Lewisa Anciano stands at the prep table with four teammates ready to spring into action. She and her team have 15 minutes to decide how to incorporate lettuce, cheese, orzo, chicken and egg into two dishes, and 30 minutes to make the dishes, before presenting them to guest Chef Ned in a bid to win the Iron Chef challenge.

However, Ms. Anciano, associate vice-president of human resources at Teligence, is not a professional cook. Rather she is competing against another Teligence team in a corporate team-building exercise being conducted at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts in Vancouver.

The cooking challenge is just one example of fun team-building activities in which managers are enrolling employees. Now, companies offering activities such as a CSI game, a scavenger hunt, paintball, drumming and improv comedy all purport to teach employees how to listen to one another, problem-solve and work together more effectively -- skills that were once tackled in more traditional exercises in the office.

These activities have become popular because they are more engaging. "We were a spirited team and we were laughing the whole time," said Ms. Anciano, whose team produced an orzo salad and chicken and vegetable dish. However, she conceded that the other team took the title in part because their presentation was impressive.

"Shiah told Chef Ned her team's recipes had been whispered in her ear by her dying grandmother!" she said.

Team-building event sales have more than doubled in two years at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts. TD Canada Trust, BC Hydro and Bell are among companies signing up at a cost of $85 a person for a daytime event and $100 a person for an evening session.

Similarly, Canadian Outback Adventures, a company that offers team-building events across the country, went from running about six training events in 2000 to 450 this past year. It charges between $100 and $200 a person.

But do these events really offer anything more than an entertaining day out of the office? Murray Seward, general manager of Canadian Outback Adventures, said while COA's programs are designed to boost employee morale and increase camaraderie, their Amazing Race program has helped bridge conflict, too.

One Internet travel company put two employees who hated each other on the same team and during the race they worked out their differences and now work well together. "The race is not a common tool for conflict resolution, but it did happen," Mr. Seward said.

COA's Amazing Race gave Saleem Mahmood, senior consultant at Axsium Group, insight into some of his colleagues' personalities: who's a problem-solver and who takes or who lacks initiative. Donning race jerseys, his five-member team navigated their way through the downtown streets in Toronto. Along the way, they had to pick up route markers and overcome roadblocks. For example, at the CHUM-City building, the team had to get two people on the street to sing a song, and at the historic St. Lawrence Market, they had to shuck oysters.

Mr. Mahmood says his teammates treated the competition as good fun, but this isn't always the case. In some races, Mr. Seward has seen three teammates sprint ahead, leaving a weaker member of their team behind, which is ironic because all members of the team need to finish the course for them to have completed the race.

That's a problem for Alexander Kjerulf, author of Happy Hour Is 9 to 5. "They [competitive team-building activities] make few people winners and everybody else losers. They foster competition rather than co-operation between co-workers," he said. And Mr. Kjerulf doesn't buy the analogy that business is competitive, too. "You're supposed to compete with other businesses, not with the people inside your company."

But even if employees enjoy the events, don't expect them to work miracles with a dysfunctional team.

"It's not a strategic, lessons-learned type of event. If your team is happy and you want to reinforce that, it's great. It will help with retention and engagement. But if your team is in trouble and needs an intervention, this won't help you work through issues," Ms. Anciano said.

Additionally, any learning from the event doesn't automatically transfer back to the office. Mr. Kjerulf said the facilitators must discuss how they can transfer their learning to the work environment and many team-building companies skip this. Mr. Mahmood said the Amazing Race buzz lasted for about a week in his office.

Even so, he is pleased. "It demonstrates that the company has a concern for you beyond being a revenue producer."

And while Ms. Anciano agreed her Iron Chef session was "more sizzle than meat," she also pointed out that meat alone can be boring. "You need both sizzle and meat."