Problem solving activities: 30 games and exercises for teams

Quick problem solving games for a meeting

Five to ten minutes, with paper and a pen at most. Use one to open a meeting, or to wake a room up after lunch.

1. 1. Nine dots

   5 minutes · Any size · Paper and a pen each · works on video

   1. Everyone draws nine dots in a three-by-three square.
   2. The challenge: join all nine with four straight lines, without lifting the pen or going back over a line.
   3. Give three minutes of silent tries, then let pairs compare.
   4. Show the answer and ask who assumed the lines had to stay inside the square.
   Show the answer

   The lines have to run past the edge of the square. Start at the top-left dot and draw right along the top row, one dot-width past the last dot. Go diagonally down and left through two dots until you are one dot-width below the bottom-left dot. Draw straight up the left column to where you started, then diagonally down to the bottom-right dot.

   Debrief

   • What rule did you follow that nobody gave you?
   • Which unwritten rule is boxing in a current project?

2. 2. Situation puzzle

   10 minutes · 4 to 30 people · No materials · works on video

   1. Read a strange situation aloud, for example: "A man pushes his car up to a hotel and knows at once that he is bankrupt. Why?"
   2. The group may ask only yes-or-no questions. The reader answers yes, no or it does not matter.
   3. Halfway through, pause and ask the group to list what it knows so far.
   4. Stop when someone has the full story.
   Show the answer

   He is playing Monopoly. His piece is the car, and he has landed on a property with a hotel that he cannot afford.

   Debrief

   • Which question opened it up?
   • What did we assume about the car or the hotel that was never said?

3. 3. Unusual uses

   5 minutes · Any size · Paper and a pen each · works on video

   1. Name an everyday object: a paperclip, a brick or a coffee mug.
   2. Everyone writes as many uses for it as they can in three minutes. Odd ones count.
   3. In groups of four to six, read the lists aloud. Cross off any use two people wrote, and score one point for each use nobody else had.

   Debrief

   • When did the obvious ideas run out, and what came after?
   • Where do we stop at the first workable idea?

4. 4. Fermi estimate

   10 minutes · Teams of 3 or 4 · No materials · works on video

   1. Ask a question nobody can look up, such as how many cups of coffee the office drinks in a year.
   2. Teams break it into pieces they can guess: people, cups a day, working days.
   3. Each team shows its sum. For example, 60 people times 2 cups times 230 days is 27,600 cups.
   4. Compare the assumptions, not the answers.

   Debrief

   • Which assumption moved the answer most?
   • Where could a rough number today replace a precise one next month?

5. 5. Make 24

   5 minutes · Any size, alone or in pairs · No materials · works on video

   1. Write four numbers where everyone can see them. Start with 1, 2, 3 and 4.
   2. Use each number once, with any of plus, minus, times and divide, to make exactly 24. Brackets are allowed.
   3. Next try 2, 3, 4 and 5. Finish on the hard one: 3, 3, 8 and 8.
   Show the answer

   1 × 2 × 3 × 4 = 24. 2 × (3 + 4 + 5) = 24. 8 ÷ (3 - 8 ÷ 3) = 24, because 3 minus 8 thirds is one third.

   Debrief

   • Did you try sums at random or work backward from 24?
   • What changed once you allowed fractions?

Hands-on team building problem solving activities

Teams make something with cheap materials and find out fast whether it works. The test at the end is what makes these honest.

1. 6. Paper span

   15 minutes · Teams of 3 or 4 · One sheet of paper, two stacks of books and a pile of coins per team

   1. Set two stacks of books eight inches apart for each team.
   2. Each team gets one sheet of paper to span the gap. It may be folded, but not taped or weighed down at the ends.
   3. Teams get five minutes to plan and test, then load coins one at a time in front of everyone.
   4. The span that holds the most coins wins.
   Show the answer

   A flat sheet holds almost nothing. Folded into narrow pleats like a fan, the same sheet gets stiff enough to carry a real pile of coins.

