Goals/Mission

TV Theme Songs
Distribute cards with the names of characters from classic TV shows with theme songs (i.e.The Brady Bunch, the Addams Family, Jetsons, etc.). List one character name per card and give one card to each participant. Ask people to find the members of their group, but don't tell the participants that they are members of a TV show and don't provide any other details. Once people are in their teams, give them 15 minutes to develop a song about their residence hall staff (it's assumed the people doing this activity are Resident Assistants) to the tune of their TV show theme song. Gather everyone together and have each group perform their song.

Clarifying Goals
Give people 5 minutes to think about and respond to the following questions:
1. How would this team function if everyone went just as you would hope?
2. What would this team be like if everything went wrong?
3. What actions do you think must be taken to ensure positive outcomes?

Each person has the opportunity to share reactions; everyone responds to each question in turn. Try to identify the major concerns people have and list them on a whiteboard or large sheet of paper. These concerns should become items on a planning agenda as conditions to take into consideration in order to ensure that positive things are achieved.

Mission
People write what they believe to be the mission/purpose of the group in 15 words or less. Ideas are written on a whiteboard or large sheet of paper and shared with the group. The group collectively pulls the best parts of the individual mission statements and writes their own mission statement. If the group has a formal mission statement, the two should be compared and discussed.