Ugh, another meeting. That’s how people think. Meetings are boring, pointless wastes of time that take one away from actually doing their work. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Meetings can be productive if they stick to an agenda and start with an ice breaker.
Preparing your in-person or virtual meetings and adding ice breaker questions for work is a process, of course, so let’s start at the beginning. Drop drab intros like, “You’ve probably wondered why I’ve gathered you here today.” Yawn. Just like a speech gets attention by opening with an ice breaker question or joke, a team meeting needs to open in a way that creates a team-bonding environment. So, what are some ice breakers for meetings? They should be collaborative, and you can even use team collaboration tools to help elicit ideas from the team members.
Why Do Ice Breakers for Meetings?
Ice breakers are fun. Yes, meetings are about getting down to business, but opening one with an ice breaker is a way to break through that bad attitude that many might bring to the meeting. It’s also a way to get to know the people on your team. The closer the relationships, the better people work together.
Don’t think of an ice breaker as just a silly excuse to get people involved. It’s a team-building exercise. This is true for the coworker in the next cubicle or the remote worker on their computer at home. Ice breakers unite people, build better attitudes and create happier, more productive teams.
Who Should Participate in Ice Breaker Questions?
The short answer is everyone. The long answer is that total involvement is essential for team building. Therefore, the person who is tasked with bringing the ice breaker to the meeting shouldn’t just be the one leading the meeting. That responsibility should rotate, allowing everyone to bring something to the table.
Ice breakers for meetings should be collaborative in creation and execution. Have fun with it and learn what the guy next to you likes to have for breakfast or their favorite pastime. Okay, those are pretty lame ideas. Need inspiration? Read on, below are some of the best ice breaker games to make meetings fun.
40 Best Ice Breaker Games to Make Your Meetings Fun
Here are some fun meeting ice breaker questions. Try them and let us know what you think. If you have techniques that you’ve used, share them with us. Together we can use ice breaker games and team-building activities to make meetings less dreadful!
Best Team Building Ice Breakers
Getting a team to work together means building that team. Team-building ice breakers do just that, break that ice that freezes teams in a rigid way. Using these games will help to melt that ice and build the bonds that all well-performing teams have developed.
1. Superpower Selection
This is an oldie, but a goodie. Everyone is asked what superpower they would choose and why. There are the obvious ones, such as being able to fly or having superhuman strength, but there’s sure to be an oddball who’ll come with some leftfield power that is going to get some laughs. It’s a lighthearted ice breaker to get to know everyone better.
Get your free
Meeting Minutes Template
Use this free Meeting Minutes Template for Word to manage your projects better.
2. Zombie Apocalypse
Okay, this is a strange one, but it’s sure to bring people out of their shells and help build a collaborative environment. Ask how everyone would survive in a world in which zombies ran wild. Not only will this uncover the survivalists in the group, but the ice breaker will show people’s coping skills. Watch out for the guy who says he’d just get killed as fast as possible to get the nightmare over with.
3. Bucket List
No, it’s not an ice breaker to name your favorite type of bucket. A bucket list collects the things a person wants to do before they die. Yes, it’s a bit morbid, but understanding that we are but mortal beings might help motivate the team to get their tasks done on time so they might actually cross off some of those bucket list items.
4. One Word Game
What’s the one word you’d use to describe yourself? Everyone picks one and then they’re referred to by that name throughout the meeting. It’s more than a silly way to start the meeting; it helps you learn about the personality traits of your team members and lets everyone get to know one another a bit better. The best part of this ice breaker game it’s that it’s great for virtual meetings and remote teams.
5. Pet Introductions
Not everyone has a pet, but those who do are passionate about them. Take a moment for those pet owners to introduce their pets to the group. If the ice breaker is added to the meeting announcement, they can even bring a picture, which is sure to get some oohs and ahs. For those people who don’t have pets, they can explain why they’re heartless monsters.
6. Time Period
Ask everyone in the meeting about what time period they would like to visit if they had a time machine. It can include the future. This will reveal a lot about the group. For example, who knew the IT guy was into the Renaissance? Well, everyone actually, as he won’t stop talking about last weekend’s Renaissance Faire.
7. Personality Quiz
This one is a great team-building activity that works great for small teams. Simply grab or create a personality quiz and hand it to your team members. Once they fill it out, ask each of them whether they agree with the results and ask them a couple of ice breaker questions. This is a great conversation starter and a great way to know your team members’ personality traits.
