Games People Play!

Few months back, I attended an outbound training program. I participated in an interesting game which I still remember very vividly. It was not only fun but was an absolute energizer that pepped up the whole group leaving us wanting for more.

The game was pretty simple. We were a group of 25 people. We were asked to form a circle with the facilitator standing in the middle. The game is called "BANG!". The facilitator shoots at one person standing in the circle loudly saying "bang" and enacting as though shooting with a gun. The person being shot at needs to immediately go down on his/her knees while the other two standing beside this person need to instantly turn towards each other and enact as though shooting at each other shouting out "bang" aloud. The actions have to happen instantly. If the person being shot at makes some other gesture or shoots instead of going down on his/her knees then s/he is out. Similarly, if the other two persons go down on their knees or do some other action rather than shooting at each other then they are also out of the game. Any delay in the required action also renders them to be out. The facilitator can randomly shoot at anyone and if the desired action does not happen, they are out of the game. It gets more and more exciting as the no. of participants reduce to just two people.

This is a very fast paced game and is ideal as an energizer. It is best to use this at the beginning of a training to improve attentiveness and energy or during a post-lunch session if there is a likelihood of the learners dozing off due to a heavy meal and information overload.

Try this and let me know your experience of using this with different profiles of participants.