Ice breaker: a fun activity to liven up your team meeting!

In the business world, leading a team meeting presents many challenges. If the main objective is to take stock of the activities carried out within the company, the meeting can also serve as a means of cohesion between the various employees and teams.

But how do you keep the pace of the meetings moving and the participants interested? Discover with Wooclap the ice breaker activity to motivate your teams to speak in meetings and develop group creativity!

Why use the ice breaker activity in team meetings?

The world of business and professional training is punctuated by numerous exchanges between each stakeholder in a project. Co-workers are brought together to reflect on a regular basis during :

• of a group workshop;
• a practical exercise;
• a team meeting.

Like participation in the classroom, getting people to speak easily in meetings is not always easy. Shyness differs from person to person, and some members of a group may keep valuable information or ideas to themselvesbecause they are unable to express themselves in front of an audience.

In this sense, the Ice breaker activity is a particularly effective tool for freeing participants from any persistent blocks to communication during a team meeting. Through its dynamism and interactivity, the ice breaker meets this objective of breaking the ice between all members of the group.

What are the advantages of the ice breaker in a group meeting?

The ice breaker to build trust between participants

Conducted at the beginning of a team meeting, the ice breaker lays the foundations fora climate of trust between each participant and a good general state of mind. This group activity is a good way to energize a group workshop and to get to know each other better through play. Ice breaker participants can express themselves without fear of judgment and with less restraint or apprehension. The result is increased motivation and a more friendly and caring work atmosphere.

Develop your team's creativity with the ice breaker

Once trust has been established between all the participants in the group, the creativity of each person can be freely expressed. What's the point of having ideas if you can't share them with the rest of the members? In this sense, the ice breaker is a relevant activity to mobilize the forces of collective intelligence, which is essential in creativity.

The ice breaker to strengthen group cohesion

Team building is one of the most important issues in group work. The challenge is great: to get team members who do not know each other to work together and who come from very heterogeneous backgrounds. Icebreaker activities between each person in a group thus help to facilitate the discovery of the other and find a way to mobilize the skills of all participants to their best advantage. Better cooperation will lead to better communication within the working group.

The Wooclap ice breaker activity to energize your team meetings!

How do you set up the ice breaker in a meeting?

1. Determine an objective before the meeting
   The choice of your ice breaker activity differs depending on the objective of the facilitator. It must be adapted to the participants, but also be useful to your business project.
   Whether you want to develop the creativity of each team member or strengthen group cohesion, be sure to choose an ice breaker exercise that is consistent with your goal.
2. Do not neglect the duration of your ice breaker
   If the icebreaker is a fun exercise and generally appreciated by the teams, itshould not be made too long. As a general rule, only a few minutes are needed to facilitate your meeting without losing sight of the main objective of the meeting. Think concisely and get to the point.
3. The facilitator: a key role in the ice breaker process
   The ice breaker facilitator plays an essential role in the exercise, both in its organization and in its animation. As an expert in his field, he has all the knowledge to accompany the participants in the activity and facilitate the generation of ideas and information. The facilitator must be clear in explaining the game and impartial in collecting the results. He or she must also be able to answer questions from each member of the group.

What ice breaker activity should be implemented in a team meeting?

Wooclap has developed a multitude of ice breaker activities to liven up any group meeting or workshop:

• brainstorming , which allows you to collect ideas around a general topic;
• the word cloud to bring relaxation and conviviality between participants;
• the "find on the image" activity to measure the collective state of mind;
• the survey to support team decisions.

Check out our gallery of examples of ice breakers and find the perfect activity to break the ice in a friendly way during a meeting!