Related: 10 Strategies to Motivate Your Team
8. Two Truths and One Lie
This is an easy and fun ice breaker game to get everyone putting down their guard, which allows for teams to work better together. Each person states three facts, two truths and one lie. They can be personal facts, historical facts or anything else. Now the others have to guess which is the untruth.
9. The End…
Write a fragment of a sentence on a whiteboard or a piece of paper or just say it aloud to the group. Now ask them to complete it. You can take this in any number of directions, from a project-related sentence to a morale-related one or even something in a Mad Libs manner.
10. Share the Love
In the heat of work, it’s easy to forget that you’re a group of people and not automatons on deadline. Yes, there’s a part of you that must be dispassionate and devote yourself to the whole, but ignoring the individual and their emotional needs will come back to haunt you and your productivity. Share the love is a game that remedies that by having everyone on the team say something nice about another person on the team. Keep it respectful and in good taste and you’ll watch the smiles rise over the faces of everyone on the team.
Team building ice breakers are important to boost morale, but even the most cohesive group needs the right tools to get their work done. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that empowers teams to plan, manage and track their work in real time. Our multiple project views, including Gantt charts, kanban boards and task lists, all have task cards that facilitate collaboration with real-time commenting, easy file sharing and much more. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.
Best Ice Breaker Games for Work Meetings
Games act as great ice breaker questions. They’re fun and build teamwork, if you choose the right games. These games are fun and facilitate the collaboration that your team needs to work well together and stay productive.
Related: 10 Super Fun Team Bonding Games
11. Mystery Object Game
This one will take a bit of planning, but that makes it more engaging. The idea for this ice breaker is to have everyone bring in a random object from their workspace and share its story or significance. People love to personalize their desks or offices, but the reason behind the object is not always evident. This will offer a nice window into a coworker’s personality.
12. Reverse Pictionary
Most everyone is familiar with Pictionary. It’s where someone has to draw a word that they’ve been given and the group has to guess what that word is from their drawing. Only this turns the game around. Instead of drawing, describe an object without naming it while others try to guess what it is. This ice breaker is fun and sets a good tone for the start of the meeting.
13. The Marshmallow Game
This ice breaker game was first introduced by Tom Wujec in a TED talk. It’s great for team bonding because it requires people to work together to build a structure using 20 spaghetti sticks, 1 yard of tape, 1 yard of string and a marshmallow in 18 minutes. There’s one rule for this construction project, the marshmallow must be on top.
14. Paper Airplane Game
This is one of those ice breaker questions that work only for in-person meetings. Here’s how it works. First, pass colored paper sheets to your team members and ask them to write an interesting fact about themselves. Then ask them to make a paper airplane. Once they’re ready, each team member will throw his or her paper airplane to the other side of the room. Pick up the paper airplanes, read them out loud and have them guess whose paper airplane it is.
15. Exquisite Corpse
This is an ice breaker game that was created by the Surrealists in which you divide a piece of paper into three. Three people must draw the head, torso and legs, respectively, without seeing what the person before them drew. Inevitably, the final drawing is a hoot. So, break the group up into threes and have them get drawings as you set up the meeting. Who cares if they draw well or not? The worse they draw, the more hilarious the outcome.
16. Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger hunts are a great team-building activity for new hires because it lets them get familiarized with the office. A surprise scavenger hunt is a great ice breaker game to get everybody to know each other and collaborate. Once the scavenger hunt is finished, everybody can have a productive meeting.
17. Hot & Cold
Hide something in the room, maybe some money or the meeting agenda or something random. Then, have the team try and work together to discover it. You only can respond by saying they’re hot or cold when they search. Depending on how big your meeting room is, this might be an absurd assignment, but that just makes it a better ice breaker.
18. The Squid Game
The Netflix hit from Korea, Squid Game is the opposite of an ice breaker, it’s a depressing illustration of “every man for himself.” But the premise is built on playing a bunch of children’s games. When you’re a child, playing an ice breaker game in the mud with a stranger ends with you both best friends. Using the popular show as a starting point, ask the group to come up with things they played in childhood. Whatever games, from blind man’s bluff to dodgeball, it doesn’t matter. You’ll find at the end of the team-building exercise that everyone is laughing and happily working together.
19. Stand Up
Remove the chairs from the room in which you’re meeting and tell everyone that it’s a standup meeting. Not only is there evidence that standup meetings are more efficient, but you’re likely to have a faster and more productive meeting because people will get tired of standing around.
