River Crossing
River Crossing is a team reflection exercise for psychological safety: it helps participants build trust while keeping the stakes low.
How to run it
- Participants need to cross an imaginary river as a team and they need to get all members of the group safely there.
- Participants must stay in constant contact
- Each raft represents a symbol named by participants
- The tiles can only go forward. They cannot move backwards
- No one can finish until everyone has left the “bank” of the river
- Choose to add challenges like muting individuals, using only 1 arm, eyes closed/blindfolded, no one can talk, others can be "gators" in the river and try to impede those crossing the river, stand in front of the group with arms outstretched to simulate tree they must go around.
- Give group an object that they need to carry with them to safety and discuss what that might represent
- Create situations for them to draw from that are connected directly to their group
Run this exercise live
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Materials:
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Prompts to use +
The tiles can only go forward. They cannot move backwards
Choose to add challenges like muting individuals, using only 1 arm, eyes closed/blindfolded, no one can talk, others can be "gators" in the river and try to impede those crossing the river, stand in front of the group with arms outstretched to simulate tree they must go around.
Give group an object that they need to carry with them to safety and discuss what that might represent
Create situations for them to draw from that are connected directly to their group
Run this with your AI assistant +
Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.
Adapt this exercise for my exact room. Exercise: River Crossing. Readiness: Publishable Draft. Core moves: The tiles can only go forward. They cannot move backwards; Choose to add challenges like muting individuals, using only 1 arm, eyes closed/blindfolded, no one can talk, others can be "gators" in the river and try to impede those crossing the river, stand in front of the group with arms outstretched to simulate tree they must go around.; Give group an object that they need to carry with them to safety and discuss what that might represent; Create situations for them to draw from that are connected directly to their group. Return a concise facilitator script with timing, wording, safety notes, and remote/in-person adjustments.
Origin unverified
- Where we observed it: The exercise appears across 2 observed source organizations in the current corpus. (2 sources observed, including SessionLab, Teampedia.)
- What that means: we track where an exercise has been observed in public sources. We do not claim to know who created it, or how popular it is.
- No efficacy claims: appearing in this library is not a claim that the exercise is proven effective. Facilitator judgment and context decide whether it works for a given room.
- Corrections: if you have evidence of an earlier or more accurate source, read our methodology and trust boundary and tell us.