   Debrief

   • How many designs did you test before you committed to one?
   • What did you learn from the first span that sagged?

2. 7. Cup crane

   15 minutes · Teams of 4 to 6 · Six paper cups, a rubber band and string per team

   1. Before the session, tie one string per player to a rubber band. Make each string about two feet long.
   2. Stand six cups upside down in a row. The team must stack them into a pyramid of three, two and one.
   3. Nobody may touch a cup. Players pull their strings to stretch the band over a cup, lift it and let go.
   4. Fastest pyramid wins. In round two, nobody may speak.

   Debrief

   • Who set the rhythm, and how did everyone else know?
   • What changed when talking was taken away?

3. 8. Walk through paper

   10 minutes · Pairs · Letter paper and scissors per pair

   1. Give each pair one sheet and the challenge: cut a hole in it big enough for a person to step through.
   2. The paper must stay in one piece, and tape is not allowed.
   3. Let pairs try for five minutes on scrap sheets, then show the method to anyone still stuck.
   Show the answer

   Fold the sheet in half the long way. Starting at one end, cut a slit from the folded edge that stops just short of the open edge. Half an inch along, cut a slit from the open edge that stops short of the fold. Keep alternating, and finish with a slit from the folded edge. Then cut along the fold, leaving the first and last strips uncut. Open it gently into one large loop.

   Debrief

   • What made this sound impossible at first?
   • Which current problem have we written off the same way?

4. 9. Newspaper table

   20 minutes · Teams of 4 to 6 · Eight sheets of newspaper and masking tape per team, plus one heavy book

   1. Each team builds a table at least eight inches tall from newspaper and tape only.
   2. It has to hold a heavy book for ten seconds.
   3. Give three minutes of planning with hands off the materials, then twelve minutes to build.
   4. Test every table with the same book.

   Debrief

   • Did the planning time change what you built?
   • Who spotted the weak point first, and was that person heard?

5. 10. Foil boat

   15 minutes · Teams of 3 or 4 · A 12-inch square of foil per team, a tub of water and coins

   1. Each team shapes one square of foil into a boat.
   2. Before the launch, every team writes down how many coins its boat will hold.
   3. Float the boats and add coins one at a time until each one sinks.
   4. Hand out fresh squares and give three minutes to build a second version.

   Debrief

   • How far off was your prediction, and why?
   • What did you change in the second boat, and what told you to change it?

Looking for the spaghetti tower or the egg drop? Those classics, along with shipwreck ranking, the helium stick, clue cards and the card tower, are in our 32 team building exercises.

Logic and ranking challenges

Every one of these has a right answer, so the team can check its reasoning instead of arguing about taste. The answers are under each puzzle.

1. 11. River crossing

   10 minutes · Teams of 3 to 5 · Four sticky notes per team · works on video

   1. Tell the story: a farmer must take a wolf, a goat and a cabbage across a river in a boat that holds the farmer and one of the three.
   2. Left alone together, the wolf eats the goat and the goat eats the cabbage.
   3. Teams label four sticky notes and move them across a line on the table until everything is over.
   4. Ask each team how many crossings it needed.
   Show the answer

   Seven crossings. Take the goat over. Go back alone. Take the wolf over and bring the goat back. Take the cabbage over. Go back alone. Take the goat over.

   Debrief

   • When did you see that something had to come back?
   • Where at work does one step backward move the whole plan forward?

2. 12. Two jugs

   10 minutes · Pairs or trios · Paper and a pen · works on video

   1. Give the puzzle: you have a 5-liter jug, a 3-liter jug and a tap. Neither jug has markings. Measure exactly 4 liters.
   2. Pairs write every pour as a line: what is in each jug afterward.
   3. The first pair to reach 4 liters reads its lines aloud while everyone else checks them.
   Show the answer

   Six steps. Fill the 5. Pour it into the 3, which leaves 2 in the 5. Empty the 3. Pour the 2 into the 3. Fill the 5 again. Top up the 3 from the 5: it takes 1 liter, which leaves 4.

