Team Building in Sydney has come a long way since the 1980's.
When we first kicked off back in 1988, and strated running events in Sydney, this field was still pretty rudimentary with clients still stuck in the "high ropes paradigm" made popular by the likes of Karl Rohnke / Project Adventure and Outward Bound.
Whilst this was great stuff in its day, the sheer logistics of constructing these courses, not to mention their fixed locations, played a role in them falling from vogue. In addition to this their widespread inclusion into school curriculums removed much of the novelty factor for folks coming into the corporate world.
At a deeper level, these programmes also lacked the sophistication and complexity required to mirror workplace decision-making and team dynamics.
Team Building Sydney clients also started to make less pilgrimages to the Blue Mountains and similar venues as timeframes that were being made available for off-sites started to decrease. The time and logistics of moving people around was deemed by many to eat into the decreasing time made available for business content. The time it takes to rotate individuals through much of the content in the "old school" team programmes was also a factor.
Thus clients began to require from us "punchier" business games, simulations and activities that delivered enhanced outcomes and meaningful links to actual business themes and issues. This was a far cry from the more "individual development" focus of much of the earlier adventure based content.
Like our markets in other part of Australia, Sydney clients started to demand more indoor approaches or at least programmes that could also be adapted to for a blend of indoor and outdoor content to suit changing weather patterns.
So in most cases now, clients looking for Sydney events will be seeking CDB friendly approaches that utilise venues and locations within walking distance of the CBD (if they prefer the Amazing Race style formats), or indeed more complex indoor business games to get business links and avoid concerns of bad weather.
Simpler leisure based team experiences are being replaced by more meaningful and justifiable content. Whilst this can still be made fun and engaging, Sydney team building clients are demanding more impact and lasting value for their budgets allocated to conferences, off-sites and development than ever before.