In this activity, each person comes up with a personal manual.
The manual explains to others in the team how they like to work.
It’s a fun way to encourage open communication in your team.
It helps build team cohesion and to build rapport, as you get to know each other and how you like to work.
When you have a new starter, these manuals are a great tool to use in their induction.
If you’re together physically, you’ll need somewhere to meet
If your team is working remotely, you’ll need a phone or video conferencing tool
Set up your meeting at a time where you’ll get the best results.
This means thinking about the diverse needs of each of your team members.
Think of things like:
This a rough schedule of how you can run the session.
Develop a set of questions to send to your team.
Include things you’d like to understand more about your team.
Write the questions in the first person, as your staff will need to answer each question about themselves.
Here’s some sample questions to get you started:
Send your questions to your team.
Ask each of them to spend time to write their responses to each question. Set a deadline for when you want this done.
They can answer using words, pictures, song lyrics or any other form of media to add a bit of fun to the activity.
Let your team know you’ll ask them to share their answers.
Ask each team member to send around their answers.
You could do this at a meeting, via email or in a group chat.
Or even publish them on a private intranet page.