The Power of Games: How to Play Your Way to a Better Life

When you hear the words “play” and “games” what do you think about? Most adults think of those things as trivial or even dispensable: they shy away from anything “frivolous” like playing games. Here at Patchwork Adventures, we know the powerful effect games can have, on everything from your brain chemistry to your interpersonal relationships. Here are some of the reasons we love playing!

Play helps us regulate our emotions.

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We’ve all seen (or been) that furious kid who flips over the board and storms off in a huff when they lose a game. But over time, we grow to understand that the stakes are low when it comes to play. (Unless maybe you’re a professional card shark.) A game may feel intense in the moment, but win or lose, the consequences are minimal. And eventually, with time and practice, play teaches us how to work through those feelings in a healthy way and respond in a more socially-appropriate manner.

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Play teaches us empathy.

When we play with others, everyone experiences their own unique range of emotions, which might be different from or even contradictory to ours. This is a great opportunity for players to learn how individual people express emotions, how behavior impacts others, and what it means to be a good sport. 

Adults benefit from this too: empathy and compassion can always be deepened, and emotional intelligence is vital across all areas of daily life. Whether you’re sniffing out spies playing The Resistance or giving someone a tough performance review at work, it’s all about being able to read people and relate to them.

Play develops critical thinking skills.

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Play is a microcosm of the world in a lot of ways. In games like Risk, we decide on a trajectory, and we have to make choices based on the changing opportunities and people around us. But unlike the real world, the consequences happen much more quickly. This continuous feedback is an excellent way to quickly get better at contingency testing and risk calculation in a low-pressure environment. And once you develop the skills, moving on to tackle real-world issues is a logical next step.

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Play rewires our brains, literally.

Neuroplasticity is our brain’s ability to grow new neurons and reorganize neural pathways. This is important because it’s how we’re able to learn new skills, form new memories, and internalize new information.

Brains of children and young adults are inherently more flexible and have higher neuroplasticity compared to the brains of older adults, but there are some behaviors that can increase anyone’s brain plasticity. Novelty is a major theme: biking to work a different way, taking salsa lessons, learning a new language, all of these things will increase brain plasticity. 

Play is fertile ground for introducing this type of novel stimuli into your life. Whether it’s learning the mechanics of a new puzzle game or practicing a new ball handling technique in soccer, play is an excellent way to work out your brain and improve your neuroplasticity.

Play builds creativity.

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Dungeons & Dragons, Pictionary, murder mystery games, the list goes on: so many games are great ways to exercise your imagination. Whether through drawing, role-playing, or just an fun original strategy, games offer endless opportunities for creative expression. (And trust us: perfecting your elf wizard voice will definitely help you level up your next work presentation.)

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Play encourages cooperation.

Cooperative games like Pandemic or escape rooms are becoming increasingly popular. Players work towards a common goal, and they need their teammates in order to succeed.

Playing games will help teams learn more about each other, build their cooperation and consensus building skills, and just have fun together! This can be a good option for groups aiming to grow more calibrated with each other, like a team of new coworkers or a basketball team.

But even with games that are not explicitly cooperative, cooperation is still an important skill being developed. In Settlers of Catan, for instance, even though it’s a competitive game, players are required to work with each other in order to achieve their own goals.

Play makes us more adaptable.

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Games involve unpredictability: dice rolls, card shuffling, the variability of other people’s choices, etc. It all adds up to constantly shifting circumstances. Players continuously need to reassess and adjust their strategies based on these changes. (If someone just took the last open route to Atlanta in Ticket to Ride, you should probably focus on your west coast destinations instead.)

This ability to change course and reevaluate is undoubtedly a life skill that can be applied to more than just Monopoly or Agricola. Studies show that mammals who play more are better able to adapt to changes in their environments. With a flexible mindset, you can roll with life’s obstacles more smoothly, instead of having to reset back at square one every time you hit a snag.

This is a really useful skill in the workplace, since businesses frequently have to pivot projects and programs. It pays off to develop this resilience ahead of time; practicing with low-stakes games now will make it way easier to manage when shit really hits the fan.

Play teaches children (and adults!) social norms.

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Early in life, puppies learn from adult dogs how hard is too hard to bite when playing. Without internalizing that important lesson, a dog might grow up to unintentionally hurt their peers, and thus be ostracized from the group. Acceptance from the group and a sense of belonging is crucial to animal survival, and that includes humans.

Play helps with that: it’s a fun, informal opportunity to read social cues. It teaches and reinforces valuable lessons about how to treat other people, and you learn it’s okay to be silly in certain contexts, even once you’re an adult.

Play puts us in a flow state

We’ve all been so intensely focused on an activity that we look up at the clock and are shocked to realize three hours have gone by. This is flow, and being in this state is linked to a huge range of benefits, including higher productivity, elevated levels of happiness, and increased intrinsic motivation.

Games are an ideal setting to achieve flow state: they’re immersive, the objectives are clear, and you get fast feedback and rewards. (Turns out, playing Fortnight can actually be good for your productivity? Who knew?!)

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Play builds confidence.

One of the most challenging things about growing older is the increased responsibilities and expectations. There are areas in your life where you’re expected to show up and be successful: your boss counts on you to meet recruitment quotas, your kids expect you to keep the snack cupboard stocked, and you better not be late on your mortgage payment.

Those obligations come with baggage: if you make mistakes, there are real-world consequences that impact others.

Play puts a person in a low-stakes, novel environment, where it’s okay to make mistakes and look silly. Especially in adulthood, this type of environment becomes harder and harder to come by. If you’re learning a new game, it’s expected that you’ll make mistakes at first. Understanding the rules takes time, and there’s room to figure it out as you go.

Making mistakes in a relaxed environment is an important outlet, when so many other areas of life don’t allow for that imperfection. (Admittedly, making mistakes should totally be more accepted in the real world too, but that’s a whole other discussion.)

Play is a powerful bonding experience.

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Playing games is an excellent way to form or strengthen your relationships with friends, family, and coworkers. With acquaintances or new colleagues, playing a game is a great way to break the ice and ease the initial awkwardness that sometimes happens among new people. When the focus is on playing a game, no need to bother with small talk, and you avoid those dreaded conversation lulls!

Play is inherently not a serious activity, and it usually involves at least some level of silliness. Maybe it’s acting like a duck during charades, a Mario Kart race victory dance, or belly-flopping on the twister mat. Whatever it is, you usually have permission to act a little goofy!

This type of behavior can be vulnerable, which necessitates a certain amount of psychological safety among the participants: it establishes a mutual baseline of trust, which is crucial for building connection. When you and your coworkers have all seen each other get taken down by a kickball, it’s impossible not to feel more comfortable with them. And through play, you have a shared experience, you start having inside jokes, and you just get to know someone so much better. Playing games is a foolproof way to develop deeper bonds with people.

