8 Super Quick Ice Breakers For Meetings
Explore our blog for more resources on how to stay productive when working in virtual teams, tips on online brainstorming and remote meetings and workshops. Use this game to prime your team for creativity before an online brainstorming session. Or make this a regular virtual icebreaker before your weekly meetings by picking a new topic each week.
Alternatively, you can break your team into smaller groups and ask them to come up with a consensus answer. Brought to you by writers with over a decade of experience as remote workers, digital nomads, distributed leaders and worldwide recruiters. Start the meeting by sharing something positive about your week and then ask the rest of the team to do the same. A great way to know more about your coworkers is through their offices. Maybe Ann loves motivational quotes and paintings, and her office is full of colors.
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One easy way to do icebreakers for your virtual meeting is to ask a question during the morning meeting. Icebreaker games are also effective but should take a short time to prepare. The simplest way is to ask icebreaker questions at the start of your meeting. As a manager or team leader, you want to start the session with something fun before diving into the work. Weekly team meetings or one-on-one conferences are about to get much more fun for remote teams.
Whether it’s something on their desk, across the house, or an object they just bought, show and tell is an easy icebreaker activity that’s stress-free. Playing an online version of Scattergories with remote team members is easy. Find a free website with the numbered die and category list. Everyone can record their answers through the site to play lightning rounds that get everyone talking. It may seem challenging for everyone to play a workplace game if they’re remote employees, but these games make it easy to plan icebreaker entertainment for everyone.
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Me Too is on the top list of virtual icebreaker ideas for meetings. This exercise pairs team members with similar experiences. There are lots of fun activities you can use to warm-up for a great virtual meeting – from both small to large attendance groups. Here icebreakers for virtual meetings are some interactive ice breaker games to get everyone participating and in a good mood for the meeting ahead. These are some of our favorites, but we love new ideas and ways of working together. We’re constantly adding to (and improving) our template library.
The key element to better teamwork, whether in person or remote, is connection. The more connected your teammates, coworkers, or employees feel, the more effective and productive the group becomes. To facilitate discussion, you can pull up a photo of an emotion wheel. But feeling frustrated arises from not being able to obtain something you want. This classic icebreaker works just as well online as in real life, though I’ve found it most effective in breakout rooms. The most interesting conversations that arise from this game are often about discussing the two truths that came up, rather than simply finding out if we’re right or wrong.
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You can use a Slido word cloud for that, but instead of words, your participants will submit an emoji. This works best with larger meetings and events when a large number of emojis gets submitted. Everyone can contribute and so you’ll take an instant pulse check on how everyone is feeling before the meeting.
In this game, each member has a short time limit, say within 10 seconds, to name something that fits the category. The game can reveal many interesting things about teammates you may not otherwise hear, like hobbies, favorite foods, childhood or travel experiences, etc. It’s hard to capture your team’s mood by asking classic questions like „How are you?“ Those simple questions often just get an „I’m good“ answer.
And then that person selects who will read their lips and so on. In some cases, you’ll be surprised with answers such as “Hard” and “Stressful,” and that’s when you can reach out to them and see how you can help. You never know if someone might need a kind word or advice, and with this question, you get to learn great advice from everyone on the team. We are all so busy that we forget about simple things such as asking our colleagues how they are doing. You can start your meeting with this question and go one by one to know more about their day or current situation.