In my first actual focused attempt to "bring people together", I organised a team bonding session with the game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes for the programming team. The game is multiplayer, with one person acting as the bomb defuser and everyone else the bomb experts.
The bomb defuser is the only person who can see the bomb and has to describe it to the other players. That wouldn't be so bad if the bomb just had a bunch of different coloured wires, like they do in movies, but instead, the bomb has multiple "modules", each with a different method of disarmment.
The experts have to use the bomb defusal manual, hosted at the hilariously named URL http://www.bombmanual.com/ (which is now in Jal's search history at work), to work out how to defuse the bomb.
Our first few attempts were quite rough, only managing to disarm two or three modules before the bomb exploded, but after that, we had developed our own language to describe things and settled into a bit of a pattern. We worked out which of the modules we could farm out, so that we could work things out in parallel, and different people had different modules that they were better at solving.
In the end, we managed to disarm 2 out of 7 bombs, mostly getting stuck on any bomb that had the morse code module, as none of us were any good at reading morse code (Jal knows morse code, but he had to leave early to join some other people for lunch).
As far as team bonding exercises go, I think this one was pretty good. The instructions are straightforward, and if you play it the way MrFodder suggests (where you only have one copy of the bomb defusal manual which is divided up between all the other players), allows everyone a chance to contribute. I don't think this would work too well with a group larger than 5 though, as you run the risk of someone not having a module they can help out with, so they end up sitting out the entire round. This game isn't really about building trust, but more about developing effective methods of communication. And to a slight degree, leadership.
You quickly find that if everyone is talking over everyone else, it becomes impossible to clearly communicate the correct instructions to disarm the bomb, especially when some of the modules are purposely designed to make it hard to communicate. One of them has instructions that depend on which words are displayed on the screen, but the options are things like "YOUR" and "YOU'RE". We didn't really have a designated leader, as such, but once we started getting into the swing of things, I noticed Nev would say things like, "Fodder, you do this while I do this" and it helped us solve the modules faster, because we weren't doubling up on work.
I don't think our team really needed much bonding, as everyone was really co-operative throughout the entire session. Whenever someone figured out a way to do something better, everyone else complimented them on the suggestion. But it wasn't like we had a hive mind / yes-man attitude, if someone miscalculated something, everyone felt perfectly comfortable jumping in and saying, "I don't think that's right, I think we should not cut the blue wire because the manual says _______." It didn't even matter that our boss was there with us, people were perfectly fine correcting him, too.
That's a sign that we are a cohesive team: everyone feels comfortable around each other. We're not trying to compete to show off the fact that we're the best, and we don't have that "fake nice" demeanor that just gives the illusion of being cohesive, but just hides the torrent of tension bubbling underneath. Even when the clock is ticking, and we're nearly out of time, nobody criticizes anyone for making a mistake, and as a team, we usually work out something so that we don't make the same mistake next time.
I've noticed that in some of my solo queue Dota 2 games there's the initial teamwork, but that usually falls apart at the first sign of trouble. For the most part, the team is happy at the start, everyone is getting along (maybe because I usually take the support role, so nobody is fighting to pick a core hero early in order to dodge having to play support). In most of my games there's no complaints about playstyle until we lose first blood, which usually happens in the offlane or mid (and I'm in the safelane).
That usually degenerates into people yelling at me, telling me how to play - often with conflicting instructions (mid wants me to gank mid, safe lane wants me to hang around so that they can farm, offlane wants me to gank offlane). Inevitably, I will fail someone, and that person feels vindicated in their belief that we're losing because I didn't do what they said. So they decide to become the new leader of the team and begin bossing everyone around, telling them how to play and asking why they bought one item instead of another. If I don't manage to redeem myself at this point, a clusterbomb goes off and everyone starts telling everyone else what to do. Except it seems like some of them have muted each other by this point, so they start talking over each other.
I really need to work on my "bring people together" skills, so I can nip this in the bud before it happens, and hopefully that'll help keep the team from falling apart. Comparing how we played Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes and how I play with randoms in Dota 2, I think I need to work harder on complimenting people when they do well, but also on trying to do what other people think needs to be done - even if I disagree. And if it's not possible, at least try to explain why, "Sorry, I can't gank mid right now because they are harassing us a lot in the safe lane."
Maybe they won't fall into that spiral of "we're losing because nobody listens to me" if they feel like their complaints are being acknowledged, but it's just not feasible to address it. And in any case, it gives them a chance to say, "Maybe the safe lane can jungle for a bit while you help me in mid" and we talk about how we're going to go forward, rather than me just deciding what I'm going to do in a silent rage.
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