44 Virtual Icebreakers and Team-Building Activities to Try Immediately

Warm up everyone’s active thinking muscles before your big meeting with a thought experiment icebreaker. To play, everyone asks each other thoughtful questions until someone has enough clues to wager a guess. Because just “getting along” isn’t that simple all the time. And if most people eschew conflict, then most people probably don’t know how to deal with it, or more importantly, resolve it, when it does come up. Gamestorming recommends kicking off meetings by having everyone make trading cards to represent their personalities. To start quizzing your coworkers, get more information at Weve. Describe any funny household noises you have sat through in a virtual meeting.

• The goal of the game is to communicate the prompt without using words.
• Want to create your own office soundtrack or playlist?
• If you’re using multiple choice questions, provide four possible answers and ask participants to place their colored dot next to the correct answer.
• Have them create a chatroom where they can discuss the meeting to come.

Icebreaker questions allow your team to interact better and are particularly helpful to new and shy members. These questions provide your team members an opportunity to get to know one another better. At the end of the time, if no one has guessed, reveal the song and share what motivated you to play it.

Engaging Virtual Ice Breakers for Your Team

We’ve selected short and sweet, fun-to-play games for both remote and in-office teams that are sure to break the ice and build stronger team connections. Let’s wrap this up with one of the classic ice breakers, charades. You’ve undoubtedly played this as a kid or maybe at a party.

First, you’ll have to divide the members into two teams. Following that, provide some topics to each group, or have them run suggestions by you. During the meeting, you can post the questions alongside the answers provided in the survey. Based on that, members can guess who has responded icebreakers for virtual meetings to what. Ask everyone, “If you were to characterize yourself in a single word or short phrase, what would it be and why? ” This is a quick, simple, and entertaining approach to learning about a teammate’s motives, personalities, peculiarities, and often their lighter side.

Ice breakers for team-building

A host can even have discussion questions regarding the TED Talk prepared to present to the team via Zoom. https://remotemode.net/ Have your leadership summits and professional development seminars been cancelled until further notice?

It plays to strengths you may not know certain employees had—another positive byproduct of good team meetings. Any exercise that encourages people to share stories or memories will help break down walls. In this case, the prompt specifically focuses on people’s professional experiences. By asking team members to recall either their first or worst job , you’re encouraging them to share perspectives the rest of their teammates may not have considered.

Two Truths and a Lie

At the end of the year, you use the responses to find common themes and create your own culture book. Choose interesting activities based on the composition of the team. For example, team members’ age, background, and familiarity level with each other. Here are good examples of Would You Rather questions. Give each participant the opportunity to share their choice and the reasoning behind it.

Virtual team icebreakers are interactive activities that help remote teams connect on a personal level. They’re useful in situations where people are unsure of how to start. Take virtual inductions and remote onboarding, for example. This is one of those icebreaker games that work only for in-person meetings. First, pass colored paper sheets to your team members and ask them to write an interesting fact about themselves. Once they’re ready, each team member will throw his paper airplane to the other side of the room.

AirBnB Experiences with Your Team

They can cross the fence however they like as long as they don’t go under it. This icebreaker from Chron requires zero prep and very little time to complete, but it’s pretty unforgettable. Redistribute the shoes so everyone has one shoe that doesn’t belong to them.

Team members can do this by commenting on the chat section. Finally, the leader will ask the players to reveal the name of the chosen animal to confirm whether the guesses and the order is correct. Check out this list of team building songs for inspiration. The leader plays an instrumental track and encourages participants to sing the words karaoke-style. The leader may share the lyrics on a split-screen so that all members participate. However, at no other time during the game should both groups do the same action. To play this game, participants will remain silent as they act out a word or sentence.

Let’s Build a Story Together Icebreaker

We love it because it can be used as a relaxing activity before long meetings to put everyone in a good mood. Also, it’s a great option for brainstorming sessions – especially when you’re on the lookout for something creative.

This could work like, “Simon says touch your hips, Simon says hop on one foot, Simon says touch your nose — touch your ears! ” Whoever does the action will be booted out of the game because it wasn’t a Simon says action. Similar to Charades, Guess Who is a great icebreaker where you can mimic famous people — or even your coworkers.

Keep An Eye Out For Opportunities To Use Your Virtual Ice Breaker Questions

It can be something like their favorite color or whether they prefer cats or dogs. Meetings can sometimes fail because of what we bring to them, and we’re not talking about notebooks and cell phones. If meeting attendees feel stress, especially about the meeting itself, then tension will dominate the agenda. Reduce stress by opening the meeting with a mindfulness icebreaker. Start with three minutes of silent contemplation, and then have everyone write down what is stressing them out. When everyone finishes writing, tell them to rip up their stress. Have each meeting attendee bring their favorite icebreaker.

These cool questions will have everyone traveling in a time machine. Though there’s prep work to do for this icebreaker, the results could be well worth the effort. Have participants turn their cameras off but leave the sound on. Then, one person makes a sound close to the mic using something around their workspace, and everyone guesses what it is.