Doing a team check-in is a great way to boost camaraderie and trust, and Nicolas Cage himself has given us a fun way to do just that!

How to do it

This activity is a great way to increase team camaraderie and trust in any meeting, by giving everybody a chance to share their mood, in a rapid, light-hearted way.

It works best using an online collaboration canvas, and takes anywhere from 5 minutes to 25 minutes, depending on how many people you have in your group, and how much of a conversation you want to have about the ‘results’.

1. Set up a ‘Nicolas Cage Gauge’ panel in the online collaboration canvas of your choice. Feel free to download and use the image below.
2. Start with a statement about how it’s good to check in with each other about our mood before we get underway in our meeting, and to do that we’re going to use the Nicolas Cage Gauge.
3. Ask everybody to ‘pick your Nick’; put a sticky note (or a circle or something similar) on the Nicolas Cage that matches their mood.
4. Take a bit of time to chat about the various moods, especially if there are any that are STRESSED, ANGRY, or BEES!

It’s guaranteed to stimulate a great conversation!

Variations

Feel free to change up the question you ask at the beginning. For example, you could ask:

• Pick a Nick that reflects how you feel about hybrid meetings / hybrid work
• In a retrospective: pick the Nick that reflects how you feel after the project we’ve just completed
• In a project kick-off: pick the Nick that reflects how you feel about this new project

Source: Unknown

Download this icebreaker

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