Ask participants to share one interesting item from their fridge. It’s a fun, light-hearted way to kickstart a meeting, and who knows, it might even lead to some interesting recipe exchanges! Remember the good old days of school when everyone looked forward to show-and-tell sessions? Ask your team members to bring an object that tells a story or holds significance for them and have them share its story.
Ice Breaker #15: The Marshmallow Challenge
Often people don’t want to be the first one to speak up but with these 160+ questions, you are sure to get people talking! These questions are great as a team-building exercise for your next company event, virtual happy hour, or conference call. Even if your group knows one another quite well, these simple, fun, and highly-interactive activities will always start your program with a few laughs.
Virtual environments like Slack simulate spontaneous conversations typically found in physical office environments. You can also create a peer mentoring initiative where individuals are paired and encouraged to interact on their own. A timeless classic activity – yes, even beyond the first grade. In conclusion, ice breakers are a powerful tool for fostering connection and engagement in large virtual teams. By incorporating these activities into your meetings, you can create a more inclusive and collaborative virtual environment.
Ice Breaker Types with Descriptions
The attendees have 10 seconds to guess who the fact applies to in the chat before the conference leader reveals the answer. This is another excellent option for large groups because the words can come from anonymous coworkers. You can prompt them by explaining how your office hero is a specific team member who always meets their deadlines or rocked a presentation last week.
You may even find ways to leverage those unique talents, skills, and interests in the workplace. Remote teams miss the opportunity to get together for cocktails and drinks after work—traditionally, a prime time to bond with coworkers. Host a virtual cocktail hour after work one evening for your remote team to relax and hang out with their favorite drink from the comfort of their home. Ask your team to have something ready for show-and-tell during the next virtual meeting.
Set a timer for 30 seconds and review everyone’s submissions by reading through the chat when the time runs out. Amp up the hilarity by picking a meme or two if you’ll caption a group of pictures. Team leaders can collect responses before a meeting and display a few on a slide. Everyone submits their thoughts in chat before the answer gets revealed. Send your team a link for the geolocation of a spot in a random city. Ensure it’s a city where none of your coworkers live before giving them 10 minutes to find the airport.
Best Ice Breakers for Meetings to Energize Your Team
We hope you’ll try one of these virtual icebreakers at your next online meeting. With these ideas, you’ll improve team communication and build trust. Get inspiration from our virtual ice-breaker activities and let your team know you’re going to conduct these virtual icebreakers frequently.
Emoji Reaction Storytelling
Don’t forget to motivate your team to participate with simple prizes like $5 gift cards, a lunch surprise, a team shoutout, or front-of-office parking for the week. To engage everyone to move around the room, each high-five has to be a new person. For an exciting twist, use a loud countdown timer or a “ready, set, go…”.
This hands-on activity encourages teamwork, creativity, and quick thinking under time constraints. This is a great icebreakers for virtual meetings icebreaker if you want to get people moving around the room. This allows for deeper connections, broader perspectives, and hey, it makes for an incredibly fascinating meeting. Just remember to keep the shares short and sweet to keep the momentum going.
- Here at Museum Hack, we know that not all icebreaker questions are created equal.
- A virtual team-building activity builds an emotional connection between your remote teams and they can learn new things about each other.
- The hints written by comedians add an extra layer of humor to the game.
- Swap dancing with cycling, climbing, wine tasting, or any other activity your potential match has mentioned they enjoy.
All you have to do is invite the meeting members and ask them to spin the wheel one by one. For a fun twist, customize the themes to create different options on the wheel for different games, events, giveaways, raffles, and more. If you cannot strike up a conversation with other team members because you do not know each other well, then this is your chance to break the wall and get to know each other better. Ever found yourself in a virtual meeting where the silence feels deafening, and the screen seems to echo with disengagement?
Using ice breakers in regular meetings depends on the team’s needs and the meeting’s frequency. For weekly meetings, a brief ice breaker can help maintain a positive atmosphere and keep team members engaged. For less frequent meetings, ice breakers can help re-establish connections and set the tone for collaboration. To make ice breakers inclusive, choose activities that are accessible to everyone, regardless of their physical abilities or cultural background. Avoid topics that might make people uncomfortable and be mindful of diverse perspectives. Encourage participation without forcing anyone to share more than they’re comfortable with.
- Find out the best ice breakers for virtual meetings to help you have fun, engaging, and productive team meetings.
- At TestGorilla, we use Slack for casual chats and to celebrate each other’s wins.
- This classic game is an excellent way for team members to learn more about each other.
- Remember that your primary goal is to lower barriers and create shared experiences.
To learn more, check out Miro’s Icebreaker Game Guide
Polls are great ice breakers for remote and in-person teams, and tech like Slido makes it easy to build virtual polls. This is a popular mainstay on the list of best virtual icebreakers, especially for those members who are not as acquainted with one another. We played this game during the last weekly meeting to discover some intriguing facts about our team members.
Everyone can mention the top thing on their bucket list they haven’t done or have done to get to know each other. Branch out from the traditional idea of an icebreaker by using these fun ideas with your coworkers during an upcoming conference call. Your team can do the same thing with a picture or meme as a visual prompt. Ask them to caption it while a timer counts down during your next meeting, or email their captions before the meeting starts. Either way, everyone will have a laugh and show off their creative skills. Your team members can display their personalities by captioning a picture on their screens.
You can ask your team to answer the questions or invite them to brainstorm their questions before the meeting. This activity presents a lighthearted way for team members to talk about their successes and struggles with work that week. A “glow” can be any positive experience, achievement or moment of pride, while “grows” refers to moments or experiences that create an opportunity for improvement. To keep this game short, give each answer and question a time limit.