9 virtual icebreakers for remote teams & online meetings 2021 update

Answers usually range from genuinely practical to entirely ludicrous, but all of them show brains igniting before the main event of your meeting kicks off. We’ve all wondered what would happen if we’d get stranded on a desert island. 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.

• Two Truths and One Lie is among the best virtual team icebreakers for teams.
• You can ask people to share any kind of company story or victory to help people feel more positive and engaged.
• If everyone feels a bit off, have everyone go around and give one word to describe their feelings.
• The key is ensuring employees know when it starts, when it ends, and how to participate.

We also have a list of the best Zoom team building exercises, a list of the best virtual team energizers, and a list of fun remote team event ideas. Marooned is one of the most effective quick virtual icebreakers. This exercise is also useful for enhancing communication and problem-solving skills.

Tell Us Which City You’re In Without Telling Us Which City You’re In

Even if your group doesn’t work in sales, Sell it is a fun way to break the ice. Partner up your employees and assign one as the reader and one as the writer.

Fun Icebreaker Games – An open-ended slide allows for full creative freedom and gives you the option of adding a little time pressure. 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. After about two minutes, everyone has to switch their cameras back on.

Virtual Ice Breakers: Games & Ideas for Meetings

Before the meeting, ask a participant to send you a surprising list of facts. 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. Kicking things off or ending them with a game helps diffuse tension before a difficult round of brainstorming and problem-solving.

Ice breaker questions are quick questions designed to help ease any tension among the meeting participants. After both people have answered and the two-minute timer is up, have them find a new partner and assign them a new conversation starter. You can start off with the basics (name, age, where you got him/her), but make sure to throw in one personal/fun story you had with your pet. Your teams aren’t gonna be even, but with virtual events that doesn’t tend to matter. You’re not tossing a ball to each other or doing trust falls here. It’s like a virtual scavenger hunt, but with a twist—you’re looking for people who are like you in a specific way. Encourage participants to share a different show if their most recent has already been shared—maybe one of their favorite or unique or questionable binges.

Guess Who

All you have to do is invite the meeting members and ask them to spin the wheel one by one. For some fun twist, customize the themes to create different options on the wheel for different games, events, giveaways, raffles and more. These kind of fun icebreakers for meetings get the crowd moving and are a whole lot of fun. There are plenty of virtual ice breakers for large groups that people will actually enjoy.

Incorporating them through activity can introduce them to other employees and quickly forge meaningful connections. But, if you’re a manager, remote icebreakers for virtual meetings work presents several challenges. Lack of in-person interaction between employees means fewer deep relationships and a lack of team cohesiveness.

Any player who is affected must stand up and find another chair that is at least 2 chairs away from their own. It is a super perfect warm-up game in class and outdoor camp. Just encourage your team to type in any question they want before you answer them over the video call. This is a simple activity in which your team gives praise to a team member who has been crushing it recently.