Adventures in Puzzle Land 4–Down the Online Rabbit Hole
A continuing story about working for a multilingual puzzle-making company in Tokyo
Hello! My name is Ayaka and here I talk about my experiences as a new employee at a team building and puzzle creation company in Tokyo. Today I’ll be telling you about one of our most popular services nowadays, “online team building”.
First of all, what is “online team building?”
As you may or may not know, our company used to run an escape game facility in Asakusa. This was the central component of our team building service for many years. With the current pandemic situation, that business model was no longer feasible. However, our company used that escape game know-how and intimate knowledge of the inner workings of puzzles to create our online team building program.
It can be hard finding team unity without being able to see each other’s smiling faces, and there are a lot of companies out there that are facing this issue right now. That’s why our company offers this service–so that these teams can continue to activate their communication, learn about teammates, build trust, and raise their standards for efficiency and teamwork. That was a mouthful.
Well, I’m still a bit new at this and learning about everything. But don’t worry, I’ll leave the serious team building pitch and talk about what actually happens during the event. Let’s check it out!
Get ready for some team building!
Everyone gathers together first in the main Zoom meeting room. The link to this meeting is sent to players before the event (recently we have also been able to offer our online program on Microsoft Teams, too).
The Zoom link can be accessed from your home, from your office, or wherever else you may be conducting your remote work. Everyone can participate (including teams that are separated on different continents).
With a lot of people who are working from home, you sometimes will see a cat or a kid pop into someone’s screen. But actually this wasn’t as big a deal as I thought it was, and it made the atmosphere a bit more relaxed.
From there we get into the real deal. As the facilitator explains, the goal is to have fun and relax! Even if you aren’t comfortable with Zoom, you can still follow along. Let your worries go and don’t hold back.
So here we go!
“Miro” Warm Up Challenge
After a light introduction, and hello, the program begins with an explanation of the Miro white-board app and its basic functions. This is followed by a little game that allows players to apply these tools. Players are broken up into Zoom “breakout rooms” by team (either determined beforehand or random). There they play an easy little game where they have to use the Miro board to make a face. While it might be easy, it really does test the team’s ability to work together right from the get go (and it alerts players to any issues with the technology that they are having).
By the way, I only learned about Miro after I started working here, but it is very convenient! It gives you the feeling of a real-life whiteboard and has a lot of useful tools., Plus it lets teams work and discuss things together as a group. Of course, groups that already use Miro can leave this part out, or just have fun playing the game.
Just when teams begin to start communicating and wanting to chat more, we send them back to the main room (the same Zoom room from the beginning where everyone gathered together) for a little more serious activity….
A (Super Fun) Workshop
Well, it is serious, but not too too serious. The facilitator of the workshop that I was at was our CEO, Yamada-san. She was so good! I was listening the whole time.
Of course, I will give a brief explanation about what she was talking about.
The theme of this workshop was on what makes teams effective and what teams can learn from puzzle-solving, as well as how they can use what they learn to further better their teams…
You should really hear it directly from her, it appears I’m not so good at capturing the essence of our CEO’s ability to give such a mesmerizing talk.
The workshop is in fact optional, and can change depending on what clients want in terms of time, theme, etc.
And finally we get to the real meat of the program, the main course that all these appetizers were leading up to…
Tabitantei (Puzzle Journey)
Teams go back to their same break out rooms from before (all this moving about from room to room is done on our side, all you have to do is connect to Zoom, sit back and relax…sort of).
Each team gets their own “game master” (support staff) to guide them, help them out with technical difficulties and questions, and give them some cheeky clues along the way. Since this was my first time facilitating, sometimes I didn’t know what advice to give or forgot how to solve a puzzle. However, with the way things are set up, staff can flitter in and out of rooms and support each other when there are problems that one of them can’t solve.
I already talked about this in an earlier post, but there are a lot of non-Japanese staff in my company. However, they are all mostly fully bilingual, so facilitating this game in Japanese only is no problem for them. Pretty amazing if you think about it.
And to digress a bit further if I may (which by this point you’re probably used to), this also means that bilingual groups can participate together, since all the puzzle instructions and texts used in the game are in both languages too. This means you can really level up your teamwork without worrying about language.
Anyway, back to the game…
It’s interesting to see how different teams progress during the game, and how they each use the Miro board, the hints, etc. in different ways. Some teams progress through each puzzle as one, some teams split up and take on different tasks, some teams get really excited or mad, other teams remain cool and calm…
There’s no one right way or wrong way to go through it, because it’s ultimately about how the team comes together in their own way.
However, one piece of advice that I definitely can give is that teams that do the best are the ones where all team members participate and shout out ideas (and they’re the ones that have the most fun too).
This is a point I touched on more in my second post, but our company really makes puzzles for teams and groups, and these puzzles are the best way to measure communication. Communication lies at the heart of what makes teams succeed or fail. So let’s talk more and lecture each other a bit less, yeah?
As the clock ticks down, teams get more and more enthusiastic, and before you know it the game is over. Even if teams have some remaining puzzles left, unfortunately all the teams need to head back to the main room for the final wrap-up.
Results Ceremony
This is where we announce the final results for each team and find out who won out of all the groups. Even a group of only adults get extremely excited over this, let me tell you. And it’s even more exciting when their company prepares a prize for the winner (I would get really competitive if I were them).
Finally, we take a group picture, which we send to groups later by email along with the faces they made and certificates showing each team’s ranking (and are also very cute, by the way).
And that’s a wrap! Good work everyone! In the old days everyone would be in a hurry to grab a beer together afterward, but you might have to make do with a Zoom drinking party instead.
Wow…that was long! I’m surprised myself! If you read this far, thank you. You’re a true friend. Me, I’m going to take my own advice and grab that beer.
Thank you for following me as I make my way through this new, strange wonderland of puzzles. I still feel lost sometimes, but I’m getting the hang of it slowly. I have a lot more that I want to tell you about (but worry, I’ll save that for another time).
See you back here soon!
(Translated from Japanese by Lee)
