Discharges the plenary morning
After three hours of slides what is needed is movement. A physical team activity lifts the energy of the whole room within fifteen minutes.
Corporate Kick Off
Kick Off
A kick off is not remembered for the targets; it is remembered for what happened afterwards
We run the activity element of kick offs and year-start meetings: team challenges, internal olympics, a shared scoreboard and a prize ceremony that closes the day on a high.
A kick off has an almost identical structure everywhere: a morning of presentations covering last year's results and next year's targets, and an afternoon that decides how all of it is remembered. The morning is necessary but heavy; after three hours of slides attention is spent, and what is needed is not another talk but movement and competition.
What works best at that point is something physical, in teams, with a score. Not because it teaches anything, but because it discharges the morning and leaves people energised rather than sleepy. And because the team you compete with in the afternoon is usually the team you will work with all year: deliberately mixing departments in that activity has a real effect for months.
The close matters as much as the activity. A prize ceremony with a podium, even with symbolic prizes, turns the afternoon into a story with an ending. If it also recognises the year's results, the moment carries a double reading and management communicates what it wanted without another presentation.
We work both in-room, with activities that fit the same space as the plenary, and outdoors or at another venue. Typically there is a short transfer to a warehouse, a sports hall or an outdoor space, because the physical change of room helps enormously in changing the day's register.
- 2-4 hof afternoon activity
- 8-800participants
- 24 hquote turnaround
- 100%in-house facilitators
Mixes the year's teams
We form groups deliberately across departments. People compete in the afternoon with those they will collaborate with over the following months, and that leaves a mark.
Closes on a podium
A prize ceremony gives the day's story an ending and lets you use the moment to recognise results without needing another presentation.
How we set it up
Tell us the objective
What you want the company to take away from the kick off and how much time exists after the plenary.
We design the afternoon
Challenges, teams, timings, scoreboard and the prize moment, fitted to the real finish time.
We prepare the space
Room, warehouse or outdoors, with surface, access and a wet-weather plan if outside.
We run the day
Our facilitators keep the pace, referee and score, with results ready for the closing ceremony.
Formats and ideas that work
- Internal olympics by team with a shared scoreboard
- Circuit of five-minute quick challenges per station
- Treasure hunt around the venue with tasks and clues
- Short team hackathon with final presentations
- Corporate batucada to open the afternoon
- Simulators with a cumulative ranking between departments
- Collaborative build whose result stays in the office
- Prize ceremony with a podium and a winning-team photo
The most common kick off mistake
The failure we see most is scheduling the activity just before lunch. The morning overruns, the activity is halved and ends up competing with two hundred people's hunger. Our recommendation is always the same: the activity goes after lunch, once the formal programme has finished and nobody is watching the clock.
The second mistake is leaving no time for the close. A prize ceremony needs fifteen real minutes with people gathered and paying attention, and if it is left until coats are being collected it loses all its effect. When designing the afternoon we block it from the start, even if it means shortening a challenge.
Frequently asked questions
Can it be held in the plenary room itself?
Yes, with activities designed for indoors and with no height requirements. It is not ideal, a change of space helps a lot in changing the register, but when there is no alternative we work by clearing chairs and reorganising the room.
How long should the activity element be?
Two to four hours is normal. Under two hours a competitive team format never settles, and over four attention drops considerably after a plenary morning.
Can company messages be built into the activity?
Yes, in moderation. Team names, challenges and prizes can reference the year's objectives. What we do not recommend is turning the activity into disguised training: it shows and it kills the effect.
What if the workforce is split across sites?
It can be run at a common meeting point or replicated at each site with a shared scoreboard. The second option works well when gathering everyone is not viable.
Do you supply the prizes?
We can provide trophies and symbolic prizes, but it usually works better if the company supplies them, because they can be tied to something with internal meaning. We build the podium, the results screen and the ceremony itself.