Inclusive games make for some of the best ice breakers: be sure to bare this in mind when deciding on icebreaker games for work or your next meeting. The object of this ice breaker game is to introduce event participants to each other by co-creating a mural-sized, visual network of their connections.
They will also need a substantial wall covered in butcher paper to create the actual network. Then they find the people they know and draw lines to make the connections. This is one of our favourite ice breakers for meetings, particularly if those involved in the meeting are distributed in interesting ways.
Low-tech Social Network gamestorming ice breaker opening. The object of this game is to introduce event participants to each other by co-creating a mural-sized, visual network of their connections.
Ice breaker games usually all have a strong aspect of teamwork and collaboration as people work together in groups to accomplish a challenge or solve a puzzle.
Therefore these team icebreakers can also be used as part of team building events and team development workshops. They are meant to fast-track group familiarity and increase the socialization process in a new or existing environment.
With increased social interaction, people naturally learn how to work together more productively — the mood can warm up between colleagues who are normally highly formal with each other. The best ice breakers have the power to strengthen coworker bonds, stimulate better brainstorming sessions, and create an atmosphere of inclusivity.
In eighteen minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow.
The marshmallow needs to be on top. It emphasizes group communication, leadership dynamics, collaboration, innovation and problem solving strategy. Fun icebreakers for meetings can be hard to find — The Marshmallow Challenge is one of those icebreaker games for work that feels almost like play.
The Marshmallow Challenge was developed by Tom Wujec, who has done the activity with hundreds of groups around the world. Ice breaker ideas that are fun, well designed and have a proven track record are definitely worth a try. Marshmallow challenge with debriefing teamwork team leadership collaboration. Visit the Marshmallow Challenge website for more information.
This version has an extra debriefing question added with sample questions focusing on roles within the team. This fun activity could be used as an icebreaker both for people who have just met and for already existing teams. Breaking people up into groups, each one needs a fresh egg, some straws, masking tape and other items for creating a package to protect the egg.
Using the raw materials provided, the team goal is to build a structure that will support a free falling egg dropped from a predetermined height e. Get to know you games with an element of danger are always fun ice breakers for meetings. This is a method that shows and fosters team communication, collaboration and strategic thinking as well.
Egg drop teampedia collaboration teamwork ice breaker team. This fun activity could be used as an icebreaker for people who have just met but it can be framed as a method that shows and fosters team communication, collaboration and strategic thinking as well.
Line up people in two rows facing each other. Introduce the Helium Stick and ask participants to hold their index fingers out. The goal is to lower the Stick to the ground in a way that no one lets go of it at any time. Pinching, grabbing or holding on properly to the Stick is not allowed.
If the group makes a mistake, they start from the beginning. With the right group, Helium Stick is one of the most fun icebreakers out there. Helium Stick teampedia team teamwork ice breaker energiser. A great and simple activity for fostering teamwork and problem solving with no setup beforehand. Blindfold your seated participants. Leave the circle and ask them to form a perfect square from the rope without looking. When people think they are finished, they can remove their blindfolds to see the result.
Blind Square is one of the icebreaker games you can use to highlight leadership and communication — some people will want to take charge, while others are more comfortable following direction. Also, it can be repeated after the first try to see if they can improve their collaboration.
Blind Square — Rope game teamwork communication teambuilding team energiser thiagi outdoor. When the correct game is chosen, everyone benefits from the energy they bring to any meeting or event. Remember that choosing ice breakers for meetings, even if those meetings are business-critical does not mean that you should discount fun icebreakers. This ice breaker activity is a fun one that requires some creativity. It enhances a sense of community because people have to draw the others as a group — not just between the drawers, but the recipients of the portraits too.
The outcome is very visual and colourful, the images can be put up in the meeting room. Meeting ice breakers that produce physical results can really help ensure the work of the meeting continues afterwards!
Portrait Gallery hyperisland team ice breaker. The Portrait Gallery is an energetic and fun icebreaker game that gets participants interacting by having the group collaboratively draw portraits of each member. It also has a very colourful visual outcome: the set of portraits which can be posted in the space.
