On 12 June, INESC TEC brought its collaborators to the Porto City Park in order to participate in another team building activity. This third edition had around 90 participants, including researchers, professors, grant holders, members of the Board and services’ collaborators. All of them had a common purpose, to rank in first place by the end of the afternoon.
Teamwork is essential
The main goals of this activity, entitled “INESC TEC on the move”, are to create closer ties among collaborators and to strengthen team cohesion. Divided into two main stages, Team Tournament and Photo Challenge, collaborators spent their afternoon outdoors enjoying both the competition, entertainment, exercise and good mood.
After a resounding and funny initial “icebreaker”, which made all the participants sing and dance to the sound of Portuguese popular songs, teams were created and divided between the two stages. All participants performed all the activities. The Team Tournament consisted of a set of different competition challenges, which enabled the development of interpersonal relationships and the strengthening of cohesion between the members of each team, who were constantly searching for the largest number of points. In Photo Challenge, the teams had to be able to find several locations on a map, spread throughout the place. In order to do this, they had to define the best strategy and to complete the challenge within the proposed time.
The competition and the appraisal
Six teams with different colours, each one of them divided into two large groups, were searching for points in each of the challenges. This was the motto, as there was only room for three groups on the podium.
However, besides the competition, “INESC TEC on the move” is above all a moment of leisure and fun, so that people from the same institution become better acquainted with each other and gain transversal skills that can be useful in their professional daily routine.
Daniela Coutinho, a researcher of the Centre for Enterprise Systems Engineering (CESE), considers that “this activity is very useful and interesting in order to meet other people and departments that are part of INESC TEC”.
On the other hand, Isabel Macedo from the Management Support (AG) states that: “I get to know new people of INESC TEC, I get to create friendly bonds with my colleagues, with whom I don’t have an opportunity to in my daily routine (being always in a hurry and having several subjects to address).”
For Filipe Borges Teixeira, a researcher of the Centre for Telecommunications and Multimedia (CTM), this initiative is important “to unite INESC TEC team”.
Vítor Hugo Fernandes, who is also a CTM’s collaborator, highlights that “in this activity, we all become a group without any distinction of positions, and I think these moments of leisure make the experience of everyone very valuable”.
Finally, Rita Cardoso, an integral member of the Human Resources (RH) states that these “moments stimulate sharing and cooperation among collaborators, even among those who are not in daily contact”.
The winners
1st place – Pink Team
2nd place – Yellow Team
3rd place – Green Team
The reason for team building
Based on organisational development strategies, team building gathers a set of activities capable of promoting and/or reinforcing the interaction between members of an organisation. It is considered to be an important strategy that allows to align organisational goals, to promote professional relationships, to detect unknown institutional problems, always in a relaxed and playful way. By combining training and enthusiasm, the institution is capable of inspiring, motivating and challenging its collaborators, moving towards the collective success.
The researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC.
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