Motivate Your Virtual Team With These Easy Icebreakers

In this article, I will present you some of my favourite virtual team icebreakers. I have customized them for remote teams so that you can apply them easily in your virtual meetings.

Why utilizing virtual icebreakers? For many reasons, but most important: You will get done more instead of endless or, even worse, no discussions!

Plus icebreakers are great virtual team building activities! Some further reasons to have an icebreaker before a meeting:

• Create an open and positive atmosphere
• Get to know each other (better)
• Motivate your team
• Help people to relax
• Allow group participation and inclusivity to get everybody talking
• Start thinking outside the box for some efficient brainstorming

Virtual Icebreakers for Virtual Teams

Scrabble

Group size: 2 – 30
Duration: 10 – 15 min
Needed: Breakout room, whiteboard/ text program

Play the classic game Scrabble to make people work together, brainstorm and get to know more about what they think of the company. Perfect to stimulate creative thinking before a workshop!

Split the team into groups of 4 – 5 people. Each group writes your company name vertical on a whiteboard or text program. Now brainstorm together and find words that you associate with your company. Find one word for each letter of your company and write the word behind that letter. Done? Present your results to the other groups explaining a little about why you chose those exact words. 

Alternatively, instead of your company, you can choose to find words to your team’s name. 

Do you want to use Scrabble to get to know each other better? No problem. Write your name vertically on the board and find words that you associate with yourself. Then present your own Scrabble to the others.

Two truths and a lie

Group size: 2 – 30
Duration: 10 – 15 min
Needed: Breakout room, whiteboard/ text program

Tell your teammates to make two true statements and one false. For example: 1. I do not like raw tomatoes without seasoning. 2. When in high school, I played bass in a punk band. 3. I climbed a 4750-meter high mountain in Colombia. One person announces his or her three statements, and then everybody else guesses which one is the false one. After revealing, which statement was the false one, it is the next person’s turn. 

This game is perfect to get to know your teammates better even if you think you already know them a lot. 

You are looking for some asynchronous team building activities? This icebreaker can also be done asynchronously. Post your three statements in a dedicated chat channel and let everybody else guess which one is the lie.

Plane Crash

Group size: 2 – 30
Duration: 10 – 15 min
Needed: Breakout room, whiteboard/ text program

This icebreaker takes a little bit more time but is perfect to kick-off a communication or problem-solving workshop. It demands negotiation skills and creative thinking.

Imagine: The plane carrying your team has crashed on a deserted island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. You find 12 items on the beach that can help you survive. The problem: a storm is coming and you only have time to save 8 out of the 12 items. 

Every player makes a ranking of the items from the most important to the 4 items that will be kicked out. After this, the team comes together and discusses which 4 items you will remove together. Find arguments for the items you want to keep and a consensus on which 4 items will be left behind.

The facilitator tells the team the background story and task and presents the 12 items. Or, the facilitator asks each team member to pick some items from the table they are sitting on right now and show those into the camera. The facilitator picks 12 items from all presented items. Then the facilitator proceeds to explain the background story and the task for the group.

My Slogan

Group size: 2 – 30
Duration: 10 – 15 min
Needed: Breakout room, whiteboard/ text program

Many companies have slogans. Even some teams have some mottoes. Why should a single person not have one? Show your team some examples of well-known company slogans. Then ask every teammate to think of a slogan that describes him- or herself. They can borrow the slogan from another company or create one themselves! Everybody shares their slogan with the group.

Extra tip: To finish the session, create a slogan together for your team.

Would you rather

Group size: 2 – 30
Duration: 10 – 15 min
Needed: Breakout room, whiteboard/ text program

Many of us played that game during long car journeys. You ask the question “Would you rather…” and then give the choice between two alternatives. The asked person has to pick one of the alternatives. 

The facilitator can ask one person after the other with a new question (then the facilitator must have some prepared questions ready). Or every teammate can make up one question and ask somebody from the group. Then this person asks next and so on. 

Here some example questions:

• Would you rather only have summer or winter for the rest of your life?
• Would you rather go on a hike or see a movie?
• Would you rather never use social media sites and apps again, or never watch another movie or TV show?
• Would you rather have a horrible short term memory or a horrible long term memory?

Alternative: If you use Zoom, you can do some polling and ask everybody at the same time. People answer by clicking on the answer they fancy. Share the results later with everybody.

Start Your Virtual Team Building Now

Now you have all the equipment you need, to kick-off your online meeting successfully.

If you have further questions or want us to facilitate a team building workshop contact us now.

You want to use icebreakers but do not have much time during your meeting? Have a look at these virtual icebreakers that do not take more time than 3 minutes!