Have players mingle and ask each other questions to find out who they are. Make sure the figures are generally well recognizable. What is my name is one of those icebreaker games for work that is easy to set-up and get going and is fun for all involved.
This is a warm-up to really get a group energized. It is a game based on the traditional Rock Paper Scissors game but with a twist. The people who lost become fans and have to cheer for the players still in the game. If there are a larger number of people, you can have multiple tournaments. Keep your ice breaker simple and ensure everyone can get involved easily. Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament energiser warm up remote-friendly.
This goes on until a final showdown with two large cheering crowds! Ice breaker ideas can come from anywhere, and so can great ideas. Create a surprise sentence by saying one word at a time. Give a general topic. The first person in the group says one word to a topic.
The next person continues with another word. Eventually, the group creates a whole sentence by each member contributing only one word at a time. One Word Method product development idea generation creativity ice breaker online warm up.
Creating a sentence relating to a specific topic or problem with each person contributing one word at a time. Use squeaky toys, whoopie cushions, bubble wrap and the like. Everyone takes turns going around the course while blindfolded, guided by their teammates. The goal is: help each to navigate through the minefield. Ice breaker games can be as simple as they need to be to start the process of getting a team working together.
Have fun whether your ice breaking activities are designed for meetings or workshops by being open to even the most off the wall ice breaker ideas. This ice breaker helps people ease in a group and brings out their creativity without a lot of effort. Splitting the group into pairs, each pair develops a creative handshake. Once done, the pair splits and each individual partners with another group member.
The newly formed pair then teaches each other the original handshakes and together creates a new one. You can break up and pair off people as many times as you want. Crazy Handshake ice breaker get-to-know opening teampedia team. This activity helps people ease in a group and brings out their creativity without a lot of effort.
Divide players into several groups and have each team come up with an idea for a movie they want to make. They should prepare a pitch within 10 minutes. Team icebreakers like this are great if you want to ease people in without referencing the main tasks of the workshop too soon. Remember that ice breakers for meetings can be unrelated to the main discussion depending on your end goal.
They must surprise other players by pointing to them. Fun icebreakers where you can come up with many different strategies on how to surprise people like Bang are great for kicking of meetings.
Bang hyperisland energiser. Bang is a group game, played in a circle, where participants must react quickly or face elimination. A good activity to generate laughter in a group. It can also help with name-learning for groups getting to know each other. Have new team mates tell a joke at their first all-hands meeting. This is a great way to encourage people to be vulnerable and also ensures the meetings start on a cheery note. The activity involves participants standing in a circle and throwing imaginary ball s to each other in increasing pace.
When throwing the first ball, the person starting should make a special sound that has to be repeated by the catcher upon receiving the ball. Once the ball is being thrown around at a fairly brisk pace, you can introduce another imaginary ball and start throwing it. When the group gets proficient at it, you can have three or four balls in play. Another classic among ice breakers for meetings, Sound Ball deserves your attention.
Sound Ball energiser ice breaker thiagi team outdoor. This a simple icebreaker activity energising participants, also suitable for debriefing learning points towards spontaneity and teamwork. This is a seemingly contradictory ice breaker that actually results in lots of smiles. Instruct everyone to keep a straight face and do not smile under ANY circumstance in the first five minutes of the meeting.
People turn into children with an instruction like this, and immediately start looking at others, seeing how they cope. The anticipation makes everyone giggly, so after a while they cannot suppress their laughter anymore.
We love ice breaker ideas that encourage people to try new things and are surprising too. Some of the best ice breaker games are those that encourage laughter, and the no smiling game is great for that! We hope you have found some useful tips for practical and fun ice breaker games and ice breaker ideas in the list above.
Remember that some ice breakers for meetings can scale to the size of your group while others work best with lots of people. Find the best team icebreakers for your specific group and purpose and you can help ensure they are successful!
