Moreover, Krisp automatically records, transcribes, and summarizes virtual meetings to simplify collaboration. Specifically, personal-question-based ice breakers are the best fit for team members who have worked together. As a rule, personal questions posed to meeting attendees who have never met can create awkwardness and embarrassment. I know many hate online ice breakers, especially when these activities are accompanied by background noise.
It’s easy to adapt with themes that suit your team’s interests, making it both engaging and memorable. One of the quickest icebreakers I’ve ever run, Shake down is as simple and effective as they come and it has the bonus of encouraging physical activity among your virtual team! Begin by asking the DeLaChat group to stand if they’re able and then shake each of their limbs eight times in turn. After shaking both arms and legs, then repeat the cycle for four shakes, two shakes, then a final shake with a ninja kick or big cheer.
This activity encourages participants to share personal anecdotes and learn more about each other, promoting a sense of camaraderie. In the age of remote work and virtual collaboration, large teams often face the challenge of fostering cohesion and camaraderie. Ice breakers are a fantastic way to bridge this gap, encouraging team members to connect on a personal level and build a sense of unity.
#3 Quiz Question Of The Day
Family, friends, interests, passions, and one’s work history are safe small-talk subjects for any crowd. There’s still tons of room to get to know people, but you’re less likely to accidentally run into conflict. Give the floor to a central actor, send them a secret message with the word they have to act out, and watch everyone try to guess. But many of us have encountered someone famous, and those of us who have are dying to tell our stories. If it’s the first meeting of the day, guests will still be shaking the sleep from their eyes, frantically slamming coffee, and trying to get their bearings. If it’s in the afternoon or evening, they might be bleary-eyed and fatigued from the workday.
They create a relaxed and comfortable environment that encourages team members to interact with each other. For our last activity, we recommend keeping it simple and creating a “random question of the week” activity. There are actually quite a few really good random question generators online, and having this as a 2 to 5-minute outro activity for your teams can really help with icebreaking. Simple, elegant, and open-ended questions open the door for people to get to know each other. Focusing on chain reactions in a company can be useful in an icebreaking session.
A scavenger hunt is an exciting game where participants are given a list of items to find, along with clues to help them locate those items. This question is a wonderful alternative to asking about current travel plans. After all, who doesn’t love the idea of traveling and exploring new places? It provides insights into a person’s interests and dreams, sparking engaging conversations. Referring to pop culture is a great way to connect with attendees and make your points more relatable.
Energizing Icebreaker Activities
Mood Barometer is a quick way to check in with the team and get a real sense of how everyone’s feeling. ” that often falls flat, try running a poll for a fresh approach. Give each person 30 seconds to talk about a favorite spot from home, a cool cultural fact, or a memorable place they’ve been to. You could be creating a whirlwind tour around the world, giving everyone a chance to share and learn something new about their colleagues.
Here’s a thoughtful ice break that can encourage gratitude, even for the smaller things in life. This is an effective technique people practice for mood-boosting and positivity. Haiku, a traditional Japanese form of poetry, uses three lines with a syllable structure to capture moments or feelings in a simple, expressive way. It might sound fancy, but after a while, your teams might learn to really enjoy them.
Towering Questions
Give everyone fake money to “bid” on skills they’d most like to learn from their teammates. The person with each skill becomes an auction item, and the highest bidder gets a mini-lesson during the session. Small groups brainstorm solutions to company challenges and “pitch” their ideas in 2-minute presentations. Other teams vote for the most creative solution, with the winning group receiving recognition. Then go around the group and have everyone share what word comes to mind when they hear it. For example, someone might say “Cold” and the next person could say “winter” and then the next person would say “sledding”, and so on.
Each group member adds to the story with their own emoji sequence. After everyone contributes, the leader reads the “story” aloud, interpreting the emojis creatively. Everyone changes their virtual background and tells a story (real or fictional) about why they chose it. The next team meeting can feature themed backgrounds chosen by the group. Before diving into any questions, establish ground rules that create safety. Forbes confirms that psychological safety functions as an equalizer in the workplace, particularly benefiting diverse employee groups.
