Breaking the ice with Open Contracting Charades

We do dozens of workshops everywhere and know our partners do even more. Ever been stuck thinking about a way to start an open contracting workshop with a fun and light exercise that gets people out of their seats and doesn’t take forever? We’ve got one for you! Not only is this exercise a great ice-breaker, it makes for an even better energizer in between breaks and after lunch. 

How about a round of Open Contracting Charades. That’s Charades but with an open contracting twist. Here’s how a typical charades game is played:

The good thing about this ice creaker is that it’s a purpose-driven activity so it’s easier for the introverts to get involved and is generally less awkward for everyone. It’s also about exploring key open contracting terms so it instantly gets newcomers feel like they already know something. And best of all, the laughs the group gets from the absurd to the comical act outs of the terms gives everyone memories to last for a long time! 

And here’s how to play OC Charades.

Step 1: Divide into groups with people they don’t know. There should be no more than 4 people in each group. Tell them about the game and act out a word. You can go with “contract” as it is easy.

Step 2: Stand at different sides of the room and give them one minute to come up with an open contracting-related term. The phrase can be a maximum of three words. If you see people looking unsure, approach them and offer help. Here are some words and phrases to get you started: open contracting, open data, collaboration, tender, data standard, suppliers, feedback loops, citizen monitoring, unique identifiers, point of contact.

Step 3: After the one minute is up, ask the teams to prepare how they will mime it to the other groups. Give them 2 mins for this and all members of the team must participate. You can ask people if you can film them and share them either just on your workshop’s Whatsapp or group email. It’s a fun thing to look at once the event is over.

Step 4: Teams take turns acting out their words and phrases. 

This exercise can be done in 10-20 minutes – and hopefully, everyone will feel energized and ready to jump into the next session. 

We know we did at our last team retreat.