20. Charades
Let’s wrap this up with one of the classic ice breaker questions for work, charades. You’ve undoubtedly played this as a kid or maybe at a party. It’s fun and easy—no equipment needed. If you’re unfamiliar, charades is a game where one person thinks of a word or phrase (you can narrow the choices to movie, song or book titles, animals, etc.) and then has to get the others to guess the word or phrase by acting it out, without speaking. There’s a reason this game is a classic. It’s a great way to loosen the tie (if people still wear ties!) and make a bunch of individuals into a team.
21. Red Light, Green Light
You probably remember playing this game as a child. That speaks to its simplicity, longevity and how much fun it is. As in the old schoolyard game, everyone lines up on one side of the room and a designated leader will shout out green light, which means everyone moves forward, or red light, which means they have to stop. If you keep moving after the leader says red light, you’re out. There’s not much to this game, but then the most fun is usually had with the least complexity. Watch as your team immediately loosens up.
Best Ice Breakers for Virtual Meetings
One of the biggest concerns as teams move to work remotely is accountability. Will they be as productive apart as they can be together under the watchful eye of their supervisor or manager? The answer is yes, but only if you keep them connected virtually and use that digital platform to strengthen the ties that may not be visible but can stretch over time zones.
22. Dinner Party
This ice breaker asks participants to choose three people, living, dead, real or fictional, with whom they’d like to have a dinner party. It’s a great way to learn about other people’s interests as they name the historic figures, fictional characters or whomever and explain why they picked them.
23. Meme Sharing
Yes, memes. They’re not for kids anymore. While the internet didn’t invent the idea of a meme, which is just something that is shared and popular, it did make it even more viral. Besides the internet being the greatest meme generator in history, memes can be a great way to have some laughs before the meeting. Or you can make the ice breaker more targeted, asking people to share a meme that represents their mood or the work week so far.
24. Emoji Check-In
Ask everyone at the meeting to share an emoji that represents how they’re feeling right now. Yes, there’s a chance you’re going to get some frowny faces. But it’s better to have a clear picture of the emotional state of those in attendance before the meeting starts. This ice breaker can help the leader better guide them through the meeting.
25. No Smiling
This ice breaker game will make your team members laugh and it works for in-person or virtual meetings. Tell everyone in a very serious tone that you won’t tolerate any smiling. Then tell a joke. See if people can keep a straight face. You might not be a comedian, but it’s harder than you think not to laugh. Chances are that within five minutes, everyone will be laughing their faces off. That’s exactly what good team meeting ice breaker questions do. It’s a great way to start a team meeting, and you’ll find it a more effective one because of it.
26. Make a Portrait
Again, this ice breaker game has nothing to do with being artistic. Have team members turn to whoever is sitting next to them and then have each draw a portrait of the other. People aren’t going to be especially happy with the results (no one’s likely to frame these pictures), but they’ll be playful, which is a great atmosphere to start a meeting. This ice breaker game can also work for remote teams.
27. 10 Things We Have In Common
If you’re trying to bond an organization with many disparate departments or remote teams that mostly interact by email or text, get them all together and direct them to discuss among themselves what they have in common. Have the goal for the group be to list 10 things they share. You might find weird commonalities among the group, which is fun, but the real objective is to bring people together. This ice breaker quickly melts the hard exterior of unfamiliarity and builds partnership.
28. Use PM Software for Virtual Teams
You can take the collaborative features of your project management tool, like ProjectManager, to get the team working together on fun ways to start a meeting with remote teams. Have them create a chatroom where they can discuss the meeting to come. You might even send them an agenda, so they can think about what the meeting will be about. Then they have ownership of the ice breaker and buy-in to the meeting.
29. Guess That Drawing
Being able to draw well might help in this meeting ice breaker, but it’s not required. In fact, the game is more fun when you can’t even draw a straight line. The idea is that one team draws a word and the other tries to guess it. Use a tool like Drawarsaurus, which asks you to enter a nickname, create a room and save it as private by creating a password. Then share the link with the virtual team. Once everyone has designated themselves as ready to play, you’ll begin. Whoever guesses the word being illustrated fastest wins. It’s a great way to quickly bond distributed teams.
