10 Tips on how to succeed at your team building escape room

It’s been decided. Your going to do a team building escape room challenge. You’ve paid your money, you’ve picked your room and you’re on your way to the venue to get locked into a room by a stranger. What things can you and your team do to make sure you’ve got the best chances to succeed at your team building escape room.

1. Pick the Right Team

This may be out of your control. If the boss has a different agenda to you you might find yourself with people you don’t know or wouldn’t normally work with. But this can’t be helped. Do your best to make sure you each participate and take on a role that works to your strength. This goes the same for if you are working with your desired team.

2. Plan Ahead and Be on Time

Having a plan ahead of time can be a massive time saver. Rather than spending the 1st 5 minutes of the game trying to figure out who the leader should be or who gets to hold the walkie-talkie, spend some time before you start to iron out these small but important details before the clock starts ticking.

Arriving to your team building escape room in good time can work in your favour as well. Not only is it just polite to arrive on time to anything, it will ensure your team starts feeling calm and prepared as opposed to panicked and rushed. And it always pays dividends to keep the escape room staff happy, as they may be more inclined to give you a cheeky extra hint when you need it most.

3. Come in with a Positive Attitude

Being a negative Nancy never helped anyone. If you’ve made it halfway through the game and start throwing a wobbler because you’ve got stuck and nobody is listening to you, maybe you need to have a rethink about what you’re doing hear. It’s a bit of fun, meant to bring you closer together with your colleagues. Lighten up.

4. Understand the rules of the room

Things aren’t always as simple as, “here’s your room, off you pop” some team building escape rooms have complex puzzles or elements that will only work if you do things in a certain way. Many intricacies like these are often explained before hand. So make sure you listen closely to all the rules and hints and tips your host is telling you before you start the game. It might stop you from making a silly mistake that could end your game early or make it impossible for you to escape.

5. Keep an eye on the clock

Time management is often one of the biggest team building goals in an escape room, not only that but if you don’t keep an eye on the time you could find yourselves running out.

6. Keep a consistent, determined approach

Don’t give up. Keep up a consistent pace of communication and ideas. Don’t burn yourselves out in the 1st 10 minutes of the game. You’ve got a whole hour to get through. Take one thing at a time, spread out the work loads and make sure to listen to every bodies ideas.

7. See something, say something

Does what it says on the tin. Just because you’ve spotted something doesn’t mean everybody has. Don’t be that guy who picks up a clue and puts it in their pocket without mentioning it to anyone.

8. Don’t take over the room

There is nothing wrong with being an assertive leader. But don’t insist on doing everything yourself, everyone is here to have fun so share the work loads and rewarding moments. This will help people maintain tip 3.

9. Use your clues

Don’t be stubborn. Many team building escape rooms are VERY challenging and it’s almost always expected that every time will need some help along the way. So if you’ve been given a handful of hints to ask for. Use them.