   Debrief

   • Did writing each step down help or slow you down?
   • How did you check a teammate's idea without redoing it?

3. 13. Four-digit code breaker

   15 minutes · Teams of 2 to 4 · Paper and a pen · works on video

   1. The leader writes down a secret code of four different digits.
   2. Teams take turns guessing a four-digit number.
   3. After each guess, the leader says how many digits are right and in the right place, and how many are right but in the wrong place.
   4. Every team hears every answer. The first to name the code wins.

   Debrief

   • Which guess told you the most, and was it a correct one?
   • How did you keep track of what the team already knew?

4. 14. Rank the planets

   15 minutes · Teams of 3 to 5 · Eight cards per team · works on video

   1. Give each team the eight planets on cards: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
   2. First, everyone ranks them from largest to smallest by diameter alone, in two minutes.
   3. Then the team agrees on one order in five minutes.
   4. Score one point for every place a planet is off. Compare each person's score with the team's.
   Show the answer

   Largest to smallest by diameter: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury. Neptune is heavier than Uranus, but Uranus is slightly wider.

   Debrief

   • Did the team beat its best individual?
   • Whose correct answer got talked out of the final order?

5. 15. Launch week logic grid

   10 minutes · Pairs · The clues on a slide · works on video

   1. Set the scene: Lena, Marco, Nia and Owen each lead a different project (Birch, Maple, Oak or Pine), and each project ships in a different week (1, 2, 3 or 4).
   2. Show the four clues. Nia leads Birch. Birch ships the week right after Maple. Lena's project ships one week before Oak. Owen's project ships later than Nia's.
   3. Pairs draw a grid of people against projects and weeks, and cross off what cannot be true.
   4. The first pair with all four answers explains its first deduction.
   Show the answer

   Marco has Maple in week 1, Nia has Birch in week 2, Lena has Pine in week 3 and Owen has Oak in week 4. Start with Nia: Birch cannot ship in week 1, because Maple ships right before it, or in week 4, because Owen ships later. Week 3 leaves no place for Lena and Oak, so Birch ships in week 2.

   Debrief

   • Which clue did you need to read twice?
   • How did you and your partner split looking and writing?

Want more puzzles with answers? See our riddles for adults and escape room puzzle ideas.

Problem solving exercises for real work

These are not games. They are methods teams use on actual problems, and the best way to learn one is to run it on a problem you have this week.

1. 16. 5 whys

   15 minutes · 3 to 8 people · A whiteboard · works on video

   1. Write one specific problem at the top, such as "The March invoice went out four days late".
   2. Ask why it happened and write the answer underneath. Then ask why of that answer.
   3. Keep going, about five times, until you reach a cause the team can change.
   4. Agree on one fix for that cause, not for the first answer.

   Debrief

   • How different is the last answer from the first?
   • Did any why point at a person when it should have pointed at a process?

2. 17. Premortem

   20 minutes · 4 to 12 people · Sticky notes · works on video

   1. Before a project starts, ask the team to imagine it is a year from now and the project has failed.
   2. Everyone silently writes every reason for the failure they can think of, one per note, for five minutes.
   3. Group the notes and pick the three that are most likely or most costly.
   4. Add one action to the plan for each of the three.

   Debrief

   • Which risk was on many notes but had never been said aloud?
   • What made it easier to raise a worry this way?

3. 18. Fishbone diagram

   25 minutes · 4 to 10 people · A whiteboard · works on video

   1. Draw a horizontal line with the problem written at the right end. That is the head of the fish.
   2. Add six bones for kinds of cause: people, process, tools, materials, environment and measurement.
   3. The team adds possible causes to each bone. No debating yet.
   4. Circle the two or three causes worth checking with data first.

   Debrief

   • Which bone filled up fastest, and which stayed empty?
   • What would we need to measure to confirm the circled causes?

4. 19. How might we

   15 minutes · 3 to 10 people · Sticky notes · works on video

   1. Write a complaint the way it is usually said, such as "Onboarding takes too long".
   2. Everyone rewrites it as three questions that start with "How might we", each aimed at a different part of the problem.
   3. Read them out. Drop any that are too broad to act on or that already contain the solution.
   4. Pick one question to take into a brainstorm.

