Freshmen Team-Building Camp has ended about a week ago. To many, besides broadening our network of friends, it was also an opportunity to freshen up on basic teambuilding groundwork. Frankly, we have been through enough camps in our lives to actually have an idea of what teamwork is all about, so FTB served more like a refresher course.

Though ran with a tacky storyline, which most didn’t get anyway, it went pretty smoothly and was probably a success in its own rights. Save for a dampening torrential downpour on the last day, fair weather enabled most activities and games to run without glitches for the first two days.

Games were engaging but the activities weren’t quite that up to mark. Recurring failures were probably the morale-killers but the innumerable activity debriefs ultimately proved to be the sucker punch. It was a shame that we didn’t manage to fully utilize the facilities that were available at OBS due to time constraints.

Nonetheless, we still took away a couple of learning points from this camp. Firstly, the significance of the planning stage in a project flowchart. What occurs at this stage is the generation of the plan outline, timetables, role management as well as contingencies which will be pivotal in the success of a project.

We also learnt about team dynamics and behaviour. While a balance in personalities and characters of team members is ideal, it rarely occurs in real-life. Therefore, we must try to work towards that imaginary balance through conflict management and the convergence/divergence of ideas to ensure that the team shares common goals and expectations.

While the functioning of the team as one is important, the individual skills and expertise that each member brings into the fray are also as critical. By understanding each other strengths and weaknesses, it enables the team to effectively tap on the valuable knowledge pool of its members. This allows for a more efficient distribution of workload which helps to increase the team’s overall productivity.

Even though I can’t honestly say that the camp had the right mix of fun and learning, I’m certain that it had help to reinforce the concept of team-building in us and how good teamwork could co-relate to success. It was great, just shy of fantastic, had quite a bit of fun, but could have been more. Or maybe ‘cos I’m just too old for this kinda stuff.