Team Building Icebreaker – Constellation Exercise

If you are looking to help team members better understand the beliefs and perspectives of others, than look no further than running the Constellation exercise. This can be used to kick off meetings, for team launches, for team reboots, for retrospectives and many other situations. It has the power to surface misunderstandings and also highlight similarities within the group as well as diversity. All of which can help bring a team or group of people into a high-performing state.

When to Use

• Team Building (during a team launch or reboot)
• Start of meeting (i.e. retrospective)
• Gain consensus when team has high trust and psychological safety. If you don’t have these, then some team members may just follow the crowd

How to Run Constellation

Usually I make a statement along these lines to kick things off. “We are going to run a fun exercise called “Constellation” to get to know about each other. We will find that we have similar levels of agreement in some areas but at times dissimilar. It is worth recognizing and celebrating our similarities and differences.” Then I summarize the steps below for the team or group.

1. Clear a decent size space for the amount of people in the exercise to move around
2. Place an object as the center of universe (i.e. roll of masking tape, paper plate, fidget toy).
3. Form circle around the center of universe
4. Make statement (see examples below)
5. Move based on level of agreement. If you strongly agree, move very close to the center of the universe. If you strongly disagree, move very far from the center of the universe. Don’t be surprised if some people will almost want to go through a wall to get further from the center of the universe
6. Invite the team or group to observe the constellation
7. Go back to step 3 and repeat until allotted time is up
8. Debrief with powerful questions
   1. “What surprised you?”
   2. “What assumptions did you have?”
   3. “What do you understand better now?

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Example Statements

• I enjoy political conversations
• I enjoy public speaking
• I believe we are producing a high quality product
• I feel confident we can complete the stories for this sprint (if you are working in a Scrum framework)
• I like team building exercises
• I love country music

Similar to the tribes exercise, this is very simple and takes very little effort to set up. It has great value when helping teams or groups form bonds but also surface misunderstandings and diversity of beliefs. It works in many different settings. Good luck running this. I’d love to hear about your experience running this exercise in the comments below.

Credit

I believe credit goes to the Agile Coaching Institute for this exercise. I first experienced it during their Coaching Agile Teams workshop.

Many More Example Statements

This is list comes from the Agile Coaching Institute

• I feel more of an accomplishment working individually than as a team
• I like getting results
• I want others to lead
• I do not like uncomfortable silence and work to fill it in
• I am open to change
• I like chatting about life outside of work from day to day
• I feel comfortable in providing direct feedback
• I like discussing alternatives
• I like to work alone
• During the finish stage, I don’t like to go back to discussing alternatives
• I am competitive
• I don’t mind bending the rules to get things done
• I value work/life balance
• When under stress, I like to be told what to do
• My happiest times are in nature
• I’m comfortable in front of a group
• I like public recognition
• I’m nervous about providing real time feedback
• I’m frustrated when there is not order
• I enjoy alone time
• I feel a sense of accomplishment when I know I’ve done a complete and thorough job
• I feel a sense of accomplishment when others recognize me
• I need to feel a sense of accomplishment to stay motivated
• I thrive on being around people
• I like to make things with my hands
• I like to make my own way
• I like surprises
• I like to take charge and make decisions
• When things are chaotic, I like to create order