   Debrief

   • Which question made the problem feel solvable?
   • How did the wording change the ideas you started having?

5. 20. Brainwriting

   30 minutes · 6 people per table · One sheet of paper each · works on video

   1. State the problem. Each person writes three ideas on a sheet in five minutes, in silence.
   2. Pass the sheets to the left. Read what is there, then add three more ideas that build on it or go a different way.
   3. Repeat until every sheet has been all the way around. Six people and six rounds give 108 ideas in 30 minutes.
   4. Each person stars the two strongest ideas on the sheet they end up with.

   Debrief

   • Which idea only exists because someone built on another?
   • Who contributed more on paper than they usually do aloud?

One more method, the reverse brainstorm, is in the team building exercises guide linked above. If you lead the team, the decision exercises in our leadership activities pair well with these.

Problem solving activities for remote teams

Built for a video call with breakout rooms and a chat. Nothing to ship and nothing to print.

1. 21. Word ladder race

   10 minutes · Any size, in pairs · No materials · works on video

   1. Post two four-letter words in the chat, such as COLD and WARM.
   2. Pairs go to breakout rooms and change one letter at a time to get from the first word to the second. Every step must be a real word.
   3. The first pair back with a valid ladder wins. Then try HEAD to TAIL.
   Show the answer

   COLD, CORD, CARD, WARD, WARM. HEAD, HEAL, TEAL, TELL, TALL, TAIL.

   Debrief

   • Did you work from the start, the end or both?
   • How did the two of you split the work?

2. 22. Voice-only spot the difference

   10 minutes · Pairs · Two versions of one picture · works on video

   1. Before the call, find a spot-the-difference pair with six differences, or copy a busy picture and change six small things yourself.
   2. Send each partner a different version. No screen sharing, and no holding it up to the camera.
   3. Pairs get six minutes in a breakout room to find all six differences by describing what they see.

   Debrief

   • Did you agree on a way to scan the picture, or just start talking?
   • What did the two of you call by different names?

3. 23. Where was this photo taken?

   15 minutes · Teams of 3 to 5 · Three travel photos of your own · works on video

   1. Share a street photo you took on a trip, with no famous landmark in it.
   2. Teams get four minutes in breakout rooms to work out the country and city from clues: signs, license plates, which side people drive on, plants and power lines.
   3. Each team gives one answer and the clue it trusted most. The closest answer scores.
   4. Run three photos.

   Debrief

   • Which clue did the team trust too much?
   • Who noticed a detail the rest had looked straight past?

4. 24. Secret message

   10 minutes · Teams of 2 to 4 · No materials · works on video

   1. Write a short message and shift every letter the same number of places along the alphabet. With a shift of 3, TEAM becomes WHDP.
   2. Post the coded message in the chat. The only hint: it is in English.
   3. Teams race to read it in breakout rooms.
   4. The winners explain how they got in.

   Debrief

   • What was your first way in: a short word, a repeated letter or a guess?
   • How did you test a guess quickly without starting over?

   Make the coded message with our free cipher maker

5. 25. Puzzle of the week thread

   5 minutes a week · Any size · No materials · works on video

   1. On Monday, one person posts a puzzle in the team channel.
   2. Answers go in the thread, hidden with spoiler formatting where your chat tool has it, so nobody ruins it for the rest.
   3. On Friday, the poster reveals the answer and passes the job to whoever solved it first.

   Debrief

   • Which kind of puzzle got the most people involved?
   • What does the thread show about how each of us thinks?

   Find one in our riddles for adults

Want a ready-made puzzle game for a call? Try our free online escape room.

Problem solving group activities for large groups

For an all-hands or an offsite. Each one works because the room has to cooperate across tables, not only inside them.

