Virtual Scavenger Hunt

Action, Energiser / Warm up, Fun, Get-to-know

Collaboration, Decision making, Group-prioritization, Problem solving, Team – building, Team – work

Communication, Leadership & leadership development, Multi-tasking

Up to 30 min, Up to 60 min

6-15 persons, 16 – 30 persons, More than 30 persons

Skilled

Stretch

Introduction

As a kid, you may have participated in scavenger hunts during the summer. For this remote method, we will be recreating some of the fun and team-building aspects of the scavenger hunt in a completely online setting!

Necessary tools (what you need)

Pick a videoconferencing tool, ideally such that allows you to create breakout rooms.
Pick an online collaborative tool such as Google Docs or online whiteboard tool.
Optional: voting feature (e.g. Mural).

Steps

Prepare a list of things you want people to find online. You can make the list purely fun – where people have to collect GIF or Youtube video responses to the scavenger hunt or make it tailored to your organization and team. For example, if you are doing a design sprint, have participants find examples of a web app that has a great sign-up flow or a public API with great documentation.
Here are some of the things you might have on your list:

Find the most popular song for the year of each person in your team’s birth and find the official music video on YouTube.
Recreate the name of your organization with each person on your team recreating a letter with a photo. (They might spell the letter with their body or take a photograph of items on their desk.)
Find a GIF, a meme, an Instagram influencer, a music video and a joke Twitter account that best represents your team/company values.
Find an IMDB page for an actor from the hometown of each group member.
Bonus points if you can connect them to Kevin Bacon in six degrees or less and include a GIF of them in action!
Find everyone in your group’s high school or university on Google Maps and take a picture.
Find an image for a celebrity lookalike for each member of your group.
Each person finds an ingredient for a cake in their house and takes a photograph, so collectively, you have all the ingredients. Each group chooses their cake, though the more complex or interesting, the better.
Each person recreates a famous painting using objects in their house. Bonus points for including family members, kids or pets.

Break everyone into groups. If running with a small team, you may want to keep everyone together. If using Zoom, set everyone into breakout rooms, alternatively, have each group go into separate meetings for this session. Have each group use a collaborative tool such as Google Docs or an online whiteboard to collect their items.
Set the timer and get everyone started! If a team gets finished first, have them shout out in the main room! You will want to adjust based on your list, though we recommend running this for 20 minutes or so.
Bring the group back together to share and debrief. Have each team bring their collected items into a shared Google Doc or preferably, an online whiteboard and present them to the group in turn. Timebox this so each team has 3 minutes to present.
Either total all the points for each item and have the facilitator decide on a winning team, or have a round of voting in which each team must vote for their favorite collection of items (they cannot vote for their own). Use features such as Mural’s voting session or have participants leave comments on their favorite!

Tips & Tricks

Note that depending on the time you’d like to allocate to this exercise, you may want to limit the list, though equally, having a large list that is hard to complete can help groups work together and prioritize.
Have each group use a collaborative tool such as Google Docs or an online whiteboard to collect their items.

Virtual Scavenger Hunt

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Introduction

Necessary tools (what you need)

Steps

Tips & Tricks

The exercise is successfully completed when? Conclusion?