Corporate Team Building Icebreaker Activities

Getting the members of a team to know each other can be a daunting task, especially when bringing together people who haven’t had face-time before. Oftentimes team building workshops include participants who work virtually, are part of global teams, or may be conference attendees who don’t even work together. The following icebreaker activities will help your group warm up and relax, so they can work better together later on. The interview game The purpose of this activity is to get the members of the team to know each other. Break the team into pairs, and then assign them the roles of interviewer and interviewee. The purpose of each interview is for the interviewer to discover three interesting facts about the other. The findings will be presented to the entire group later on. The desert island exercise Many people are familiar with this exercise, so it will add nicely to your icebreaker activities. The question addressed to the members of the group is about what items they would bring along with them on a desert island and explaining why. When sharing these ideas with the rest of the group, many of those present will discover that they have things in common with others. The guessing game It is very important to get the team members to know each other not just by name but by other, more important characteristics. To deepen the relationships inside your group, it is best to start with a guessing game. The team members have to guess one person from a description, a single word, or based on acting. This activity is bound to trigger lots of laughs and can warm up the atmosphere within minutes. The ‘sit down if’ game This game is very simple, but a lot of fun. Everybody is asked to stand up, then a statement is being read, such as ‘Sit down if you have ever been to Niagara Falls’ or something more common to increase the chances of one person to win. Once the statement is being read, all those that have been engaged in the said activity will have to sit down. The game will continue until there is just one person standing up. The opposite opinion game The role of icebreaker activities is to make the team members relax and have fun, while learning interesting bits of information about one another. Here is another exercise you can try out with your group: the opposite opinion game. The game consists of offering those present the ability to express where they stand on a certain issue, just by going to stand to one corner or the opposite one. There are many things people can discover they have in common, just by playing this simple game. The coin game Getting people to mix and talk is not easy, but with the help of these icebreaker activities, you will determine team members to get to know each other better. The coin game is ideal for stimulating team members to share something about themselves. The game consists of handing out coins to those present, and to ask them to speak out loud about what they were doing in the year the coin was stamped.