No matter how many times you may have organised a team building activity in the past, each time you are given this responsibility, you feel like you could do better with just a little more time in hand.

Planning an activity that is meant to unwind employees and provide fun can certainly be more challenging than it seems. A trip around the world, of course, would be great and no employee in their right mind will ever say no to that – but will the proposal ever make it past the financial committee? We doubt it.

Likewise, each time your plan clears one obstacle, it can run into another hurdle, so it’s good to devise a functional plan to go about the process in the right way.

Following are some points on the basis of which you can plan your team building event:

Create a timeline

When it comes to planning a team building event, the likelihood of the event being a success increases when you give yourself sufficient time to plan and prepare for it.

It is recommended that if less than 100 people will be attending the event, you should start planning at least four to six weeks in advance. You should give yourself at least four to six months if the event is going to be any bigger than this.

Put a team to work

It would be unrealistic to expect one person to shoulder all the responsibility that comes with planning an event of such magnitude and complexity. There are so many aspects to it that a single mind working on it is bound to feel overwhelmed.

When there is a team involved in the planning process you can delegate the less important tasks to others and in this way focus on the bigger picture.

Come up with a detailed budget

Talking to your boss or the person responsible for managing the financial aspect of your teambuilding day should help you to put together a realistic budget.

Ask them for the amount that the company can afford so that you can plan the teambuilding day accordingly.

Following are the expenses that you should consider before you arrive at an estimate:

• Parking and transportation
• Permits and venue booking
• Organisers or Activity providers
• Food and beverages
• Insurance

What’s your goal?

Smooth implementation of your plan is only one of the many advantages of setting goals. Having clear goals ensures that the event is both fun and well organised. By goals, we mean the following five questions

When? Where? Why? Who? What?

• ‘Who’ should account for all those who will be attending the event. Having knowledge of the number of people who will be attending the event helps you figure the answer to the next question.
• ‘What’ should the activity be that the ‘who’ will be partaking in. Based on the numbers you should come up with activities that are able to engage everybody involved in the teambuilding day.
• ‘Why’ is the reason you’ve decided to organise a teambuilding day. Is your team underperforming? Do you want to bring everyone closer? Is it a reward for amazing performance?
• ‘When’ goes hand in hand with ‘why’. Just like nobody celebrates an anniversary after months have passed, if good performance is why you are planning this event, it should immediately follow the period during which they worked hard.

The ‘Where’ – Pick the venue

The location or venue is perhaps the most crucial factor and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it can make or break your team building activity. Venues which are so small that your team feels cramped inside is a strict no. Things to consider include:

• Would you like to host the event indoors or outdoors?
• How many team members can the venue accommodate?
• Which amenities are provided there?
• Is it easy to reach?

Our advice is simple – take your team outdoors as people get closer when taken away from closed spaces. Pick a venue that is so huge that you at least get to shout at the top of your voice to grab their attention. One which has all the amenities that you can possibly need to spend your teambuilding day having bundles of fun.

Avalanche Adventure is where you will get all of the above and a lot more thrown in too… So get in touch today to organise the most talked about teambuilding day your company has ever organised.