No matter what you're planning for your team's next outing, you'll want it to run like a well-oiled machine.

Make sure you provide fuel

Both brains and bodies need to be fed. Brains need stimulus on both sides - the creative and the analytical - for balanced mental nutrition. That means that outings should stimulate the fun centers, the thinking centers, the creative centers, and the figure-out-that-puzzle centers.

A little physical activity helps, too. Not so much that people risk their necks on crazy death-defying rope courses or zip lines, necessarily, but a little movement - walking, stretching, bending - gets the blood flowing and unkinks the bound-up joints that get creaky when we sit at desks all day.

But all that thinking and moving makes people hungry. You need to replenish the mental and physical energy reserves so your team will continue its winning ways.

What could be better than feeding their minds and their bodies at once, with brain-expanding challenges and belly-filling scrumptious snacks and meals?

Plan for meals in your next team building outing. Your team will not only return to the shop more ready for action than ever - but they'll love you for it.

It's the end of March and how is your team doing? Did your group get off to a strong start for 2011? If not, it's not too late. As a leader, focus on motivating the team to ensure that staff are determined to give their best throughout the rest of the year and beyond. Three ideas to help get you started can include:

•    Spelling out the vision for your team and recognize and celebrate what has been achieved this past year.

•    Having lunch with each of your direct reports to listen their hopes, dreams and goals.

•    Developing yourselves as a group and spend time finding out what makes each of you tick. Outside team-building activities are also perfect for this.

If only more employers would spend time actually working with their employees, encouraging innovation, and considering their contributions to the company; then motivation and job satisfaction will remain high. And surely any organisation’s most valuable resource is its staff.

The new rage in team building seems to be "immersion games." Immersion games come in many variants, but all share the common element that the participants take on roles and interact with each other (and perhaps actors or vendor-supplied participants) as if they are in some other imagined environment - a spy game, an Olympic competition, a military exercise, or the like.

Immersion games are not new, but they are newly popular as companies and social groups search for new types of bonding experiences outside of the usual dinner party, bowling competition or even scavenger hunt game. They allow individuals to stretch their imaginations and leave their comfort zone with the safety net of knowledge that the experience is "just a game."

The pluses of immersion games are:

• They're way fun.
• They offer a unique experience that few if any team members have had.
• They open up channels of thinking and behaving that most of us have not had much opportunity to explore since childhood.
• They allow individuals to explore new capabilities for themselves not possible in the workplace or most other games. For example, the most junior team member might find herself as Chief Spy; Mr Goody-Two-Shoes can play the evil villain. This type of role-stretching enables team members to envision themselves in leadership or cooperative roles that might not otherwise open up to them in the workplace.
• They celebrate abilities not otherwise recognized in the office, but which can have real-world value. For example, the secret Sudoku nut's ability to recognize patterns might become extremely valuable in a spy game.

Interested in trying one? Run Brain Run's Alias and Alibi game allows you to immerse yourself into a spy vs. spy scenario in a fast-paced rush to solve riddles and save the planet (or, at least, your city) from impending doom. We're betting you haven't done that in the office lately.

Games are economical

Cost is always a factor, particularly in tough economic times. Games compare very favorably to the alternatives when you consider the bottom line. Skydiving, bungy jumping, and the like not only cost $100-$200 per person, but also make lawyers nervous and insurance salespeople wealthy. Dinners out, while “safe,” can get pretty expensive - often $75-$100 per person or more. Even karaoke can get expensive when the cost of a “KJ” (karaoke MC), sound system, and hall rental are considered.

By contrast, games conducted by Run Brain Run start at $25 per person. That cost point is pretty tough to beat in the current marketplace.

Games work

Games continue to remain popular choices for team building for one simple reason:  they work. They’re far more effective than rope courses, karaoke, or dinners at building strong team bonds that last beyond the event itself. That’s because, in short, in a game, team members are usually willing to drop their barriers and do the important things that translate well into your work environment.

When are Games Better - and when are they not?

Games are not always the best option for a group. Groups that have suffered from bruising problems such as massive layoffs, discrimination or harassment lawsuits, or workplace violence would be better served by specialized workshops designed to heal in those specific areas.

Games help develop teams when team members enjoy the activity and each other, learn something from it that they can apply to their daily (work) lives, and which improve morale and increase productivity.

When choosing what type of event would be best for your organization’s team building objectives, consider the benefits of a game versus other options at your disposal, and the situation your organization is in.