25 great ice breakers for team building

To strengthen cohesion, integrate newcomers, and prepare for particularly intensive work activities, there are many benefits to be gained from a team building day or session. Team building essentially consists of organizing a joint activity to help strengthen ties between work colleagues, team mates or office members.

However, getting going can sometimes be complicated, especially if the people in the group feel they do not know each other well to start with! Nothing beats a great icebreaker: whether a simple question, series of questions, game, or activity, a well-chosen ice breaker will immediately help break the ice, relax the general atmosphere, and get people to start to know and relate to each other. Here are Wooclap’s list of favorites!

Best practices

Examples of icebreaker questions for your team building activity

Games and icebreaker activities for team building: our favorite 5

5 minute (or less) team building icebreakers

Team Icebreaker Questions

Fun and simple icebreaker games of less than 5 minutes

Fun Icebreaker Questions for team building

Best practices

An icebreaker will help create a convivial atmosphere and a climate of trust and complicity in which participants will start to express themselves freely and get along better. A simple icebreaker question, activity or game will therefore be particularly useful when participants need to exchange ideas and start building strong team cohesion.

For the success of your icebreaker activities or games, make sure you follow these few rules:

• Think about the purpose of your icebreaker: each icebreaker serves a specific purpose, and should be chosen consciously and according to your overall goal. Is it to meet new colleagues? Or to find a moment in time to share and reflect on a specific work activity for a team in which the team members already know each other? Your choice will depend on your specific goal.
• Adapt your icebreaker to the number of participants: the same activity will work very differently for 8 rather than 25 team members. Choose your icebreaker carefully according to the composition of your team or teams. A small group will allow everyone to take turns speaking on a topic, but the same activity for a large group might take up too much time. Therefore, in the case of a large group of participants, you should favor games or group activities, or discussions between pairs of group members.
• Consider the timing of your icebreaker and where you will be: will you be outside, in an office meeting room, or in a virtual meeting? Will you need paper, post-it notes, devices, or equipment such as a projector? Will the activity be in the morning or afternoon? These factors should be taken carefully into account when choosing your icebreaker activity or game to play.

Examples of icebreaker questions for your team building activity

• What was your first thought this morning or at the start of day?
• If you could relive one or change something about a particular day from last week, what would it be?
• What was your first job at the very start of your career?
• What is one piece of advice from your parents or grandparents that you would like to share with us?
• What is your favorite book, and why is it your favorite book?
• What is one thing you want to achieve this week?

For more icebreaker questions, head over to our icebreaker question article!

Games and icebreaker activities for team building: our favorite 5

• Two Truths and a Lie

For small groups, approximately 3 minutes per participant

The group is given some time to find 3 things to say about themselves. However, one of things will be completely false! It will then be up to the rest of the group to guess which is the lie (this can, for example, be done by running a quick poll).

• Human Bingo

For small or large groups, 10-15 minutes

Bingo cards (created in advance) are distributed to all members of the group or team with statements such as “has already lived abroad”, “is a very good dancer”, etc. Everyone then has to question the other participants to find someone for whom the statement is true. The first person to complete their bingo card wins!

• Common Ground

For large groups, 10-15 minutes

Split the group of participants into small teams (of 5 to 10 people): each team must find a set of common points that all of its members share! Such as common traits, interests, strengths, stories, anecdotes, experiences, favorite movie, favorite board game, etc. To end the game, there are two possibilities:

1. The team that finds the greatest number of common points after a set time wins.
2. If time is limited, the first team to find 10 common points wins.

• Top 3

For small groups, 10-15 minutes

One of the participants gives a word, theme or category to the group (for example, “top music styles”, “top Indian dishes”, or “top 1980s movies”), and the next person must list three items in that category as quickly as possible, before it’s the following person’s time to take a turn, and so on round the whole group.

The goal is to be spontaneous, and come with some answers that might surprise everyone! This activity is best when everyone in the group can take turns in coming up with a category.

• Guess Who?

For small groups

Before the meeting, each person in the group of participants must answer 2 or 3 questions about themselves by email (depending on the desired duration of the icebreaker activity). These might range from “What was the worst nickname you have been given?” to “What is your favorite color?” Then, at the meeting, the facilitator will present the answers to the questions to the group, and the participants must guess the person who came up with each answer.

To project the answers up on a screen, don’t hesitate to use a tool like Wooclap!

5 minute (or less) team building icebreakers

During a team building day or meeting, time is often limited. However, there’s always just enough time to run a short but fun and effective icebreaker! And it’s often far better than not having one at all: those few minutes of an icebreaker are always a great way to help get the ball rolling! To avoid wasting too much time, simply choose an icebreaker question rather than a game, or a quick activity. We will present a list of a few of the best icebreaker questions to you here below!

Team Icebreaker Questions

• If our team had a theme song, what would it be?
• Who is a person that has inspired you in your work and why?
• What would be the word that best describes our team, and why?
• If our team had to be a group of superheroes or fictional characters, who would we be?
• What’s the best team building activity you have enjoyed in the past?
• What is one of your best memories of your work in the company?

Fun and simple icebreaker games of less than 5 minutes

• Mystery Photo

All the participants of the group must bring a photo of themselves as a child. The photos are collected by the facilitator, who puts them on display. The objective is for the participants to find out who is in each photo!

• Marshmallow Challenge

The participants are divided into small groups of 3 to 5, and each group receives 20 spaghetti, a roll of tape, and a marshmallow. In this fun game, the objective is to build the tallest tower, with the marshmallow at the top, in 5 minutes tops!

• Island Game

The participants are divided into small teams of approximately 5 people. Each team is assigned a mat, which the team can just about all stand on, as if they were standing on a very small island. The goal is to turn the mat over, without falling in the water. The first team to succeed wins!

Discover our article on our favorite icebreakers for your meetings!

Fun Icebreaker Questions for team building

• Do you have any hidden talents you would like to share?
• What is the strangest student job or work you have ever done?
• Have you ever met a celebrity, and what was it like meeting them?
• What do you think is the best animal and best name for a team mascot?
• What is your unspoken guilty pleasure?