What are your favourite ice breaker activities? Have you tried any of the methods above? How did you find them? Let us know about your experiences in the comments. I forgot that I had to present a game or what-ever for a Red Hat meeting tomorrow. Thanks for this list! Great list! Here are some of the icebreakers I use: 1- Batikha Watermelon in Arabic The group sits or stands in a circular form.
One person starts by placing their palms on their mouth as if they are holding a ball watermolon and passing it to the person on their side if they pass it to the person on their right, they must use their left hand pointing to the right direction , the next person carries on with this rhythm. At any point anyone could decide to reverse the path of the ball by changing their hand and the pointing to the other person. This is when it gets tricky because if anyone else -other than the person pointed to takes an action by raising their hands they get out of the circle.
Groups will be presented with an icebreaker, and randomly paired one-on-one with a coworker to answer the question in breakout rooms. Participants will then be brought back to the main room for a different question and re-randomized for another round. At the end, everyone will come together to share their most fun, interesting, or weird fact. Mix things up with a fun virtual happy hour icebreaker to start the last meeting of the week off right.
This online mixology icebreaker event includes a delicious beverage team members can sip on as they crush the big meeting and get down to business. Star your Zoom call with an expert mixologist in the break room teaching you and your teammates how to prepare a delicious drink! Tip: Send everyone joining your virtual mixology get-to-know-you activity a box of snacks that pairs with their drinks. You can find some great options to explore here. Kick off your meetings by playing a few rounds of charades where the presenters can pick only office-related things.
Pro-Tip: There is also an virtual version of office charades that can be found here. Bambee , a company dedicated to helping small businesses with their HR needs , sees eating as a fantastic team bonding experience and icebreaker for new hires.
Food can also be the perfect topic for a short icebreaker. One of our favorite things, however, is the food. World-renowned for the available cuisine, our team loves to take advantage by grabbing a bite to eat with a new hire or after a full day of work to unwind. Break the ice by asking everyone what dish they would want to prepare for the team.
Bring in the head of your department or project and give everyone 15 minutes to ask any questions they have, no holds barred. This icebreaker gets everyone thinking about the topic of your meeting. It might even clarify some of the issues the meeting aims to solve. During this icebreaker from the American Management Association , participants choose a brand logo they identify with and explain why.
Water Cooler Trivia gives you and your team weekly trivia quizzes that spark conversation and competition. The trivia is super-customizable so you can choose the categories and difficulty that work for your team. The best way to use Water Cooler Trivia as a meeting icebreaker? Set up the quizzes so that the results are sent right when your weekly meeting starts.
Then your team can celebrate the winner and laugh at the funniest responses as a light-hearted way to break the ice. Did someone say swag??? Here is a creative idea to try out during your next company meeting that will quickly help to break the ice and get everyone smiling:. Side-Note: this is also a great feedback mechanism to help you determine which pieces of swag people really want based on how many times they are traded. Gamestorming recommends kicking off meetings by having everyone make trading cards to represent their personalities.
An excellent strategy to highlight your company culture , give everyone about ten minutes to pick out the biggest problems they see in the office and quickly dream up solutions.
People can volunteer to pitch their ideas. Encourage problem solving and creative thinking by declaring the room a safe zone, even if the boss is in the room. These quick ice breaker ideas will break the thickest of ice, and it might even inspire some projects if someone pitches an idea that resonates with the room. Have everyone leave one shoe by the door. This challenge from Tom Wujec , a business visualization expert, makes the perfect icebreaker and team-building hybrid.
Break your meeting attendees into groups of four. Give each group 20 sticks of spaghetti, 1 yard of tape, 1 yard of string, and one marshmallow. Ask them to build the tallest freestanding structure they can. Sit back and see what happens. We recommend something harmless and funny, like squeaky toys. Now everyone takes turns navigating the obstacles while blindfolded, guided only by the shouts and direction of their teammates.
