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Personally, if I could go 3 minutes without searching for a volleyball to paint a face on, I’d basically consider myself Bear Grylls. Just ask the question in the title, remove the ‘name’ field for participants, hide the results, and reveal them one-by-one. It’s great for injecting a sense of instant togetherness into your meeting. Let everyone have their say about their hometown or where they’re living right now. Once they’ve decided if they’re feeling more like Arnold Schwarzenegger sipping tea or a collapsed pavlova, they can see the results of their voting in a chart. AhaSlides lets you create up to 10,000 entries on a colourful spinning wheel. Think of that enormous wheel on Wheel of Fortune, but one with more options that don’t take a decade to finish a spin.
- If you need inspiration for Never Have I Ever questions, find 250 of them here.
- In this game, the organizer will announce that they will use an unusual word in the conversation at the start of a meeting.
- Send a designated sketcher a Pictionary prompt through direct message, and give them up to one minute on the whiteboard until people guess the right answer.
- This icebreaker—great for small or large groups—is inspired by the Spectrum Questions card by Facilitator Cards.
- Everyone can vote on their favorite picture and the one with maximum votes goes up on the team channel as its profile or gallery picture!
- Use a ranking poll question, add as many options as you wish, and let your participants rank them.
This icebreaker works best for groups of 3 to 10 employees who have met at least once or twice. If you have a larger group, you can modify this icebreaker by using breakout groups so it doesn’t take as long to complete.
Tip #5. But don’t call it an icebreaker
Think of them as interactive activities that help you connect with other employees on a personal level. According icebreakers for virtual meetings to a Team Bonding report, 65% of remote employees have never had a team-building session activity.
You can also organize icebreaker activities during the meeting that will help everyone get to know each other better. Try incorporating some fun themes or games into the meeting to keep everyone engaged. Suppose your virtual team has already been functioning for some time. In that case, you might dig deeper with questions that stimulate a bit more reflection and thoughts. That’s why you need to call an all hands meeting so that everyone gets to introduce themselves to the new hire, and vice versa. Virtual team icebreakers can calm nerves and enable everyone to relax. It lightens up the mood, making the team feel equally comfortable.
Stretch ‘n Share
This can include anything from their favorite food to their alma mater or pet’s name. Once everyone is back in the main space, ask each team to present their answers to each question. You can also ask 10–15 questions and then review all the answers in order instead of individually for efficiency. Your staff might be concerned about the outcome of this team meeting.
They help to break down the boundaries between different job titles, or in today’s global environment, different cultures. They allow even your quietest participant to put forward great ideas that will spur engagement for the rest of the meeting. To warm up the meeting, your team can play a Rock-paper-scissor game.
How do we facilitate better teamwork in a virtual environment?
You can do this through team-based quizzes, activities, ice breaker presentations, or open-ended questions, all of which get your staff back to working together. You certainly play the game Simon Says at least once in your childhood. One player takes the role of “Simon” and gives a command starting with Simon saying and issuing an action and all players have to obey. Those who fail to follow the command will be out and others continue around the circle, and the next person makes a statement. Start by filling in the entries of the wheel with your activities or questions . Then, when it’s meeting time, share your screen on Zoom, call on one of your team members and spin the wheel for them. Talking through positive things people have going on offers a necessary respite from the potentially draining effect of remote work, not to mention a heavy news cycle.
As you kick off your meeting, ask your teammates to post their highlights in an open text poll. Then, display the highlights on the screen, and give a shout-out to each one.
Publish your results the next day and allow your employees to comment on the results. When you’re creating your questions, just make sure to keep it fun and avoid political or divisive questions. Use a virtual whiteboard or other apps to have employees add important milestones. https://remotemode.net/ You can keep your timeline open, too, so employees can add important events as they happen. Creating a team movie featuring each of your employees is a great way to get your team connected. To get started, ask each of your employees to submit a short video.
The beauty of these icebreaker games is that you don’t need to be physically together. At most, you’ll need to share your screen — something you likely already do frequently during online meetings. This is also a fun game for teams that have recently started working together online. It’s a great way to get team members to open up by asking them fun questions that break the ice. Virtual or not, a team’s trust relies on the quality of communication! Virtual ice breaker questions are an excellent way of breaking down strict or formal business barriers to boost team bonding for good rapport and productivity.