Want to boost your brain power, jumpstart your creativity, and connect with your team?

11 Ways to Build the Coolest Virtual Internship Program Ever

With summer right around the corner, many companies are looking to develop and grow their internship programs.

Given the current employee shortage, good interns are even more valuable right now. Finding interns that transition into full-time employees can save companies both time and money in recruitment and onboarding budgets.

But the best strategies for managing regular employees don’t always apply to interns, and vice versa. And how do you establish good norms for an internship program that’s fully remote or hybrid? Here are eleven tips for building a thriving virtual internship program at your company.

Make it fun!

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Typical interns are young, in or just out of college, and likely not accustomed to the typical 9-5 office grind. Inevitably, they won’t be as committed as your veteran employees close to retirement. So it might backfire if you immediately assign them piles of mindless data entry or force them to sit through back-to-back zoom meetings.

To retain your interns, you’ve got to add a little sparkle. Incorporate regular opportunities to connect outside of work through virtual team-building games, icebreakers, or GIF-only slack channels. Keep the grunt work to a minimum. Vary the tasks you assign so their responsibilities stay fresh, and they can get a taste of how different teams operate.

Onboard efficiently.

Because internships are typically time-bounded, the orientation process needs to be both concentrated and streamlined. Investing time at the beginning makes for a smoother and more integrated process throughout the internship.

You don’t want to be working on a project with an intern, only to realize that no one ever sent them the most current spreadsheet, and they’ve been working from obsolete data for the past two months. Get new interns up to speed with relevant projects, and make sure they understand their workflows as much as possible from the outset.

The best onboarding experience helps interns know what they need to do, what success looks like, and also how their small task or project relates to the company and helping the company achieve their goals. An intern’s first day/week should include a brief company overview, getting introduced to everyone, and some fun team activities.

Make expectations clear.

Having defined expectations for interns from the start goes a long way. This applies to their assigned tasks of course, but it’s important beyond that as well:

• Interns should be aware of company norms for different communication channels.

• They need to know which meetings they’ll be required to attend and which are optional.

• Get on the same page about deadlines and timetables for assignments.

At this stage, interns don’t usually have much office experience, so consider offering a bit more guidance at the beginning. By providing enough information early on, it saves you having to repair the damage when an intern accidentally sends an urgent message to the meme channel or sends the client mailing list a typo-filled newsletter.

Set realistic goals.

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Assign interns discrete, project-based tasks. Ideally these should be projects that they can wrap up (or at least hit key milestones on) by the end of their internships. During their onboarding, set concrete objectives (think SMART goals) for their time at the company. Come up with these goals together, and take into account their skills, experience level, and areas of interest.

When breaking these objective down, give them achievable, realistic tasks, especially early on. If it’s clear they could use more of a challenge, you can always increase their responsibilities down the road. Using this strategy will set them up for success, and they can leave the company feeling a sense of accomplishment.

Offer frequent and constructive feedback.

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Along with initial expectations and goals, it’s important to give interns feedback on their work as they progress. Feedback should be ongoing and transparent, and be sure to recognize their successes as well as their areas for improvement. Too much criticism at once can be daunting, especially for those new to the workforce.

Internships are meant to be learning experiences, and if interns feel discouraged early on, this can inhibit their performance later. Even when offering feedback on things they need to change, emphasize that this is all an expected part of the learning process.

Open the door for imperfection. 

By the same token, allow room for error. Make it clear that it’s okay to make mistakes. Occasional errors are inevitable no matter how senior an employee is, but with internships, it’s especially important to create a culture that embraces imperfection and growth.

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Research has shown that employees and teams with the psychological safety to make mistakes are more effective in the long run.

Who’s more productive: an intern who spends half the day agonizing about the perfect email subject line, or an intern who gives it their best shot, gets constructive feedback, and then keeps plugging away at the rest of their task list?

Invite questions.

It’s always better and more efficient to ask questions than to make incorrect assumptions. The alternative: an intern who pretends to have it all figured out, but then spends hours trying to figure out the answer to a question you could’ve answered in two minutes.

Establish early on that you’re available for their questions, big or small. If you stay approachable and encourage interns to ask for clarification when they need it, you’ll save everyone time in the long run.

Provide mentorship.

Especially at a big company, it’s easy for interns to get lost in the shuffle, and it’s important to identify people they can turn to when they need support. If your company’s structure allows for it, pair each intern with a mentor (someone in addition to their supervisor).

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This person can help an intern feel more connected to company culture and make the most out of the position. They can serve as an advocate and extra resource for the intern in challenging moments. And it’s a mutually beneficial relationship, since it’s an opportunity for mentor employees to gain advising and leadership experience as well.

Make sure mentors are proactive about checking in with their mentees regularly. The interns may need that reassurance (especially in the beginning) before they feel confident initiating communication themselves. Mentors reaching out first will help keep the communication lines open.

Welcome their ideas.

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Especially in a virtual setting, it’s important to be flexible in your approach, and make changes when they’re warranted. Interns can be resources for employees and supervisors as well, not just the other way around. A pair of outside eyes might be what it takes to realize how inefficient your daily all-hands meeting has become. Maybe your team is stuck in a rut, and a fresh perspective is just what you need in order to shake things up.

Encourage interns to ask for what they need as well. Establishing clear structure and expectations is important, but allow space for their input and preferences too. Talk to them about their ideal work schedule, and when they feel their most productive. Be open to making changes if need be, and keep an open dialogue with them about what’s working and what’s not.

Make time to connect with peers.

Give interns opportunities to connect with their peer group. If your company has more than one intern, allowing space for them to socialize with each other is a great way to increase their job satisfaction and interest in the company. Try hosting a virtual team-building game or a fun onboarding event early on, so they can get to know each other in a playful, low-stakes environment.

This is something that can often get overlooked when a company is fully remote or hybrid, especially when it comes to temporary employees and interns. But establishing good rapport in the beginning will start interns off on the right foot together. It can also lead to good working relationships, and having interns work on collaborative projects can build off of that foundation and keep them engaged.

Don’t overwhelm them.

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Be intentional about how and when to involve interns in company communication. Because an internship is typically a time-bounded experience, there’s no reason to CC the interns on company-wide emails about your five-year plan, nor should you expect them to attend your quarterly business review, unless that’s the specific focus of their internship.

Overwhelming interns with information is counterproductive: if you throw too much irrelevant information at them at once, they might start skimming emails and tuning out at meetings.

Instead, keep them up-to-speed only on the projects they’re directly involved with, and allow them the agency to explore areas of interest in more depth if desired.

Want to start off your summer internship program with a bang? 

