5 QUICK ICE BREAKER ACTIVITIES

These are the first of a myriad of Ice Breakers that Solutions Group Events is sharing with you in a series of animated and real feel activities to include in your online events to  ‘life up’ your delegates’ screens at Hybrid and Virtual meetings.  They also have a ‘load of legs’ for real time in-person connection going forward.

After all, it’s all about connecting with people so let’s not take ourselves too seriously. Let us have a few minutes of frivolous fun at times! – there’s so much positivity that can come out of it.

Who said life is so serious! It shouldn’t be!

1. Point Your Camera Out the Window

One of the great aspects of video conferencing is that it allows you to catch a glimpse of an unfamiliar environment in real-time, without ever leaving the comfort of your remote office.

If you live in Cape Town and someone is joining your meeting from London, chances are you will want to take a peek out their window. Will it overlook a spectacular Table Mountain view or the Thames River or an ordinary street? The opportunity to play tourist for five minutes will be fun for everyone involved and will help the team get a common perspective of their surroundings.

This is also a great icebreaker for a virtual sunset snack/ happy hour.

2. Desk Show and Tell

Another major advantage of virtual meetings is that everything in your office is always within reach. Chances are, you have decorated your workspace in a way that reflects your personal taste.

Explaining the story behind a piece of artwork or an accessory on your desk can be a great way for other people to get to know you better. The next time you are on a video call with your team, take them on a tour of your desk!

Alternatively, you can use the objects on your desk as the basis for a virtual team building game: Which item within reach would you take with you if you were stranded on a desert island?

You can learn a lot about your remote workers’ personalities and state of mind with what they have on their desks.

Example: Is the chaos that is Jack’s desk reflective of his organizational skills or a stressful day? This will help your virtual team create empathy and connection with other team members across the company be it locally or globally.

3. Summarize A Story In 60 Seconds

Everything becomes more exciting when a time limit is involved.

Your colleagues are going to want to know a bit about your background, but they are not going to want to know about it in huge detail. By forcing everyone to summarize their careers in 60 seconds, you are not only sharing information that will help cement bonds between team members, but you are doing it in a fast tracked way that will definitely hold the interest of everyone in the meeting!

You can also spin up this idea as a fun way to start your virtual meetings. Instead of sharing a career background story, you can have each team member sharing a fun, not yet-known story about themselves in 60 seconds.

4. Team Coffee or Team Lunch

It is a scientific fact that eating together promotes team bonding. Most companies that pride themselves on having a strong company culture have picked up on this, and just because your team cannot physically meet at the same restaurant for conference lunch does not mean that this tried-and-true team building activity is off-limits.

It’s fairly straightforward to hold team lunches remotely via video conferencing: Have food, eat in front of your camera, let the conversations (and probably coffee) flow. It may feel weird, but it works.

If you have a group of foodies, you could create a remote cooking experience with your co-workers. This can even be opened as a company-wide virtual team building activity where participants share their recipes using the same ingredients. This is a great way to learn different flavours when your remote team has a diverse cultural background.

Breaking down virtual barriers by ‘breaking bread’ is simple to organize and something everyone will have in common.

5. Two Truths and A Lie

The rules of this virtual icebreaker are simple: Write down three statements, two of which are true and one of which is false. Read all three statements out loud and give everyone else a minute to guess which of the statements is false.

You’d be surprised how many times you can play this before you run out of fake things to share, or eventually knowing your co-workers so well, that you can easily tell when they are telling ‘white lies’!

Start with Team Building Basics, End with A Bond

These five virtual teams building activities are just a small fraction of the dozens of possible meeting games out there, but they are ones that are easily and quickly adapted to fit into your regular meetings. Remember, good virtual Ice Breaker activities should create natural conversations—like the ones that take place in the traditional workspace, and all while sitting in the comfort of your favourite chair and outfit. Start small. Pick one idea above and give it a try! You will be impressed by the results that this can bring to your team.

Content as per bloghubspot.com