A Team Development Day Designed to Build High-Performing MBA Teams

Participants: 15 MBA students from various industries
Duration: Full Day (9:15 AM – 3:15 PM)
Service: Experiential Team Development Day
Delivered by: Dynamic Events
Delivered for: One of Ireland's Leading Universities

Overview 

For any MBA programme or graduate intake, forming high-performing teams quickly is essential to success. This client, a leading postgraduate business programme, sought a Team Development Day that would help newly enrolled MBA students build trust, connect meaningfully, and develop key collaborative behaviours before launching into team-based consultancy projects. 

Dynamic Events delivered a full-day team-building programme designed specifically for high-performing professionals, offering participants an opportunity to learn by doing through immersive, structured challenges that mimicked the complexity and pace of real business environments. 

Client Challenge: Turning New Cohorts into Connected Teams 

With students coming from varied industries including finance, tech, healthcare, and consulting, the programme needed more than icebreakers.

They needed: 

• Team Building for onboarding new colleagues 
• A shared experience that could establish trust and psychological safety 
• Leadership development activities that offered reflection and insight 
• Real-world simulations that aligned with their academic focus on strategy, innovation, and stakeholder engagement 
• A meaningful kickstart to their MBA journey, accelerating team cohesion 

Our Solution: An Experiential Team Development Day 

We developed a full-day programme structured around three signature experiences, carefully selected for their impact and progression: 

1. Dome Works – Creative Team Building Under Pressure

Kicking off the day, Dome Works challenged teams to construct a geodesic dome using limited materials and time. This fast-paced experience encouraged: 

• Rapid role formation and team dynamics 
• Creative problem-solving and clear communication 
• Shared achievement through physical collaboration 

Perfect for team building ideas for MBA students who are just beginning to work together, this activity immediately set the tone for trust and camaraderie. 

2. Cake Factory – Process, Pressure & Presentation 

This business simulation tasked the group to run and optomise their very own bakery by producing and delivering various cakes to a demanding client (our facilitator). The activity focused on: 

• Workflow management and delegation 
• Continuous improvement 
• Quality control and creative collaboration 
• Stakeholder engagement and confident presentation delivery 

It offered a safe but challenging space to experience real-time pressure and exposed teams to the kind of interpersonal challenges they would soon face in group projects and corporate environments. 

3. Windfarm – Strategic Collaboration in Action 

After lunch, teams entered a high-stakes, multi-round simulation to design and optimise a fictional windfarm. They faced: 

• Budget and Sustainability constraints 
• Changing conditions 
• Competitive analysis and peer negotiation 
• Strategic planning and agile adaptation 

This is where participants practiced team building for high-performing teams, demonstrating resilience, feedback integration, and long-term thinking, critical skills for MBA cohorts, leadership programmes, and executive education. 

Results & Impact 

The outcome of this Team Development Day was immediate and powerful: 

• Stronger Relationships: Students formed meaningful bonds, enabling better collaboration throughout the semester. 
• Insightful Self-Awareness: Participants reflected on how they show up in a team, including strengths, blind spots, and leadership styles. 
• Practical Application: Participants applied lessons from the day directly to project teamwork, stakeholder presentations, and strategic problem-solving. 
• Positive Feedback: Both the academic staff and students highlighted the programme as a standout moment in the MBA journey. 

Why It Worked 

• Designed for Professional Learners: Activities weren’t just fun, they were relevant, challenging, and rooted in real-world business dynamics. 
• Sequenced for Impact: Each activity built on the last, from forming to storming to performing. 
• Expertly Facilitated: Debriefs and insights were facilitated by experienced team coaches, linking every challenge to professional development. 
• Custom Fit: The programme was tailored to meet the school’s specific academic and behavioural objectives. 

Looking for Team Building Ideas for MBA Students or Onboarding Colleagues? 

Dynamic Events has over 30 years of experience delivering high-impact Team Development Days for corporate groups, universities, and leadership cohorts. Whether you're launching a new intake, onboarding a project team, or investing in professional growth, we create customised, results-driven team building programmes that deliver lasting value. 

Ideal for: 

• MBA Induction Weeks 
• Graduate Onboarding 
• Executive Education & Leadership Development 
• Cross-functional Team Kickoffs 
• Remote or Hybrid Team Integration 

Contact us today to design your own Team Building for High Performing Teams programme.