We’ve hosted games for hundreds of internship kickoff events and onboardings.  Our professional actor/facilitator hosts will help your new interns integrate smoothly and start off strong with the company. Our Great Zoom Challenge Game is a great energizer to bring new teams together, and we can customize Escape the Zoom or our Battle of the Brains Virtual Team Trivia Challenge Game to include content that’s specific to your organization. Book one of our games today!

The Dos and Don’ts of Building a Thriving Remote Team

The pandemic left companies around the world scrambling for a playbook on remote work. Suddenly, teams had to stare at little boxes on a screen instead of gathering around conference tables. Slack channels and email avalanches replaced water cooler gossip and onsite meetings. We learned more than we ever needed to know about our coworkers’ sourdough starters.

So how do you work together as a team and integrate a sense of community into this new virtual normal?

There’s more to building a remote team than just coordinating Zoom backgrounds. Having surveyed, interviewed, and worked with more than a thousand remote teams over the last five years, we’ve learned a thing or two about best practices for remote teams:

Don’t just default to business as usual.

Many in-office strategies are bound to fall flat when attempting them with a remote team. Casual Friday doesn’t really apply if you’ve been wearing pajama pants all week anyway, right?

And let’s be real: a virtual “happy hour” and an actual happy hour feel about as similar as a virtual hug and a real hug.

Remote teams have different needs and priorities.

Trying to impose the same workflows on a dispersed team is a no-go. Instead, try strategies that are specifically geared towards remote teams and virtual environments.

Establish communication norms for digital channels like Slack and email, and have clear expectations for response times. Make space for employees to socialize, but do so in ways that are more conducive to a remote setting, like playing a virtual board game together or making a collaborative comic on a digital whiteboard.

Check-in often.

When you don’t see your team at the office every day, it’s all too easy to fall into the habit of communicating with coworkers only when there’s a deadline or a fire to put out. 

But if employees feel isolated, it leads to job dissatisfaction, worse performance, and more turnover. The data is clear: prioritizing employee well-being is good for business.

So how do you do that when your team is virtual? Without the daily casual interactions that happen organically in the office, be proactive about frequent 1:1 check-ins. That might be different depending on the employee. For some, a quick daily video chat will be easiest, while for others, regular email updates feel more comfortable.

Remote work makes it easier for individuals to set up their own ideal communication patterns. Just make sure your team knows your (virtual) door is open whenever and however they need support.

Maybe responding to superfluous reply-alls with memes isn’t actually as helpful as you think it is.

Ask for suggestions.

Along the same vein, be intentional about soliciting feedback from your team.

It’s impossible to anticipate every need that might arise.

A chronic frustration for one team member might be a quick fix for you, but you need to actually be aware of it first. And that’s inherently more difficult with virtual work. Who knows, buying a good set of headphones for Gerald (AKA Sir Echos-A-Lot) could immediately boost everyone’s job satisfaction by 10%. But you won’t know unless you ask.

Giving people the agency to engineer their own solutions to problems goes a long way too. Employees will be more invested in outcomes if they came up with the ideas themselves.

Make time for collaboration and socializing.

Virtual face time is still face time, and our brains respond to it very similarly. Even if you’re not in the same room together, you can still integrate brainstorming sessions and spontaneous communication into your team’s workflow.

Tools like Donut or Sococo can help facilitate this by making space for serendipitous conversations and simulating the office environment virtually.

Spending time with colleagues outside of work mode can also help TEAMS significantly.

Fun virtual team events get creative juices flowing and increase employee motivation. And time and time again, employee engagement is one of the best predictors for company profits. That’s where virtual team-building activities come in.

Prioritize company culture.

Arguably the most important way for a remote team to stay connected is to foster a strong company culture. Employees that connect with the mission of their company and feel like they belong will stick around for the long haul. And hiring new employees is expensive and labor-intensive, so investing in a solid company culture is both a kind and pragmatic way to engage your team.

It takes more intention and awareness to shape the values of a company remotely, but you’ll be glad you took the time.

Check out #3 on this list for more tips to build a strong virtual work culture.

Let’s be honest; we can all probably relate to this meme. Try a daily stretching routine with your team!

Embrace new rituals.

Without the glue of an office hub, work at a remote company is at risk of becoming transactional and impersonal. That’s why company rituals are crucial.

This can look different for different teams:

• Break up long meetings with icebreaker questions

• Do micro-workouts together in the afternoons to boost your energy.

• Unwind together at the end of every workweek with some games.

What matters is creating routines that are enjoyable, personalized for the individuals on the team, and sustainable over the long haul.

Let go of the strict 9-5 schedule.

One of the best things about remote work is the versatility. (Plus, no more long hours commuting next to somebody on the train eating a tuna sandwich!) Instead of a rigid, one-size-fits-all schedule for the whole team, take advantage of that versatility.

It’s obviously still helpful to have some overlapping hours with your team so they can collaborate (see above), but work together to figure out a healthy mix of coordinated hours and flexibility. Maybe some night owls find their best creative flows at 2am, while others have a burst of energy after the morning meeting.

The science is clear about this: putting nose to the grindstone for 40+ hours every week isn’t healthy, nor does it lead to higher work output.

It’s much better to adapt to the natural rhythms of our bodies and our brains.

Figure out a way to have a good balance between flexibility and enough overlap so that you can still work together in real time when you need to.

Don’t micromanage.

Some of you may be stuck on that last point, worrying that employees will slack off if they’re given such a long leash. That’s where a solid company culture and trust come in.

If you can’t trust A team member to stay on task while remote, being in the office probably wouldn’t change that.

With an established baseline of trust, you can give your team the space to figure out for themselves how and when they do their best work. And it’s a win-win: trusted employees are more engaged, more productive, and more likely to stay with a company long-term.

Organize company retreats.

If employees feel safe doing so, planning annual or quarterly retreats together is a great way to rejuvenate your virtual team.

As flexible and versatile as remote work is, there are some things that just don’t translate. And while it’s possible to build connections virtually, the concentrated team bonding that comes from a corporate retreat or a company offsite is hard to beat.

The connections built there will have a lasting impact on a team, continuing long after they return to a remote workflow.

Even if some folks aren’t able to join in-person, there are team-building options that are specifically designed for hybrid teams. These events allow remote employees to play an integral role in the game flow and stay connected to the rest of their team. Games like this are inclusive of those who need to stay remote due to logistical challenges, personal preference, or health concerns.

Experiment. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

Many teams have been remote for over two years now (and some for much longer), but there’s still plenty to learn. The virtual charades tournament that’s a hit with the sales team might be a flop with the accounting department.

Explore different strategies and play around with the ones that show promise. Or just throw spaghetti on the wall, and see what sticks! (Maybe not literally.) You may be surprised at the things that end up having the biggest impact on your team.

