Virtual escape rooms can fast-rack team development, collaboration and critical thinking. At Innov8 Consulting AS, we developed a virtual course for Crayon on stress management, resilience, and growth mindset. This course is part of Crayon’s Global Empowerment Program, which aims to boost employee engagement, retention, learning culture, and innovation 💡

We have supported this program from conceptualisation to delivery based on a user-centric design approach. The seven months’ learning journey includes self-leadership, stress and time management, problem-solving, diversity & inclusion, innovation, and communication. And what a perfect match to build strong team cohesion in the learning groups early on with a virtual escape room challenge! 🔑

What’s a virtual escape room?

It’s an interactive, team-based game played online that mimics the real-life escape room challenge. The learning impact of a virtual escape room is twofold:

• Apply learning to real-life scenarios: Participants apply course concepts in simulated conditions.
• Team development: Fosters team building, collaboration, and problem-solving abilities.

How did we go about it?

Constructing the virtual escape room challenge was straightforward yet impactful. The project was a great collaborative success where Lasse Güldener crafted the storyline and challenges while Elida Nøkland and Eva Caroline Atar created a compelling visual user experience and materials with Canva hosted on Sharepoint. Thank you for this fantastic collaboration! 🙏

What does the experience look like?

Participants navigate through puzzles and practical tasks and challenges related to time and stress management, using tools such as the Majo Clinic’s Four A’s Model of Stress Management Model and the Eisenhower Matrix. They also tackled practical exercises such as organizing a workshop agenda, prompted by a scenario involving a voice message from their boss. 🤓

This 45-minute activity, conducted in separate groups in breakout rooms on MS Teams, was a challenging yet fun experience for the participants, followed by a valuable 15-minute reflection afterwards. As one participant said: “At the beginning we didn’t really know each other but the escape room was a great way to better understand each other, how we think and operate, particularly under time pressure.” 👏

Who is this for?

Virtual escape rooms can be used for any target audience. The learning experience is an excellent method for fostering team development, particularly in virtual settings, by highlighting the diversity of roles and the significance of appreciating this diversity within teams. So this is very much relevant for any team or leadership team. 🏆

Curious how you can get the fun back in your team meetings? Drop us an email to hello@innov-8.no on how you can create a simple, yet impactful virtual escape room experience tailored to your teams. ✨