To conduct this inspirational icebreaker, give everyone five minutes to think of a recent situation where one of their co-workers blew them away with their skills and kindness. Now have everyone tell the stories to the rest of the group. Make a list of icebreaker questions , pop them on the projector, and ask employees if they know the answers. Individual buzzers could be totally cool if you have any on hand! Here are some question ideas:. Govloop has a counter-intuitive icebreaker that actually leads to lots of laughter.
Get the camera ready to take some silly pictures. To conduct this idea from William Joseph , just give employees a few minutes to scroll through their Instagram photos and pick a snapshot they want to share with the group.
They can share the photo and explain why they picked it. This will help some personality shine through, especially if people on your team need to get to know each other. You can also pick a photo to caption together and schedule the Instagram post for a time to review at your next meeting. If you were looking for some team icebreakers — this would be the one. Use this student-centric icebreaker idea from the Cult of Pedagogy in your next meeting.
Start out by posing a harmless would you rather question that prompts people to choose a side. Here are some examples:.
Have everyone physically divide into sides—pro pizza to the right; pro taco to the left. Let all the like-minded people discuss the virtues of their position for a while, and then have a representative try to sell the other side of the room.
This will give everyone a chance to see things from different perspectives. This icebreaker takes the cake on ease. Have each meeting attendee bring their favorite icebreaker.
Everything employees do will be self-inflicted. This FairyGodBoss icebreaker helps teammates get to know each other on a deeper level by discovering what they have in common. Split people into groups and tell them to find out how many things they have in common. The group who discovers the most things in common wins, so it pays to be persistent and thoughtful. Physical features and clothing colors do not count! Each group will announce what they have in common to the rest of the group.
Have everyone else raise their hand if they also have the thing in common. Most people, especially in work environments, avoid conflict like the plague. Because this exercise involves drama, and there are few things people find more compelling than that. Start by selecting your conflict premise.
Create your discussion questions. For example:. Tell them your premise and set a timer for 5 minutes. Make sure they know they can behave however they want and say anything they want. After the skit, set a timer for 10 minutes and pose your discussion questions with the group. Spyfall is a role-playing and guessing game rolled into one. Game summary: The interface assigns each player an identity. To play, everyone asks each other thoughtful questions until someone has enough clues to wager a guess.
Most games last less than 15 minutes. Thought experiments prep people to challenge assumptions and status quos and to think outside the box. This icebreaker will be especially helpful before a brainstorming session. The Thiagi Group has a toolkit that will help you get started with some meeting-appropriate, quick thought experiments that get participants considering the work competencies and skills they value most in themselves.
This activity allows team members to get to know one another on a more personal level and can lead to feelings of welcomeness and friendship.
Put meeting attendees out of the spotlight and invite an inspirational speaker to break the ice before your meeting. Make sure everyone has their smartphones. We doubt this will be a problem. Send everyone a link to a personality quiz you think they would like. Since there are probably over a million quizzes circulating, we know there will be one to pique your interest.
Everyone can take the quiz and then reveal their results to the group. Have everyone explain why they agree or disagree with the results. This idea from Lifehack requires minimal effort and minimal funds. To play, pass a roll of toilet paper around and have everyone rip off how much they would usually use.
When the toilet paper makes it all the way around the circle, have everyone count their squares. The number of squares each person took is the number of fun facts they have to reveal about themselves. While the tours are a fun and informative way to learn about the City of Lights from the comfort of your desk, they are also expertly crafted to encourage active collaborative participation from team members and get them ready to engage before the next meeting.
Hop into a gameroom and choose from a list of lighthearted or deep questions to get to know your teammates better. Or if you prefer, you can hang out over a game of cards, Werewolf or Draw It to let the fun times happen organically! 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. Put all the scraps together in a bowl on the table. Prep your meeting table with art supplies.
At the very least, provide 2 sheets of paper and 1 pencil for everyone. But if you think your team will be into it, then go ahead and go crazy with colored pencils, paint, glue, dry noodles, and anything else you can stick on paper.