Want some help with your remote team engagement?

We've worked with over 850 teams in the past two years, hosting games like Escape the Zoom, Cocktail Party Murder Mystery, and Great Zoom Challenge Game. Our games are hosted by professional actors and are customizable, fun and engaging!

7 Pandemic Lessons: Adventures in Team Building, T-Rexes, and Remote Work Culture

It’s been two years since COVID-19 completely changed the way most of us work, socialize, and interact with the world. At Patchwork Adventures, we started working on virtual team building in 2017, but in March 2020, our number of remote clients exploded. Over the past two years, we’ve worked with 850 clients from companies all over the world, expanded to a pool of over a hundred talented actor/facilitators, and learned so much along the way.

These are some of our takeaways for how to thrive in this new work reality:

1. It’s all about trust.

One of the main arguments against remote work is "how do I make sure my employees are working?" The real question should be, “If you can’t trust someone to work when you’re not meticulously supervising them, why are they working for you at all?”

That’s why giving employees space to connect outside of work is so vital to remote workplaces. As our founder says, “it's all about creating something that feels like a non-work environment, a safe space for people to play and let their guard down.”

Being in that setting together allows people to build deeper relationships that are based on more than just quarterly reports and bottom lines.

When you’re being silly together and working towards a common goal, it allows you to see Bob from accounting as an actual human being instead of just an email signature. (Plus it turns out Bob also does an awesome impression of a T-Rex!) 

When we started the company, we knew we were helping corporate teams build psychological trust amongst themselves. Scientifically this is the most important factor in building an effective team. In order to generate new ideas and admit mistakes, team members need to feel safe to take risks around each other.

But what we didn’t realize is how much of the whole event cycle was also about trust:

• Clients have to trust that we’re a legit company who has experience creating events and that we know what we’re doing.

• Participants have to trust that our team of actor/facilitators will host a great game for them.

• Our actors have to trust each other to convey the right puzzles and game information to the participants.

• The participants have to trust each other to solve puzzles and clues together.

Having those shared experiences and compassion for each other is key to developing mutual trust. And once that’s established, it’s easy to let go of the micromanaging: happy employees want to support each other; they don’t want to let their team down.

2. Everyone is burned out.

We’ve gone through a global trauma. Everyone’s lives have been impacted, and people are still recovering.

Making space for teams to have fun together and take a break from the work grind is now more important than ever.

The preferences of our clients reflect this: in the beginning of the pandemic, we saw a ton of virtual escape room bookings. Puzzle games can mimic real workplace dynamics and build problem-solving skills in a fun, low-stakes environment. They’re entertaining, and have the added perk of increasing a team’s efficiency and performance.

But over the last six months, our Murder Mystery and Zoom Challenge games have become our most popular events. These games are less about solving puzzles and more about having fun and enjoying theatrical performances together. Yet that in no way makes them less effective as team-building games. Being playful together and boosting employee morale is crucial too, especially in this time when there are so many other external stressors.

3. Creating company culture is a process.

It’s not enough to just book a one-off event and put a checkmark next to your “build culture” to-do item. Culture is embedded in every part of an employee’s time at a company, from beginning to end. Job descriptions, interviews, the onboarding process, social interactions, team workflows, advancement opportunities, etc. etc. etc.: all of these areas reflect a company's values and ethos. At every point, there are opportunities for a company to be intentional about the culture they’re building.

We’ve worked with companies throughout the world, and even before we begin a game with a team, it’s obvious what kind of work environment they’re fostering. We see whether the group has high emotional intelligence, and we can tell whether the people on a team genuinely care about each other. These markers are vital to a team’s success.

happy employees who feel a sense of community are more engaged, more productive, and much less likely to leave a company.

Here at Patchwork, we know we don’t have everything exactly right, but we like to think we’re doing a pretty good job of establishing our own team culture. We onboard through playing games. We pair new facilitators with seasoned ones so that they can learn from each other. Our design team plays games together regularly to generate inspiration for future projects and build community. We have fun job titles like Chief Puzzle Officer and Director of Pandemonium.

It’s also clear that our founder truly cares about her team. She pays her actor/facilitators more than five times the industry standard, and even offers sick pay, which is pretty exceptional in the gig economy. She gives her team enough autonomy to develop their own projects and skill sets, but she offers encouragement and support along the way. (Full disclosure: she's also co-writing this blog post, but I promise, it’s all still true!)

4. Remote/hybrid work is here to stay.

Some have struggled in the new remote work environment, while others have thrived.

But love it or hate it, fully remote and hybrid work is quickly becoming the new normal. Giving employees the option of remote or hybrid (for instance, 3 days in the office and 2 days at home) work is now expected, and top performers are leaving companies that don’t allow for that flexibility. This shift is more than just a convenience for employees: it’s also more inclusive, allowing caretakers and those with chronic illnesses to better integrate work into their lives.

This new reality of remote/hybrid work also brings inherent challenges along with it. It can be more difficult to create solid company norms, especially when it comes to team communication and bonding.

With that in mind, Patchwork has developed several new types of team-building games specifically designed for the hybrid working model. In our Art Heist Street Team game, most of the group meets in person while team members calling in from home act as remote operatives. We’re also developing games for in-office teams that can incorporate remote team members as well.

5. Follow the golden rule.

We strive to treat each one of our clients the way we would want to be treated. That's why we're fully transparent about our pricing. There's no "contact us for a quote" button; all the pricing info is clearly spelled out on our website. 

We understand that nailing down participant numbers for your team building event is impossible right now, so we create games that are flexible and can take a group of 5 or a group of 50.

This is also why we make sure we're super easy to work with: send us the date, time, approximate number of players and game type, and we'll take care of the rest. We'll send you an invoice, a game introduction to share, and a zoom link. All you have to do is make sure the participants show up on the zoom call, and we'll make sure they have a great time!

6. Aim for digital first, not adapted.

In addition to designing games, we also play a lot of virtual games (both for fun and for research). The games we gravitate towards the most are specifically designed with the digital medium in mind. Virtual games adapted from IRL games always feel slightly jarring or disjointed, like we’re not getting the full experience. In contrast, the digital-first games tend to flow more smoothly: they feel like they SHOULD be on this medium. For instance, our Escape the Zoom game was created to be played on video chat, and the unique interactions, jokes, and puzzles just wouldn’t work as an IRL activity.

It’s the same thing with your work culture. If you’re expecting to just adapt IRL to virtual, it’s going to be rough and feel like something is missing. But if you design for a digital (or hybrid) environment first, then every interaction, every meeting, every task will already feel like it belongs and makes sense from square one.