Whether you’re aiming to get people talking, learn each other’s names, or just have a bit of fun, there’s a fun virtual ice breaker for every occasion. “Would you rather” is a pretty fun virtual icebreaker game, but it needs some preparation if you want to come up with creative questions. Start your virtual meeting by providing some light-hearted polls and hearing your team’s answers.
You’re building bonds for teams through photos and storytelling. Your virtual icebreakers should be short, interactive, memorable, fun, and easy to follow through on. Ice breakers for virtual meetings are lighthearted questions used to break the tension and awkwardness of people attending a virtual meeting.
- These activities serve as catalysts for breaking down social barriers, encouraging participation, and building rapport among participants.
- They’re all short, fun, and simple, so all you have to do is pick your favorite and load it at your next online Zoom meeting.
- This fun game encourages creativity and is a fun way to get everyone looking more closely at their surroundings.
- A scavenger hunt is an exciting game where participants are given a list of items to find, along with clues to help them locate those items.
A would you rather virtual icebreaker question is guaranteed to spark a lively discussion at the start of your meeting and help with breaking the ice. This collection of icebreaker games is a great source of more ideas that will work in both remote and live settings. Finding we have things in common with our colleagues is a gift. In this virtual ice breaker for Zoom, get people into pairs and invite them to find the most interesting or unexpected thing they have in common. This can work effectively with people who know each other well or people meeting for the first time, but be sure to highlight the need for a unique or unexpected thing in common. The Desert Island is an effective virtual icebreaker that allows your team to demonstrate their problem solving and collaboration skills.
The best thing about online escape rooms is that you don’t have to do much yourself. You only need to choose a platform that hosts these roomsOpens in a new tab, create a room, and invite everyone in. The virtual scavenger hunt version is easier because not everyone has to get all items. Because no one could leave their houses during the pandemic, a lot of virtual bars started popping up. Instead of chatting with your friends online, you could set up a virtual bar, where everyone can have a drink and chat with their friends across the screen.
With online ice breakers, you can help virtual teams feel more comfortable and improve the attendee experience. If you don’t have time for a game or activity, you can still engage remote teams in a fun activity like a virtual brainstorming session instead. This is a pretty good idea for creative teams working in fields like marketing, graphic design, advertising, etc. If you carry out your virtual meetings via Zoom or any online tool that allows backgrounds, you can try some easy, fun Zoom games like this one. Ask all the team members in the meeting to choose virtual backgrounds, then have a fun discussion about everyone’s choices.
For this icebreaker, have everyone take a free personality test, like the one offered by 16 Personalities. Once complete, it will provide a comprehensive breakdown of different aspects of your personality, which provides a great basis for further discussion and ice-breaking. Try this game when you’re bringing together a group that hasn’t met before. Have everyone change their display names to something else, or leave them blank.
Create a list of popular songs and have team members take the hot seat one by one. When you stop the music, the person sitting in the chair should finish the lyrics. Wrong answers result in funny consequences (like wearing a silly hat for the rest of the activity). Act out company values, department names, inside jokes, or current projects.
In Zoom meetings, where body language and water cooler interactions are often missing, icebreakers play a crucial role in fostering connection and creating a sense of camaraderie. Schedule a virtual coffee break where team members can chat and relax together. This informal setting allows for organic conversations and relationship building, which are essential for a cohesive team. Scavify offers a virtual scavenger hunt platform that can be customized to suit your team’s needs. This activity promotes team building as members work together to complete challenges and earn points. This activity not only promotes problem-solving and critical thinking but also encourages collaboration and communication among team members.
After ten minutes, every interviewer shares their interviewee’s superpower back with the main group. While one partner tells the story, the original storyteller will be spotlighted on camera, but on mute. They will lip-sync and mime the story while their partner tells it—as if they’re the one speaking. Once guesses are in, the fact owner reveals themselves and tells the backstory. You can also give effort-level alternatives, such as “Take us on a camera tour of your office” versus “point your camera towards the window so we can see your view”.
Icebreakers might seem like a simple concept, but Mirka reveals that the returns have been enormous for her team. We asked her to share some insights about why they’ve been so successful in helping her team to build a strong bond. Often, this leads to many fun moments, laughs, and inside jokes. The team gets to know each others’ likes and dislikes, as well as how they spend time outside of work. Kicking the meeting off on a high note is especially important, because it sets the tone and expectations of how the rest of it will go.