1. 26. Paper pipeline

   15 minutes · 10 to 60 people in teams of 8 to 10 · A half sheet of paper each and one marble per team

   1. Everyone folds a half sheet of paper into a shallow channel.
   2. Each team must roll a marble from a start line into a cup 30 feet away, using only the channels.
   3. The marble may not stop, roll backward or be touched. Nobody may walk while it is in their channel, so once it has left yours, run to the front of the line.
   4. If it drops, the team starts again. First marble in the cup wins.

   Debrief

   • What did the team change after the first drop?
   • Who was watching the whole line while everyone else watched the marble?

2. 27. Expert groups

   30 minutes · 12 to 60 people · A one-page brief per topic · works on video

   1. Split a real problem into four parts, such as cost, customers, timing and risks, with a one-page brief for each.
   2. Form four expert groups. Each one studies a single brief for ten minutes.
   3. Regroup so every new group has one expert on each part. Each expert teaches their part in two minutes.
   4. The mixed groups then propose a solution that uses all four parts.

   Debrief

   • What did you only understand once a colleague taught it?
   • Which part of the problem do we usually leave out?

3. 28. Rotating problem tables

   30 minutes · 15 to 80 people · Flip chart paper and markers per table

   1. Put a different problem on a flip chart at each table, with a host who stays put.
   2. Groups get eight minutes at a table to add ideas, then move on. The host sums up what earlier groups wrote in one minute.
   3. After three rotations, each host reads out the three strongest ideas.

   Debrief

   • Which idea grew the most between the first group and the last?
   • What did the hosts hear at every rotation?

4. 29. Mixed-up jigsaws

   20 minutes · 12 to 60 people at tables of 4 to 6 · One 24-piece jigsaw per table

   1. Before the session, move four pieces from each puzzle into other tables' boxes. Tell nobody.
   2. Say only this: the room is finished when every puzzle is complete.
   3. Let the tables work out for themselves that they are holding each other's pieces.
   4. Stop the clock when the last puzzle is done.

   Debrief

   • How long did it take a table to look beyond its own puzzle?
   • Who went to help another table once theirs was finished?

5. 30. Traffic jam

   20 minutes · Groups of 8, any number of groups · Nine paper plates per group

   1. Lay nine plates in a line. Four people stand on the plates at each end, facing the middle, with the center plate empty.
   2. The two sides must swap places. You may step forward onto an empty plate, or step around one person facing you onto an empty plate right behind them.
   3. Nobody may move backward, and only one person moves at a time.
   4. If the line is stuck, everyone resets and the group tries again.
   Show the answer

   It can be done in 24 moves. The usual way to get stuck is letting two people from the same side end up one behind the other in the middle of the line, so keep the two sides alternating as they pass.

   Debrief

   • How did the group decide what to try after a reset?
   • Who saw the pattern first, and how did they get the others to follow it?

How to run and debrief a problem solving activity

The activity takes ten minutes. What the team learns from it depends on the five minutes after. Three questions, always in this order.

1. 1What happened? Facts first. "What did you try first?" "When did the plan change?" Let people describe before anyone judges. This takes two minutes and stops the loudest person from writing the story.
2. 2So what? Now the meaning. "Why did the second try go better?" "What did we assume that turned out wrong?" Look for a pattern, not for someone to blame.
3. 3Now what? Back to work. "Where does this happen on our real projects?" "What is one thing we will do differently this week?" Write the answer down and bring it to the next meeting.

Four tips for the person running it

• Pick the skill before you pick the activity, and tell the team what it is only afterward.
• Give the rules once, answer questions, then stop helping. Watching a team struggle for a minute is the point.
• Watch how the team works, not whether it wins. Your notes are the raw material for the debrief.
• Keep at least a third of the time for the debrief. Cut the activity short before you cut the conversation.

Pick by the skill you want to build

Each name jumps to the steps.

Want a host to run a puzzle game for your team?

When you would like the puzzles written, tested and hosted for you, book a virtual escape room or a virtual murder mystery. A live host runs the game on Zoom by default, and teams work together to solve it in 60 minutes. Book about 2 weeks ahead, or get a free quote.