7. Check your Zoom norms.

It’s so interesting to see a team come into one of our games with their cameras and their mics off. We get it: maybe your kid has Dora the Explorer turned up at full volume or it looks like a tornado just tore through your kitchen.

Image via https://youtu.be/9GJAiiTTpr4

But bringing your whole, messy self to work has its advantages, too. At this point, nearly all of us can relate to juggling chaos in our house while trying to work, especially if you’re a parent or caretaker. And the benefit of seeing that reflected among your coworkers is clear:

After seeing a coworker’s son do cartwheels behind her in a business meeting, it’s that much easier to build empathy and compassion for your colleagues. While zoom meetings could never fully replace the community feeling of in-person events, they still go a long way, especially if they’re organized with intention.

Whether it’s a one word check-in to kickoff your Monday all-hands meeting, a quick scavenger hunt for items around your home, or using icebreaker questions to help coworkers drop in together, adding small rituals that break down those work walls goes a long way.

No one wants to give a presentation to a bunch of headshots and black screens, and it’s crucial to make the most of the remote connection tools we have at our disposal.

The pandemic has upended so much about our lives, and learning to do well in this new “normal” isn’t easy. So if it still feels too overwhelming, remember to take regular breaks from work mode with your team. Trust us: cracking a murder case or acting like dinosaurs will help you click with your teammates in a way that spreadsheets never could.

Team-building and Team-bonding activities for remote teams

2020. Almost everyone’s lives have been turned upside down by COVID-19. With shelter-in-place orders, mandatory Work From Home (WFH) policies, and self-quarentining/social distancing as the new reality, how do we connect and build the trust and rapport that’s so necessary for teamwork?

Here at Gr8er Good Games, our mission is to help people connect through play. We think that even now, in our time of collective fear and pain, we should intentionally bring moments of playfulness and delight into our personal relationships and our work relationships. We believe that shared, fun experiences are vital right now for mental health and wellness. This can be done through games, through competition, and through sharing of our worlds.

We have a couple of remote team-building games, but it’s not for everyone and we love coming up with ideas of other fun ways to engage with geographically-distributed team-mates. So without further ado, here are team-building and team-bonding activities you can do as a virtual team.

Games for virtual teams

There’s a variety of off-the-shelf games that can be played on a videochat. Here are some of our favorites:

• Jackbox Games are games where one host can screenshare the main control page and everyone can participate in the game by entering a code into their phones. They have some really fun party games.

• Heads Up and Headbang are fun games where one player starts the game and holds their phone up to their forehead while others try to get them to guess the secret word, phrase, song or celebrity. You can easily play these games while on videochat and have the guessing player close their eyes so that they don’t see the clues.

• You can play traditional board games: one player might have to be the game-master and move the physical game pieces on the table in front of them and everyone else sees the game via videochat and tells them how to move their pieces. Some games are much easier to do this than others (more work for the game-master if the game has hidden information).

• Online board games: There’s many board games that you can play online with friends. We especially like Board Game Arena for their diversity of great board games.

Competitions

Competitions are actually quite easy to set up. Pick the time, a theme and pick a couple of challenges. Then let the players get creative.

• Create a list of strange phrases for players to show their best interpretations of them. Perhaps you ask for submissions of taglines for fictional startups, or for motivational poster saying, or for 90’s boyband song lyrics. Then players must either construct something out of common household materials or act out a scene to convince everyone else that they have the best interpretation of each phrase. Vote for the best interpretations by poll (if your videochat supports this).

• Scavenger Hunt: create a list of item properties and give players a specific amount of time to gather photos, selfies, and the items themselves. Share the end results with the group and have lots of laughs at how creative everyone is. Bad examples of scavenger hunt clues are ones that are too literal (find a black pot). Great examples of scavenger hunt clues are ones that lead to creative interpretation (create a Disney Villain out of things in your kitchen: give them a name and a backstory…)

• Do something company specific. This can range from a quiz-off about company history to a video-submission of the best interpretation of the company’s values to the best rendition of the company song. The competition should be judged live by impartial judges and awards can be either shipped to the winners or given digitally (gift card codes).

• Love watching Survivor or Minute to Win-it? Why not adapt some of these simple challenges to create some field day competitions? The more ridiculous the challenge, the better. See if Bob from accounting can outlast everyone else in the hopping on one foot while doing the YMCA dance with his arms, or if Jane from Engineering can move that cookie from her forehead to her mouth without using her hands…

• Check out these gameshows from our friends at Let’s Roam: Let’s Roam makes it easy for you to have an epic game night any night. Invite your friends using our pre-written template, break into teams, and start the game. You'll take on five rounds of fun games through our one-of-a-kind game software with embedded video chat. Test your skills and compete for the high score. Find out more

• Trivia Nights have become at staple at some companies. Trivia on Zoom is pretty simple to pull off. Plop some questions onto a powerpoint and have teams submit answers on a Google Survey.

• We have a downloadable self-hosted scavenger hunt available. Use promo code ZOOMGAME for a free download in our store

Other Miscellaneous Shared experiences

• Watch a movie together via screenshare and videochat

• Take a Sporacle Quiz and discuss

• Take an online personality test together and discuss your results. You can do serious personality tests like the Enneagram or fun ones like the Harry Potter Sorting Hat.

• Funny 3 minute presentations: This is a game I hosted for my Birthday Festival, and it was amazing! I basically sent friends funny topics (is a Unicorn or a Dinosaur a better engineer? Who chucks more wood, woodchucks or beavers? How did Princess SOHCAHTOA win help win the Angle Wars) and asked them to create and present a powerpoint arguing their case.

• Virtual happy hours: everyone pour themselves their beverage of choice and jump on a videochat to shoot the s*** and relax together.

• Cooking together: Whether it’s creating fancy cream puffs or grilling, food brings people together magically. Send your team members a grocery list and make something together.

• Icebreakers: Before every meeting, set aside a couple of minutes to go around pop-corn style, answering one of these icebreaker questions. You’ll be amazed how quickly you learn about your coworkers and how learning about their favorite hobbies or favorite smells improves the way that you work together.

The Newbie's Guide to Working From Home

Hello there.

Here at Patchwork Adventures, we’re a remote team that has been studying remote work for several years. We’ve interviewed, surveyed and spoken with over 300 remote teams about things such as tools, resources, social norms, and loneliness as a remote worker. Here’s a newbie’s guide to how to best start your remote work adventure.

Have the right tools

At the least, you need fast wifi and a laptop.

For programs, we suggest getting everyone on your team on board with these:

• a project tracking app (ie: Asana, Trello, Monday)

• an messaging app (Slack)

• a videochatting program (Zoom, Google Hangouts)

Put on your pants

One of the main things that lead to burnout in remote teams is the difficulty in separating work from life. This is because with modern technology, you can work from your phone while you’re still in bed. But this leak of work into life, although it might seem easy at first, will lead to an ever-on-mental-state and eventually lead to burnout. The lack of separation of work and life will also leak the other way, where you know you should be working on this, but that pile of laundry is calling you. To prevent this leakage, we suggest you create psychological distance.