30. Themed Meetings
It’s a silly idea, but don’t dismiss it as trivial. It’s great for holidays but can be used anytime to lighten the mood before getting to work. You can dress up as your favorite summertime character or in a Halloween costume, depending on the season. You can also just decide that everyone wears a mustache. Whatever theme you pick, make sure it’s in good taste and communicate the theme to everyone before the meeting. You don’t want to make anyone feel left out. That defeats the purpose of the meeting ice breaker. This can be done for virtual meetings, but also for when you’re together in one room.
Best Ice Breaker Questions for Work Meetings
An ice breaker doesn’t have to be a game. In fact, some of the easiest and most rewarding are simply well-asked questions. You can learn things about them that you would never find out from just working together. The more team members know each other and can relate to each other, the better they’ll work together and the higher their morale–and that leads to greater productivity.
31. What’s Your Favorite Year?
As the meeting settles, get people focused by asking what their favorite year is and why. Not only is this interesting, but it’s a team bonding activity that provides an avenue for people to know each other more intimately.
32. What Annoys You?
Ask each person to reveal the personality trait that’s most irritating to them. It’s good for a laugh, though you might fear it could make for a disharmonious team. You’d be surprised, what appears might help you resolve conflicts before they occur.
33. What Kind of Car?
If your workplace was a car, what kind would it be? Or you could tweak that too if you were a car, or if your coworkers were cars, etc. You’re probably seeing how these ice breaker questions are almost a stealthy way to analyze your team and work environment.
34. What’s Your Theme Song?
Music is a great conversation starter and a great team bonding tool. For this ice breaker activity, ask the team to imagine they’re in a movie. What song would play when they walk into a scene? Would it be a rousing number like in Rocky or maybe something more somber? You can use that information throughout the project to, say, play music when a milestone has been completed.
Related: Staff Meeting Ideas: 7 Creative Tactics That Your Team Will Love
35. Who Are You?
Hand out blank paper and ask each person to write or draw a short description of themselves. Then put all the papers face down in the middle of the table and go through them, trying to figure out who belongs to which description. You can do this yourself, which gives the team a chance to further bond as they work together to help you out.
36. M&Ms
Everyone loves candy. Admit it! So, why not get a bag of M&M’s and pass them out? Whatever color the person gets means that they have to answer a specific question about themselves. You can have some fun figuring out what the questions are. This is one of those ice breaker games that are great conversation starters.
37. What Do You Do to Destress?
Stress is a normal part of one’s personal and professional life. Being able to successfully deal with your stress will make you happier and a better worker. That’s why asking the team what they do to destress is a great meeting ice breaker. It not only addresses that work can be stressful, but it exposes everyone to many different ways to deal with stress–some of which they may never have thought of on their own. This connects the team, educates them and takes stress out of the shadows where it can do the most harm.
Related: 10 Super Fun Team Bonding Games
38. Stranded Desert Island Picks
You’ve heard the old, “If you were stranded on a desert island what one book would you have with you?” Well, find out! It could be books, music, food, etc. Again, a silly ice breaker question, but a real team-building activity for in-person or virtual meetings that helps to better know the people on your team.
Related: Staff Meeting Ideas: 7 Creative Tactics That Your Team Will Love
39. Be Honest
It might seem like a dangerous door to open but ask the team to be honest about their day. The Huffington Post says that “the best business is done when you’re being true and authentic.” If nothing else, you’re sure to get engagement from the team, and that’s how you want to start a meeting, with a fully engaged room.
40. Movie That Made You Cry
Admit it, you’ve teared up in a dark theater. But there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Movies can be emotionally manipulative. That’s one of the reasons why we go. When everyone on the team opens up about that tearjerker that hit them in the heart, whether it’s Bambi or The Shawshank Redemption, it’ll accelerate team bonding.
How ProjectManager Gets the Most Out of Teams
Once the ice is broken and the team is formed, the real work begins. ProjectManager is award-winning software that helps teams work better together. With ProjectManager, teams can plan projects, schedule work and collaborate on tasks. Plus, with unlimited file storage, they can upload as many documents and images as they need to get the work done.
Projects can be created by simply uploading a task list. Once started, teams love the multiple project views, such as kanban boards that visualize workflows and keep teams focused on the tasks at hand. Kanban boards also give managers visibility into the process, so they know who is working on what. Celebrate victories with ProjectManager and its online project management software.
Foster real teamwork with the right tools. ProjectManager is online software that takes teamwork to new heights, whether people work in-house or remotely. See how ProjectManager can improve everyone’s productivity by taking this free 30-day trial.
