Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#1

Post by pseudobry » Tue, Feb 09, 2021, 5:25 PM UTC

Can y'all share any team fun event ideas that have worked well for you during the WFH/pandemic period? My folks miss the natural in-person interactions that occur in the office, and we could use some time together to decompress. But, how do we do that remotely? Maybe you long-time remote teams are already experts at this? Is there an "awesome-remote-team-fun-events" GitHub repo?

Any ideas are welcome, but I'm particular interested in events with $0-$100 per person budget and work with team size of 5-20 people. Thanks.

Edit: This is something we'd do during work hours.

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#2

Post by decafninja » Tue, Feb 09, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

Gaming is always an option, but that assumes your entire team consists of gamers or at least willing to try.

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#3

Post by gigatexal » Tue, Feb 09, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

Two teams of ten or at least more than 5 and play Among Us. We do as a team and it’s awesome!

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#4

Post by dcas » Tue, Feb 09, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

I think the single best thing for me are just casual video chats. Whether they‘re 1on1, the whole team or randomized chat groups like the Donut bot does, doesn‘t matter. But it‘s important that they don‘t have a work-related agenda so no one feels pressured to get some specific outcome.

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#5

Post by Aliabid94 » Tue, Feb 09, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

Trivia nights are a fun bonding exercise and easy to do over zoom. We've had fun making our own online jeopardy boards.

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#6

Post by SecureToaster » Tue, Feb 09, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

We've done: - Bake pizza (and chat) - Played a selection of mini games, trivia, apps, what ever people found. pictionary works well on zoom for instances. - Quiz. Each team had to prepare 10 points worth of questions, each team = 1 round. A good compere makes or breaks it. Inc bonus rounds like "2 minutes to find the oldest food item in your cupboard" - paid for www.theeventscompany.co.uk for 1 evening. Not idea how much they charged us.

Also using zooms break out rooms to split us up into small groups of 4-6 so you can have a more personal chat really. Do that for 10m. Then shuffle the rooms. In a 20 room only a few people will really talk.

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#7

Post by Bashmaistora » Tue, Feb 09, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

Online board games on a video call is a fun option.

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#8

Post by boomeranked » Tue, Feb 09, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

We run "trips" to Paris, if you want to bring your team to the city of lights! Live footage from Paris, cheese and wine delivered, the whole nine yards!

https://www.woyago.com/

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#9

Post by damagednoob » Tue, Feb 09, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

Here's a few online games I've enjoyed playing with my team:

https://codenames.game/ https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=sechsnimmt https://www.jackboxgames.com/split-the-room/

Re: Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?

#10

Post by victormustar » Tue, Feb 09, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

This is not particularly original but I built a little social game for work teams a while ago (before the pandemic): https://live.jubiwee.com/ - We enjoy using it with my team from time to time. The goal is to bring back social interaction even if we all work from home (for what it worth).