Psychological distance is a fancy word that just means that you should mentally separate work from play. Whether it’s putting on your makeup, putting on your pants, going to your home office, or wearing a dress shirt, you want a morning ritual that symbolizes to your brain that you are no longer “at home” but that you are “at work.”

This helps with your personal wellness, so that when you do take off those pants (or whatever you decide to do), you can relax and stop thinking about work.

Know how you do your best work

Everyone works differently. Some people are morning larks, others are night owls, and most of us are in between. Because remote work is probably more flexible, you are able to decide when you can get your best work done and to do that. Do some experiments to figure out when and under what conditions you best work. You might do your best work between 3-10pm, or you might be only able to focus after a 30 minute work-out session, or you might need to sit in a different location each day to re-set the day. Test out various times and activities that might get you in the best frame of mind for the type of work you need to do.

Sometimes, for some people, coworking is a great way to boost productivity and employee morale. You can virtually cowork by just jumping on a videochat together. The camaraderie of knowing that someone else is typing away on their laptops, and being able to just ask a question and get an immediate response makes remote work feel more comfortable for extroverts and also helps simulate an office environment. Co-workers can even take time and eat lunch together or take coffee breaks together.

Also, note that different job functions might require different framing and different times: the mindset needed for an detailed analysis are very different from those for a big-picture brainstorming session. Check out Dan Pink’s book When for more information about how circadian rhythm effects how we best work.

Video on for all meetings

Working from home is lonely and isolating. It’s hard to have those water-cooler moments and it’s difficult to maintain a sense of community and camaraderie. This is why we advocate for all meetings to have video. Having video on humanizes the people you’re meeting with, you can see the social cues and their body language and understand more where they are coming from.

Set Expectations

It’s vital for all virtual teams to set expectations. Since (almost) all remote work is gauged on productivity, rather than “butts in chairs,” it’s vital to make sure that everyone on a team agrees on expectations. Make sure to have consistent meetings with your manager and the team members you manage and to concretely set expectations of each role. One of our favorite questions for these meetings is “What does done look like?” or “What’s success?”

Infuse a bit of fun

It’s important, especially now in a time of turmoil and confusion, to establish a playful environment online for your remote team. This can range from posting gifs on a fun slack channel to spending two hours together on video-chat and playing one of our remote team-building games.

One of our favorite slackbots is donut, which simply pairs slack team members together to get a "donut" together. This can mean anything from a virtual coffee where two people drink coffee and get to know each other on video-chat to a virtual walk (where you face-time each other while walking and getting to know each other). You might also want to integrate some time into your team meetings for ice-breakers

Many great remote teams have their own playbooks and guides on remote work, here’s a few that we suggest:

https://www.toptal.com/remote-work-playbook

https://basecamp.com/books/remote

https://zapier.com/learn/remote-work/

https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/

https://shift.infinite.red/remote-work/home

Click here for a more comprehensive guide to tools and resources for remote work and how to create a remote work transition plan.

How to transition from an on-site office team to a remote team

Twitter just announced last month that they will be hiring more remote workers and creating more support for a remote workforce. This month, the news about a new disease is making employers seriously consider transitioning their workforce from office to remote. Here at Gr8er Good Games, we've been working with remote teams, helping them improve their communication, collaboration and build their team-culture, for a while and have talked with over one hundred remote teams. Here's some of our advice on how to transition your company from an office environment to a remote team.

• Have a plan: It's not going to be easy to transition from a fully office workforce into a remote, distributed one. Have a plan in place with contingencies.

• Assess your current processes and procedures: Take a strategic look at your current processes and procedures to determine what can easily be translated to remote teams (ie, instead of using a physical whiteboard, switch to a whiteboarding app), and what you might still have to do on-site (shipping of physical products)

• Have all the team's tools in place: At the least, you need something for document sharing, video-chat, project tracking, and messaging platform. Here's a list of great tools for remote work that we've compiled. Make sure that everything is accessible to everyone while being cognizant of data security.

• Have a documentation policy: Documentation is so vital to make sure that all remote team members have all the information that they need when they need it. All meetings should be documented and all decisions. Have a document labeling and filing policy.

• Have a data security policy: If team members are going to be logging into secured portals using public wifi, you might want to considering creating a data security policy that includes VPN.

• Make sure every team member has the tools they need: This usually just means a work laptop. You might want to consider also paying for staff member's home wifi, wireless mouse, and tools for ergonomic work.

• Set expectations for when everyone is working: Everyone should know the approximate schedule that their team members are working, so they know when they are able to get an immediate response and when they might have to wait. This doesn't mean micro-managing when everyone has to be online (we've heard about some terrible remote companies that track their employee's keyboard strokes and mouse movements to make sure that their employees are working all 8 hours of the day). It can be as informal as "everyone change their slack statuses to working or not working" to scheduling work times on a shared Google Calendar.

• Cowork: Yes, we dared say it. Sometimes, for some people, coworking is a great way to boost productivity and employee morale. You can virtually cowork by just jumping on a videochat together. The camaraderie of knowing that someone else is typing away on their laptops, and being able to just ask a question and get an immediate response makes remote work feel more comfortable for extroverts and also helps simulate an office environment. Co-workers can even take time and eat lunch together or take coffee breaks together.

• Set expectations for productivity: Make sure remote team managers are clear with their team about the expectations for productivity for each team member.

• Encourage social bonding and fun virtually. Establish a playful environment online for your remote team. This can range from posting gifs on a fun slack channel to spending two hours together on video-chat and playing one of our remote team-building games. One of our favorite slackbots is donut, which simply pairs slack team members together to get a "donut" together. This can mean anything from a virtual coffee where two people drink coffee and get to know each other on video-chat to a virtual walk (where you face-time each other while walking and getting to know each other). You might also want to integrate some time into your team meetings for ice-breakers

• Have a strategy for regular meetings: Just because employees are remote doesn't mean that they never attend meetings. In fact, we like to suggest that all remote team members should have these five meetings regularly.

