.: sync
• Practical or just for fun: just for fun
• One-time or regular: regular
• Tools required: Zoom/Google Meet

Watching a movie with friends is a low-pressure bonding activity that can also work well for remote teams. This involves streaming a movie via a virtual conference call using a screen-sharing option like Zoom.

This is a fun team-building activity for remote teams and gives their mind a break from ongoing projects and tasks. For a truly collaborative experience, keep a live chat running during the movie so the team can exchange comments, jokes, and thoughts.

Get Fit Challenge

• Sync. or async.: async
• Practical or just for fun: just for fun
• One-time or regular: regular
• Tools required: Stridekick/Spliff/My Virtual Mission

Physical health is equally as important as mental health. Companies can encourage remote employees to be physically active in a fun, engaging way with the help of a team-building game called, the Get Fit Challenge.

It’s a healthy competition that releases endorphins, strengthens relationships, and supports personal well-being. To play the game, you need to set an exercise goal that employees can track using their phones. It can be a simple step challenge, a distance challenge, or a calorie burning challenge.

Apps you can use include:

• Stridekick
• My Virtual Mission

Virtual Pictionary

• Sync. or async.: sync
• Practical or just for fun: just for fun
• One-time or regular: regular
• Tools required: Skribbl or Drawasaurus

Online Pictionary games are always a lot of fun on agile game day. Instead of a piece of paper and a pen, team members need a steady internet connection and access to online team-building games like Skribbl or Drawasaurus. Teams can open a private room and multiple rounds of Pictionary to determine the winner.

Virtual Scavenger Hunt

• Sync. or async.: async
• Practical or just for fun: just for fun
• One-time or regular: regular
• Tools required: GooseChase

Scavenger Hunt is a remote game that gets your team outside for some fun. You can use a platform called GooseChase to create an outdoor scavenger hunt. The team needs to follow instructions to receive the next direction. They may be asked to submit a photo or video, or solve team-building puzzles and riddles.

This agile team-building game will have your remote employees moving around and communicating with each other in fun new ways that improve their connections.

Conclusion

We’re continuously inventing a new world for ourselves through online games for teams. Once, the majority of employees were working in warehouses before moving to office spaces. Today we’re witnessing another significant change: the transition from in-office work to remote work. The major driver of this change: technology.

What remains a constant is that we’re social beings, and remote team building helps people feel that they belong. We crave relationships and closeness with other people. And just because the team lives on four sides of the world doesn’t mean that they can’t form professional and personal relationships with their coworkers through games for agile teams. From Slack channels and Google Docs to platforms like QuizBreaker and Stridekick, remote employees can easily share a laugh via agile team games, exchange photos of their daily life, and get competitive on a Scavenger Hunt.

Bridging the physical gap has never been easier and social interaction must be included in your team’s everyday life through virtual agile team-building games. It’s the key to employee performance, engagement, and long-term retention.

Let the games begin!