35 Ice Breakers to Energize Your Zoom Meetings

A person in the call (you select who) needs to say what they think you say. And then that person selects who will read their lips and so on. And if you want better meetings, you MUST send this article to your meeting planner. I’m going to convince you to upgrade the age-old icebreaker.

• This allows everyone to get to know each other and adds the fun piece of finding out how sneaky some people can be.
• Settle your group into feeling like they’re part of the whole, and help them feel closeness even though they’re in a large crowd.
• The activities listed below can be great solutions for remote teams as well as leadership and executive meetings.
• People could bond over memories of homemade outfits or the costumes they wore on repeat.
• This question can generate great and interesting cinema debates.

Introverts will appreciate this, as it feels more comfortable to share something in a pair, compared to the whole team. When was the last time you randomly bumped into someone in a hallway in your office and shared a good chat with them? Or, had a deep conversation about life, the universe, and everything with a bunch of colleagues in a kitchenette or by the watercooler? Depending on the setup you’re in, divide your colleagues into smaller groups (if you’re in an online setup, use breakout rooms) and ask them to discuss their struggles. These are great get-to-know-you games and longer team-building activities that will both entertain and bring the team closer together.

Rollercoaster Check-in

Everyone can guess what the abbreviation means until the answer gets revealed. Create an abbreviation using your company’s mission statement or your team’s name before writing it on a whiteboard so everyone can take turns guessing. Put all your team members’ names into a random name or word selector website, like the random picker from MiniWebTool. When the site chooses a name, that person has five seconds to name one famous mom. Characters like Mother Goose, Morticia Addams, or even celebrities will pop up and remind everyone of people or figures they loved growing up.

Once 5-10 minutes have passed, bring everyone back together and share the funniest moments from the activity. Playing this icebreaker game over Zoom is incredibly stress-free. Pick a genre and then pick five options that your team members must rank from their favorite to their least favorite.

Guess who: coworker edition

IRL meetings may opt for a minute group play, whereas remote teams may prefer a few days or a week for coworkers to chat with virtually each other. Zoom has taken top place as the most popular communication platform for large, virtual teams. As a result, it is incredibly likely that you and your team will be using Zoom and looking for an excellent way to break the ice. Check out the 11 very best virtual icebreakers for large teams that we have listed below.

You can also help everyone get to know each other by using family-based icebreakers to start conversations with your remote team members. Team leaders icebreakers for virtual meetings can collect responses before a meeting and display a few on a slide. Everyone submits their thoughts in chat before the answer gets revealed.

Ice Breaker Category 4: Fun Activities

If everyone in the room works at the same company, that commonality wouldn’t count. This is a way to get people exploring beyond what they already know about each other. Yes, my family called me Sasa because my little sisters couldn’t say “Vanessa.” And I lived in China during college. This icebreaker is a great way to get to know each other, and to have some laughs along the way. In small groups, you can use great questions to get people to open up. For example, GeoGuessr might drop you in a random spot on a canal, and you might use building signs or other clues to help you guess where in the world you are.

People can name two true things about their family and one lie to keep things light and exciting. Topics can range from their immediate or extended family members as preferred. Science of People offers over 1000+ articles on people skills and nonverbal behavior. Icebreakers are one of the easiest ways to break down social barriers in the workplace. But if they get too complicated or go on for too long, people might get bored or impatient waiting to get to work.