• Either go all-in or have a strategy for how to include remote workers: The most difficult teams are actually mixed teams, with several people co-located in an office and some remote workers. There's an inherent discrepancy in having some core team members in the same location, able to just tap each other on the shoulder or to go out to coffee together while others cannot join. There's going to be jealousy, there's going to be mistrust, and there's going to be gossip, unless you set a good strategy for how to include everyone. This strategy might include things like:

  • All decisions should be made during the video-chat that it's discussed and won't be changed afterwards

  • Communication and documentation should be highly emphasized. If something isn't documented and communicated to the whole team, then that discussion should be considered non-existent

  • When one person is on video-chat, everyone is on their own individual video-chats. It's so easy to have side conversations, to not have the videochat pointing at the right person, and to leave off people in a video-chat. When teams establish a policy that everyone is on their individual video-chats, it eliminates the psychological (and physical) barrier between the in-crowd and the remotes. It might feel strange at first to be sitting next to someone but talking to them on video-chat, but it really alienates remote workers when some team members are in the same room and they have to call in.

  • On-site employees are invariably going to create bonds and friendships, but you can also encourage virtual friendships with remote team members. By creating a fun, playful atmosphere in your company's slack and during your video-chat meetings, you help your team

For a 30 minute free consultation with our founder, Shuai, on how you can ease the transition of your team from an on-site office-based team to a remote team, reach out to us at hello at patchworkadventures.com

Tips, Tools, and Tricks for remote work

There are so many reasons that remote work is wonderful, but sometimes, that distance makes it more difficult to communicate, to collaborate and to work together as a team. When you can’t just hop over to the next desk and ask someone a question, look over their shoulders at their screen, or move one of their stickie notes on their scrum board, things are just a little more difficult. We’ve talked to over a hundred remote teams and here’s a list of apps, websites, and ideas that can help facilitate remote work:

Apps/programs:

Document sharing and concurrent editing: G-suite, Evernote, Dropbox

Messaging: Slack, Telegram, Saferoom. Slack is amazing and by far the most frequently cited by the teams we’ve interviewed. Telegram is great for team members who might have consistent internet (messages get through much faster and easier), and Saferoom is a new program where all messages are double-encrypted and secured.

Project Management/To-Do list: Asana, Trello, Todoist, Google Keep. Each is wonderful in their own way, it just depends on what works best for your team.

All of the above: Basecamp. Basecamp is a document sharing, messaging and project management app that is perfect for small- to medium-sized businesses. Basecamp is built by a remote team and works great for remote teams.

Video-conference: Zoom, Google Hangouts. There’s plenty of other video-conferencing apps, but we prefer these two and the majority of remote teams rely on Zoom.

Virtual office: Sococo. If you miss the hustle and bustle of an office environment, try Sococo. It simulates an office environment where you can tap someone on the shoulder and pull them into a conference room for a quick meeting, or hang out and co-work or chat near the watercooler. Remotion has a new take on this virtual office, where all employees appear as a bubble on your computer screen and you can quickly jump into a videochat with them or change your bubble to reflect your mood or task. It’s a fun and quick way to be connected while working remotely.

Asynchronous Video messaging: Marco Polo. Marco Polo allows you to record video messages to one person or to a group. Those who receive the message can watch it in real time or at their convenience. We like this app since it has the time delay of a messaging app with the video body language cues from a video-conference.

Design Collaboration app: InVision

Collaborative Zooming Whiteboard: Mural, RealTime Board, Conceptboard

Sticky Notes: Canvanizer: Canvanizer is a sticky notes site that teams can work on together. They have canvas templates such as Business Model Canvas, SWOT analysis, HR Innovation Canvas, and Pitch Planner Canvas, or you can create your own.

Software development: Jira, GitHub

Automation: Zapier, IFTTT

Time Converter: World Time Buddy

Meeting Scheduler: Doodle, When2Meet,  wheniwork, Calendly

Slack integrations: Almost all of the remote teams that we talked to used Slack as their team communication tool. Slack has some great bots and integrations to help your remote team do their best work and have fun. Here are some of our favorites:

• Donut: randomly pairs team members together for an in-person or virtual “getting to know you” meeting

• Standuply: Virtual daily standups on slack

• Hey Taco: a fun way to show gratitude for teammates who went above and beyond. Give them a virtual taco

• Kyber: create tasks, announcements, polls, and meetings on slack easily

• Jell: When you work remotely, especially over multiple time zones, it’s kind of hard to organize one central meeting. You’ll get a good overview of each team member’s status in three core questions. 

• Humaxa: Max is a fun, useful bot that lives in Slack. Max asks for feedback, starts discussions, offers mentoring, and delivers recognition.

Resources for remote teams:

Team assessment and team-work accelerator: Team Prelude works with newly formed remote teams to identify commonalities and create a shared vocabulary for better teamwork.

Leadership training for remote work: Sacha at Virtual Work Insider started her own remote team journey 10 years ago and is now consulting with companies to help set up their distributed work teams with some powerful educational modules.

Remote Manager Training and Community: Remote-How has 6 week online series of classes to build and manage great remote teams.

Payments and Legal: Deel. Deel helps remote teams with the compliance and payment problems of having a remote team distributed all over the world. Deel helps you make sure that your contractors and staff members are in compliance with all local labor laws, collects any legal documents that you might need, and then helps easily pay your people in their currency.

Retreat planning: Our friends at ETA has a remote retreat planning and travel product that helps remote teams gather more easily. Rendezvous helps you find a convenient time and location for your retreat, and also helps get your people there and track it all while staying under budget. Check it out here: https://www.eta.ai/rendezvous.html

Tips and best practices

Celebrations and acknowledgments: When your team is distributed across the world, celebrations and acknowledgments are vital to creating a great team culture. Our friends at Smack Happy Design have a great way to celebrate and acknowledge staff members. They have a box with an MVP trophy, a medal and a crown that last month’s MVP sends to next month’s MVP. Then during their all-hands meeting, the last month’s MVP lists the reasons and acknowledges what the new MVP has done and how everyone appreciates them. What a fun way to show appreciation and create a culture of gratitude.

Co-working time: We’ve found that the best remote workers have some (2–4 hours) overlap with their team, where everyone is expected to respond rapidly to questions or comments, and some time to work alone, undisrupted by meetings and messages. That way, any problems are resolved without having to wait a whole workday, but team members also have time to be productive. Some teams even virtually co-work together by having an open video-conference where anyone can join and work.

Retreats: Many of the remote teams that we’ve talked with gather their staff members together for an annual or bi-annual team retreat. This retreat is great as a team-bonding and team-building experience, and typically mixes work (co-working, an industry-specific conference, or strategic planning) with fun (board games, cooking together, and team-building activities such as scavenger hunts and ropes courses). With COVID-19, gathering in person is impossible, but you can still have a mini-retreat, with strategic planning, coworking, and virtual teambuilding activities.

Team-building for Remote Teams

Team-building for remote teams: We’ve created three team-building games for remote teams that is based on the neuroscience of human connections. Our remote team-building games are mixed-reality puzzle solving adventures, played on video-conference, designed for teams to communicate, collaborate and develop rapport. Players must solve a mystery by discovering clues, piecing together puzzles and working as a team. To learn more about our remote team-building game, click here.