Give everyone a prompt to avoid creative block. Do you have any favorite fun icebreakers you want to share? Let us know in the comments below. SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
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Any ideas for a conflict management training session? I found mindfulness icebreaker and problem solution icebreakers closer to my subject. I am looking at an icebreaker which will set the tone for the 2 day training program. Get a two litre bottle of fizzy drink and pass it to someone.
Ask them to say something that makes them feel really angry, they can say it in an angry voice and as they say it; they should give the bottle an angry shake. Then ask them to pass the bottle onto the person next to them; and repeat with each person in the room. When the bottle comes back to you, get a cloth and gently open the bottle releasing all the gas. You have choices in how you respond to anger, you can add more, or you can find ways to reduce tensions.
No prep is needed to play Jackbox. Reach your people with Biteable Teams. Personalized branded videos, easy collaboration, and dedicated training. Hype up your team in advance with a video invite full of the need-to-know details.
There are plenty of sets of trivia questions you can borrow from the internet. Who it works for: New teams who need to get acquainted; remote teams looking to build camaraderie from afar. Level up with video: Do your trivia sesh right by turning your questions into a video quiz. You can even include snippets of video or images for multimedia questions. Be ambitious with the problems you assign. Make it big enough to be complicated, with many possible solutions.
Who it works for: Remote or in-office teams that need to practice working and problem-solving together closely.
Level up with video: Introduce the problem with a video perfect for online teams. Press play to explain the rules and what the solution should look like, then send teams off into their breakout rooms to come up with an answer. Creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable and able to raise and resolve a disagreement is a bonus. Set up two teams of three and assign a moderator. Instead, make your debates simply about having a well-formed argument.
It can work well to create debate topics relevant to your industry so everyone already has the expertise to argue either side. These activities are best saved for when you can gather in the same room. Use the office or turn these ideas into a team outing — either way, use a video to share the who, what, when, wheres. Break everyone into small groups three per group work well here. The aim is simple: use whatever materials you can find to build the tallest structure.
The way people interpret the rules and treat their competitors without a strict etiquette guideline is always revealing. This icebreaker is also a great way to flex a different part of the brain.
For employees who work on laptops all day, using your hands is a refreshing change of pace. Level up with video: While everyone is running around trying to build their structure, play an infographic video in the background that gives out valuable hints and tricks. Warning: neither a fence nor electricity is needed for this one. Just grab a piece of string or yarn and suspend it across a walkway. The string represents an electric fence, and the goal is to get everyone in the team over without touching it.
To succeed requires a bit of team organization and a lot of practical sense. No, not that kind of lineup we hope. This one is exactly as advertised. No one is allowed to talk but the group needs to find a way to wordlessly communicate and get into a line in the right order. The easiest version of this challenge is to have everyone line up according to height.
But you can kick it up a notch by asking them to line up according to date of birth or when they started working at your company. Unique and shared is an easy way of building links between your team members.
For the first round, divide everyone into randomly assigned groups of two or three. During each subsequent round, increase the group sizes. The goal for each round is to find a commonality between all people in that group. The trick is, no one can use the same shared trait twice. Assign points on a sliding scale based on how quickly groups find their shared trait.
Who it works for: In-person teams. This icebreaker game also works for remote teams if you can put them in smaller breakout rooms. Facilitating deep and critical conversation is a great way to help your team align on a deeper level.
For this getting-to-know-you activity to succeed, spend time researching critical and work-appropriate questions beforehand.
During the activity, pitch a few of the best questions to your team. As the moderator, your job is to ensure everyone has a chance to speak equally. Otherwise, this icebreaker can easily become a contest for the spotlight. Who it works for: Established teams who work together in-person. Level up with video: Create a quick animated text video displaying the rules of engagement asking people to be respectful and open-minded, for example , followed by a minute countdown timer to keep the meeting on track.
In the lead up to this getting-to-know-you game, collect a few weird items that would be difficult to identify just from touch mind puzzles, strange toys, or obscure tools are always a winner. Divide everyone into teams of two. Give one person on each team a piece of paper and a pen, and sit them where they can hear — but not see — their partner.
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