Tangram Challenge

The Tangram Challenge can help teams to realize how important communication within a team is and how it can help to perform better together. It can support teams to reflect on their communication behaviors and overcome problems in team communication. It also shows that a team can achieve more things together than just one person on their own by sharing their knowledge.

You can also use the template to organize some sort of competition between two teams as a warm-up or energizer for your workshops.

How to you use the template

You can play this game in different ways depending on your objective:

Goal: Reflect on team communication and teamwork

Step 1

Designate a player.

Step 2

The player picks a card from the left stack of cards. To do this he/she has to flip to the next page of the embedded card pdf file. This makes sure the other won’t see what he/she picked.

Step 3

The player now tries to rebuild the form with the Tangram blocks. No talking is allowed between the player and the others.

If you want you can let the player reflect on his building experience at this point.

Step 4

The player picks a card from the right stack of cards. To do this he/she has to move the cover card aside. Now everyone can see, which form has to be built.

Step 5

The player tries to rebuild the form that he/she just picked. The team members are allowed to speak and help the player by giving their advice.

Step 6

After the building process is done it is the moment to reflect on the difference between the two ways of building: Alone without any help vs. together as a team with their common knowledge shared.

Goal: Play in two teams against each other as a warm-up or energizer

Step 1

One person picks a card from the stack on the right side. To reveal it, just pull the cover card away.

Step 2

One of the teams uses the Tangram blocks to rebuild the form that has been uncovered. Make sure to measure the time it takes to build it. Cover the card again.

Step 3

Pick another card and let the other team rebuild the form. Measure the time again.

Play as many rounds as needed. The team that needed the least amount of time to build the Tangram forms wins.

Goal: Have fun with family and friends remotely

Of course, you can use the template together with friends and family to compete against each other remotely. Just come up with your own rules. ;)