9 virtual icebreakers for remote teams & online meetings 2021 update

Simply ask your participants a thought-provoking ‘this or that’ poll question with two options to choose from. Then, drive a discussion around how people voted and why. This offers teammates a way to share a personal story without much risk, and gives everyone a chance to talk about not only themselves but their friends. Have everyone introduce themselves, and then share a short (1-2 minute) origin story behind one of their friendships.

What are some fun ways to start a virtual meeting?

  1. Virtual icebreakers.
  2. Online team building games.
  3. Remote team building challenges.
  4. Virtual team building activities.
  5. Zoom backgrounds.
  6. Virtual Minute to Win It Games.
  7. Remote Trivia.
  8. Loose-structured social time.

Working remotely can make team meetings a bit awkward. Sometimes people speak without realizing they’re muted, or no one is sure who should speak first. Without a good way to break the ice and get everyone talking, the sound of crickets can become very evident.

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The only rule is to have fun, stay engaged, and help others do the same. However, a good meeting is about more than just communicating a message or checking to-do items off a list. A good meeting makes people feel comfortable and valued and builds social cohesion toward a common goal. Ice breakers are questions and activities that you can use to help people feel more at ease in a group setting. Divide all the participants into small teams and have them write down the questions you supply. Then, send each team to a breakout room and challenge them to answer the quiz based solely on their collective knowledge and without using the internet. Collective Knowledge is the perfect virtual icebreaker for new groups because it doesn’t put any one person on the spot right away.

  • Some of the best ideas at work are generated when casually chatting with colleagues in the break-room.
  • If you need a guaranteed conversation starter, try a question that brings back childhood or teenage years memories – they provide an inexhaustible source of amusement.
  • Ask your employees to create a news headline of what your company will be doing in five years and publish them on your intranet.
  • Want to start with a quick mood check-in or simple question to get people engaged?
  • If your virtual meeting attendees aren’t warmed up, they won’t volunteer ideas, ask questions, or get engaged with what you’re talking about.
  • If your goal is to create connections and foster trust, go with one of these icebreakers.

Once each employee has an item in their hand, explain that they are now going to try to sell it to the other members. They can set the price and have one minute to deliver a sales pitch and one minute to answer questions. If you haven’t done Mad Libs before, it’s a fill-in-the blank story that can lead to a pretty hilarious final product.

How to run effective virtual ice breaker sessions?

They’re also great breakers for training sessions, meetings training seminars, and other events. Here is when the ice breakers for zoom meetings come to play. With these, you can generate a lighter and more familiar environment.

effective icebreakers for virtual meetings

Sharing where you went to school, some fun parts of your professional history, or even some of your interests outside work will humanize you. It gives guests a place to jump into the conversation with you, and vice-versa. Knowing and feeling comfortable with your guests can also help calm those nerves. Some of these questions are silly and some are a little more profound. It’s up to you which question you choose to ask depending on the mood you’re trying to create. An article published in the Harvard Business Review found that laughing in the office lightens the mental load and induces physical changes in your body.

How do you create an icebreaker game and virtually host with a large group?

This next icebreaker is great if you want to warm people up but also set some context for the meeting or workshop. The goal of the One Word game is to ease your workshop participants into your workshop topic in a lighthearted, low-pressure way. Your virtual icebreakers should be short, interactive, memorable, fun, and easy to follow through on. You certainly play the game Simon Says at least once in your childhood. One player takes the role of “Simon” and gives a command starting with Simon saying and issuing an action and all players have to obey. Those who fail to follow the command will be out and others continue around the circle, and the next person makes a statement. Among a group of players, there is one person who is a liar and the mission of the players is to find out who are they.

  • Throughout the game, the participants must make the fingers or the objects visible on the Zoom screen.
  • Good productive idea exchanges make for great virtual icebreakers too.
  • While games and questions are awesome, sometimes easy and simple things can do wonders as well.
  • Now that we’ve seen what the best way to run ice breaker sessions is, it’s time we give you the list of the warmest of all ice breakers.

There will be a lot to talk about, maybe even some arguments about which candy or which movie is the best. You’ll start a meeting with some laughs and get your colleagues in a good mood before a meeting. If your teammates are scattered around the world, kick off your meeting by sending a virtual hi to each one of them.

Ice Breakers for Virtual Meetings

A photo stream is a great way to use that experience to form deeper connections. Group challenges bring employees together and help them connect with shared goals. You can meet afterward to discuss what was surprising, key messages, and more. To make it even more fun, you could ask your employees to dress up as a character from the movie and share why icebreakers for virtual meetings they choose that character. To get started, pick a genre for your book club to focus on, or ask your employees to vote on a genre. You could also keep the genre open and have a different employee select a book each month. To get started, have your employees suggest and then vote using a TINYpulse flexible survey on a charity for your team to support.

effective icebreakers for virtual meetings

The leader will ask the participants to find certain items. The participant who locates the most required items within the timeframe or shows each item on screen first wins the round. The leader will put the music on for five seconds and then mute the song. Occasionally, the leader may unmute the song to keep the participants on key and on track. For similar ideas, check our full list of Would You Rather Questions.