Is your remote team getting bored of virtual coffees? Chinwag's tiny games bring people together ... saving them from discussing the weather.
Short, fun games like Danger Noodle pair people in your team (at random) to work towards a common goal.
Challenges like Guess the desk are quick to participate in and run over a few days. They humanise teams that collaborate through the internet.
Working next to your colleagues in an office is waaay different to the remote world of work. That's especially true if the company is growing. New people join, or roles change hands and over time people can grow apart. It's no fun.
"So... how do I fix it?"
"To cut to the chase... use Chinwag."
"Okay, um... but can you pair people that'd never connect? Maybe Alice from finance, with Mike the data scientist? Mike only joined last week. Alice is working remotely."
"Sure. Just make sure they're all in the #fun-and-games Slack channel."
"Okay. But what do they talk about? Alice loves everything Marvel. Mike's not a big talker, though he did get inspired by some swimmer in the Olympics and took up knitting. Not exactly a big cross-over..."
"No worries. They'll need to talk to get each other through the game. That's ice breaker enough."
"Right. So it's not going to be like a giant conversation?"
"No. The games are short. The point is to get people across the team comfortable in each other's company. Over time those conversations will happen naturally."
Chinwag helps in 3 key ways:
First up you've got to install Chinwag in Slack. Once that's done you'll create a dedicated channel for Chinwag. Anyone in that channel will be invited to participate in a game or challenge once a month.
Both games and challenges take place within Slack or at getchinwag.com.
Well, it really depends on the activity. The "get to know me as a person" challenges like Who's my human take 3 minutes per session. The games that need teamwork like Finding Fusilli take around 10 minutes per session.
Usually people play a few sessions a month. The activities are intentionally kept simple so they don't cause distraction - they just create good vibes.
Games are co-operative with 3 to 4 people in a group. Teamwork is the order of the day and teams that perform best win based on points 🏆.
Challenges usually involve the whole team. There are usually no points, but we hope that getting to know each other better will be reward enough ❤️
We are focused on building great games and challenges for teams of 16+ people. This is because we've found that's when communication starts to get difficult, and teamwork breaks down.