What are some of your favorite tools, tips and tricks for remote work? Let us know what you use to help your remote team run well and have fun. Drop us a line at hello at patchworkadventures.com.

How to Use Slack for Remote Teams

Slack is the preferred internal messaging system used by most remote teams. However, not all teams use Slack well. Here are some tips on how to use slack better for your remote team:

Have an internal slack policies and procedures handbook

Yes, handbooks are boring, but when your team gets to be a certain size (we would say around 50 or 75 staff members), it’s vitally important to have a Slack policies and procedures handbook. It doesn’t have to be boring, you can make it fun, well-designed or quirky. But you need to at least get these items across to every team member and every new employee:

• How to use Slack, including how to DM, how to upload, how to start a new channel, what’s a private versus public channel, how to mute channels, how to favorite channels, how to turn off notifications

• When to use Slack, email, videoconference, phone call, text, project management software, code documentation tools, or other systems to communicate with each other

• What is unacceptable behavior on Slack. Something to the tune of “We want to create safe and happy workplaces where all employees thrive. If you wouldn’t say or do something in the workplace in person, then you probably don’t want to do this on Slack. This includes harassment, bullying, NSFW content, etc. “

• How and when to @channel, @here, and @username. Some people get very annoyed by frequent @’s and others want to know immediately when something important comes up.

• How often employees are expected to check Slack. Of course, some people work better blocking out large chunks of time while others work better floating in and out of communication systems, but having expectations that are spelled out helps clarify interactions. It can be as simple as “everyone should check slack at least twice a day.” Or it might be something like “All employees are expected to be on slack during their work hours. Please put yourself on Do Not Disturb (DND) mode if you need some time to focus. Only send someone a notification when they are in DND mode if it’s an actual emergency that can’t wait an hour or two.”

• What is confidential and what can be taken out of the slack and told to friends, family members, potential partners, and potential investors

• When to use what channels, especially what to post on the general channel, when to make new channels, when to just do a DM or group DM

• What’s expected to be on your profile. This might include name, current location & time zone, job title, photo, what are your normal working hours, how else they can reach you, etc

• When should posts, conversations or even channels be deleted or archived

• Who should be adding bots, integrations, and other third-party services to the slack

React to things

You know when you post something that you think is super important on a channel and then wait … and wait … and wait, and no one responds? Doesn’t that deflate all your enthusiasm and excitement? Doesn’t it make you feel “othered” and left out?

Then why would you leave someone else hanging when they post something? The best way to respond, when you don’t have much to say to respond is to just add a reaction to their post. It can be something as simple as a “thumbs up” or as silly as “catbus.” Placing a reaction to someone’s post acknowledges them for posting it, and gives them the peace of mind that someone’s read their message. It will also inevitably helps establish a more playful and fun culture as your team uploads new reactions with inside jokes.

Have a culture of recognition

Whether it’s Karmabot, GiveTaco, or your own homespun system, having a gamified way to acknowledge someone for going above and beyond is a great way to improve culture and team morale. The basic idea is to have some kind of tracking system, where team members can give points to each other, with an explanation of why that person deserves the points. It’s a great way to give instant recognition and feedback for a job well done. Our team at Gr8er Good Games loves giving tacos. It’s just such a fun, whimsical way to say thanks. There’s so much research on how feedback and acknowledgment should be instantaneous, specific, and (at least for positive feedback) public, and giving someone a taco (or karma point) in your general slack channel does all of those things. With these acknowledgment systems, you can get a report of who has been most helpful to others, who has given most acknowledgment, and what each shout out was about. Also, that way, during your company’s all-hands, you can give out awards like “Best team player” “Most likely to give out tacos” “Best reason to acknowledge a coworker.”

Documentation

Documentation is especially important in remote teams, where messages can be spread across email, Slack, video-chats, and texts. Have a centralized location to document all your important decisions and discussions. It can be as simple as plopping everything on a Google Doc or an Evernote and then linking to that on a pinned post, or having a tl;dr channel that summarizes all important discussions and decisions.

Have fun channels

Just like how you might talk about your daughter’s dance recital, your latest dessert creation, or your weekend adventures at the office, you should also have fun channels for “watercooler” talk on slack. Yes, it takes up time that could be devoted to working, but having the space for team members to bring their whole selves to work, and to learn about their co-workers, creates more employee engagement, higher employee retention, and higher productivity.

What are some of your remote team’s Slack tips and tricks? let us know at hello at patchworkadventures.com.

5 vital meetings for remote teams

No one likes meetings, and as a remote team, you might think that you’re off the hook, but these five meetings are important to keep.

Daily team stand-up check-in meeting

Checking in with your team is important, even more so for remote teams who might not see or bump into each other. If you can, set aside 15 minutes every day to get together on video-conference to update each other on what you’re working on, what you plan to work on and what you are struggling with/need support on. If you can’t, at least have a running document or a slack channel. We recommend the Standuply Slack bot. They help virtual teams have scrum check-ins daily.

One-on-one with your supervisor

This can be as simple as a 2 minute “hey, I just did a new thing, come check it out and give me your feedback” meeting to a 3 hour “I need advice on my life and career” meeting. The cadence of these meetings depends on your work and your relationship with your supervisor, but they should happen, with some regularity.

One-on-one with staff reporting to you

The same as the above, you want to regularly check in with the staff members reporting to you, helping them with problems, giving them feedback and supporting them in their career.

Quarterly strategy meeting

Here at Gr8er Good Games, we believe in the Quarterly strategy meeting, where we plan out our next 90 days, with timelines, goals, deliverables, and accountability. Annual planning feels too far away, especially with our crazy new programs and ideas that we want to implement; and monthly planning feels way too short. Plus our target customers and market live on a quarterly basis, so it just makes sense. These meetings are a great way to get your team on the same page, share any resources and hurdles, and inspire your staff to work their best.

Annual in-person planning and retreat

Yes, we’re the remote team-building company, but we still encourage all remote teams to have an annual (or bi-annual) in-person planning and retreat. There’s nothing that beats sharing space with someone, even if it’s just typing away on laptops separately or making dinner together. These annual retreats should be part planning and part play.

The best retreats that we’ve seen have team members all meeting at a beautiful location, working together for a couple of days and playing together for a couple more. You might all meet up at an industry-specific conference, co-work together, or lead an annual strategic planning session. But after hours, there should be time to cook, to watch movies, to hike, to play games, to explore and play together. You might want to do a team scavenger hunt, go wine tasting, try scuba diving. Whatever it is, definitely set aside both structured and unstructured time for play, for bonding, and for your team to connect.

What do you think? Let us know at hello at patchworkadventures.com.