The 55 best icebreaker questions to connect with your audience

As the name suggests, icebreakers are used to break that icy silence that often dominates the start of a meeting. Creating connections, liberating exchanges, uninhibiting speech, building teams, and sparking debate: that’s what icebreakers are for.

For your work meeting, professional event or workshop, or to start off the school year with your students, discover our list of favorite icebreaker questions, simple games and activities and some of the very best you will find!

The 55 best icebreaker questions to connect with your audience

Little tips to get you started

Icebreaker questions depending on the situation

Icebreakers questions for students

Icebreakers for a work meeting or workshop

Icebreakers for work team building

Icebreakers for a virtual remote meeting or workshop

Icebreaker games

Multiple choice icebreaker questions for work situations

Nicknames

Two truths and a lie

General icebreaker questions by theme

General icebreaker questions

Icebreaker questions to spark debate

Fun icebreaker questions

Little tips to get you started

Before you choose the type of group icebreaker you will use to kick off your meeting, event, workshop or class, here we will give you some great tips to follow:

• Choose your icebreaker carefully: Make sure that it is best suited to your audience and your goal. For example, consider whether people will know each other, or whether there will be hierarchical work relationships between groups of participants, or not. Also think about whether you simply want to lighten the mood before you start the meeting or workshop, or create a dialog, or help the group of people to get to know each other better.
• Manage the duration of the activity: Anticipate how long the icebreaker activity will take, based on the set number of participants you will have and your overall goal. Consider whether your icebreaker will work well and will not take too long with the group of participants you will have, whether it is a large group or a small group. While the activity should not take up too much before the meeting or workshop, it is important to allow enough time for everyone in the group to think and best express themselves.
• Plan the equipment and materials you will use for the group icebreaker: Make sure you have post-its if you need them for your icebreaker game, and that everyone will be able to clearly hear all the other participants in the group as they answer each icebreaker question during the virtual meeting, workshop or video-conference.

Icebreaker questions depending on the situation

Icebreakers questions for students

At the start of the school year, you will want to create a relaxed atmosphere with your new students, and, at the same time, facilitate respect and exchange between them and you. There’s nothing like a simple icebreaker activity for this! Here is a small list of some great questions that will help you start to get them talking (make sure you add something silly or fun):

1. Where are you from?
2. What is the subject you are most concerned about this year, and why?
3. What do you see yourself doing on this day in 5 years’ time?
4. If you weren’t at school today, where would you choose to be?
5. If you had to be an animal, would you choose to be a mini horse or a giant chicken? Why?

You can also turn the tables of your icebreaker activity, and find a way to introduce yourself to your class in a fun and interactive way! Leave it up to your students to guess, write down and read out things about you with icebreaker questions like these:

1. How do you think my surname is spelled? (suggest several different spelling possibilities)
2. What is my favorite hobby?
3. What kind of pet do I have?
4. What was my favorite subject in school?
5. What is my favorite food?

Even more icebreaker questions for students

Icebreakers for a work meeting or workshop

Bringing work teams together to collaborate on a group project can be a great challenge. At first, the embarrassment among team members can be palpable. If no-one dares speak, even if they know each other to some degree, it’s time to launch an icebreaker for adults!

1. Circle on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your current mood?
2. Tell us some things or an anecdote about your journey here to this meeting.
3. If you get a couple of free hours today, just for you, what will you do with them?
4. What would your ideal vacation be?
5. Tell us some things about a work project or work achievement you are particularly proud of.

Our favorite 5:

1. How many cups of coffee or tea do you usually drink day to day?
2. Is there a favorite, famous personality that you admire in some large or small way, and why?
3. What is your favorite mantra for work or life? (or a quote that has inspired or helped you in work or life)
4. Would you prefer a quiet lunch at home, or a work lunch at a fancy restaurant?
5. If you could have dinner with anyone dead or alive, who would it be?

I want to see more icebreaker questions for business meetings

Icebreakers for work team building

A work team building day serves to bring work teams together, and for everyone to get to know each other better. Check out some of our favorite questions to kick off a team building day, for participants to learn about each other, and to lighten the mood of the day right from the start!

1. Do you speak any other languages?
2. What book are you reading at the moment? And what will you read next?
3. What three items would you take with you, if one day, you had to live your life on a desert island?
4. Do you have a hidden talent, and what is it?
5. What is the worst job you have ever had in your life?

Our favorite 5:

1. What is your favorite season of the year, and why?
2. What title would you give to your autobiography, or a movie about your life?
3. If you were a top athlete, what music would you want played when you enter the stadium?
4. If you could dress up in any costume, what costume would you don?
5. What should be the signature tune for our company’s soundtrack?

More icebreaker questions for team building

Icebreakers for a virtual remote meeting or workshop

Virtual, remote meetings or workshops are a great modern day challenge for companies. Putting virtual work meeting participants at ease and encouraging interactions is even more difficult than when meeting face to face. Create the right virtual meeting climate for dialog with these questions:

1. Where are you currently based? And where would you ideally like to be based?
2. Do you generally prefer to work in the office or work from home? Why?
3. What room in your home do you work from? Why is room in particular?
4. What part of the day do you look forward to the most?
5. What is the one thing you cannot live without at work?

Our favorite 5:

1. Would you rather go a day without coffee or a day without your phone?
2. Who shares your work from home space (spouse, pet, etc.)?
3. If you could start any small or large work activity today, what would it be?
4. Would you rather work every evening and have three days off for the weekend, or work during the weekend and finish work earlier every day of the week?
5. What would be your ideal means of transportation to work? Use your wildest imagination if you like!

Discover more icebreaker questions for virtual meetings

Tip: For a large group, you can use a poll or word cloud feature to collect answers to your icebreaker questions and share the group results up on their screens.

Use this Wooclap template

Icebreaker games

For a small group, there’s nothing like a fun game to get people working together! Here are some great examples of icebreaker games to try in any event, work meeting, workshop, or class.

Multiple choice icebreaker questions for work situations

Start the day with a few questions about the work or the company, mixing in serious questions, about the company’s founding, for example, and fun questions.

Use this Wooclap template

Nicknames

Get people to write on a post-it a nickname that they have been given, or that they might give to themselves. Gather the participants together in a circle and mix the post-its, then draw them one by one. The aim of the game will be to guess who is behind each nickname!

Two truths and a lie

Everyone gives three statements about themselves, their work, or their life, only two of which are true. The group of participants will then have to guess the lie!

General icebreaker questions by theme

Icebreaker questions can be related to a specific work theme or a general topic, and adapted to any kind of situation. Here is a small selection of our favorite questions for different occasions.

General icebreaker questions

1. What is your favorite movie?
2. What should be the signature track for the soundtrack of your life?
3. What is your favorite historical period, person or day?
4. Which fictional person would you like to be friends with in your day to day life?
5. Name a really bad movie that you just love.

Icebreaker questions to spark debate

1. Would you rather be hairy, like a yeti, or as bald as coot?
2. If you were President, what would you do for the country in your first year in power?
3. What really makes the world go round?
4. Would you rather be famous for your great sense of humor, or for your wisdom?
5. Which Harry Potter house (or Games of Thrones kingdom) would you belong to if you could choose?

Fun icebreaker questions

1. Would you choose to be invisible or to be able to read people’s minds?
2. Which fictional person do you think is most like you?
3. What three animals would make up a chimera of you?
4. Do you have a favorite joke you’d like to share with the group?
5. If you could be a host on any TV show, which would it be?