Library of teambuilding games & icebreakers

In lightning hunt, players race to find specific household items and show them on camera. It’s fast-paced, and a great way to get everyone moving and laughing as they scramble to find the most random things lying around their homes.

This game is perfect for injecting some spontaneity into your virtual meetings. Plus, it’s always fun to see what odd items people can dig up at a moment’s notice!

How to play:

• The host calls out specific household items.
• Players race to find and show the items on camera.
• The fastest player to find each item wins a point!

Looking for more fun team-building activities for virtual or in-person teams? Browse our full list for extra inspiration.

How to host Departmental meet and greets

Do you have different departments that tend to work in silos? In this case it can be a smart idea to organize happy hours where everyone can meet and mingle. You can go as far as assigning tables with mixed groups, or just encourage people to network more organically. A cross-departmental meet and greet is a simple and intuitive way to chat and get to know each other.

Extreme rock, paper, scissors takes the traditional playground game to a new level. This time, Instead of battling it out in pairs, your employees will attempt to overthrow the competition in teams.

Great for: Energization

Duration: 10 minutes

You’ll need: Plastic hula hoops (approx. 15)

How to play:

• Lay the hoops in a line on the ground and leave a gap of 50cm between each one.
• Divide your group into two teams and position them at either end of the line of hoops.
• When you shout “Go!” one player from each team starts hopping through the hoops towards the opposition.
• When they meet in the middle, they play rock, paper, scissors.
• The loser exits the hoop and jogs back to their team. Meanwhile, the winner continues hopping forward towards the opposition and a player from the other team steps in to replace their fallen comrade.
• When the two players meet, they play rock, paper, scissors again.
• Play continues until a player reaches the opposing team’s starting hoop. The first team to land in their opponent's starting hoop wins.

How to play Personal treasure box

This exercise takes a bit longer and is a bit more involved, but involves a lot of introspection which can be a powerful exercise. Ask everyone to create their own personal treasure box and place items inside. You can get really creative and have literal treasure boxes at each seat, with different items symbolizing various aspects of life. Or, you can just use a pencil and paper.

The important thing is that everyone has time to think about what should go into their personal treasure box - the items, values, and people that are most special to them. Then, have everyone share with the group what they included and why. Since this exercise is more in-depth, it’s best to reserve at least an hour and maybe more for proper sharing and dialogue.

How tall can you go? In spaghetti towers, teams use dry spaghetti and marshmallows to build the tallest structure possible within a set time limit. It’s a challenge of creativity, problem-solving, and a little bit of engineering.

This game encourages teamwork, planning, and resourcefulness, as teams work together to build a stable tower. Plus, it’s hilarious to see which towers soar and which ones collapse in a heap of spaghetti and marshmallows!

How to play:

• Split into teams and give each team dry spaghetti and marshmallows.
• Teams must build the tallest tower possible within the time limit.
• The tallest (and most stable) tower wins!

Slack talk shuffle uses conversation prompts in Slack to spark casual, non-work-related discussions. Whether it’s “What’s your dream vacation?” or “Best movie of all time?”, this is an easy way to keep the team connected and talking—even remotely.

It’s a great way to add a little fun into your virtual workspace and build camaraderie, with minimal effort.

How to play:

• Post a conversation prompt in Slack.
• Teammates respond and discuss in the thread.
• Watch the conversation flow and learn more about each other!

Explore more funny team-building activities to keep your team engaged, whether you're working remotely or in person.

Ever got a surprise coffee? Small gestures are like a mini celebration of kindness. They're a reminder that someone's thinking of you and can turn an ordinary day into something special.

Small gestures activity - Gratitude chain:

• Provide colorful paper strips, markers and adhesive.
• Instruct colleagues to write down a brief note of gratitude, appreciation, or a small act of kindness they'd like to acknowledge.
• Encourage participants to attach their notes to create a chain, linking the acts of kindness together.
• Display the gratitude chain in a visible area to serve as a visual reminder of the positive interactions within the team.
  ‍

This quick team-building activity cultivates a culture of appreciation and encourages colleagues to recognize and celebrate one another's contributions.

Ready for a question game with communication at its core? Quick, fun, and energizing, Question Game ticks all the right boxes. Here’s how it works:

Working in pairs, players must bounce rapid-fire questions back and forth for as long as possible. If someone hesitates for too long, says something nonsensical, or makes a statement instead of asking a question, they lose!

Here’s what it might sound like:

• “What’s your biggest fear?””
• “Isn’t that too personal for work?”
• “Are you dodging my question?”
• “What do you think?”
• “Why won’t you tell me what you’re scared of?”
• “Why don’t you just guess what my biggest fear is?”
• “Is it spiders?”
• “Does that mean you don’t like spiders?”
• “Are you turning the question on me?”

Another way to play the Question Game is in a group, where everyone takes turns asking the next question in the sequence. If they mess up, they get eliminated! The winner is the last person standing.

If your team is on the creative side - or you want to encourage them to be - this is a smart activity for you. You’ll need plenty of recycled materials like paper, cardboard, or plastic items.

Here is what to do:

1. Split up your group into smaller teams.
2. Give each group a set of recycled materials. Try to give a good mix of whatever you’ve come up with.
3. The goal of each team is to come up with a unique and creative piece of art in the time allotted. The other objective is to use as many of the recycled materials as possible.
4. Once the time you set is up, each group will present their creation to the larger team.
5. Either one judge or a panel of judges will assess each art piece based on factors like creativity, teamwork, and the best use of the materials provided. The team with the highest score is the winner.

Visual puzzles are all about teamwork through description. One person describes an object, and their teammates sketch it based on those instructions - without seeing the original object. The results? Usually hilarious, but also a great way to test communication skills.

This teambuilding activity is perfect for enhancing your team’s ability to give and follow clear directions. Plus, the unexpected drawings add a bit of fun and laughter, making it an enjoyable way to break up the workday while sharpening those communication skills.

How to play:

• One person describes an object (e.g., a mug or a bike).
• Teammates sketch the object based only on the description.
• Compare the drawings to the original for some laughs!

Here’s a game that demands timing and cat-like reflexes. It’s a rework of musical chairs, something that we’ve all played in childhood at least once. The game is fast-paced and competitive, making it a perfect team energizer. You’ll need a group of 4 to 10 people, a table and an amount of cups that is one less than the number of players you have. Basically, one person is going to be eliminated each round!

Set-up:

1. Get the music started! Get your Bluetooth speaker and an upbeat playlist ready. On the table place a number of cups that is one less than the amount of people playing. Most people will recognize the rules instinctively; you play the music and each player walks around the table clockwise. When the music stops, each person needs to grab one cup with lightning-fast speed. Whoever is without a cup at the end of this round is eliminated. Remove one cup and move to the next round.

2. Whittle down the competition: Continue eliminating one player per round. Make the music more intense and crazy as each round passes by. Eventually, only one person will be left standing (and sipping!), so crown this person as the winner of Musical Cups!

Cups can be full or empty as people play, and as with our other drinking games, choose a beverage that’s easy to clean up and applies to your work setting. Organize it during a work happy hour to get the party started. We’ll say cheers to that!

How to play:

‍Set up a relay race course with different safety-related tasks at each station (e.g., putting on personal protective equipment, bandaging a wound, fire extinguisher drill). Divide employees into teams and have them race to complete each task as quickly as possible.

The safety relay race combines physical activity with safety training, making it a fun and dynamic way to learn. It encourages teamwork and quick thinking, all while reinforcing essential safety skills. A great way to get the blood pumping and learn.

Note: Make sure this is in an outdoor setting! We don’t want accidents whilst playing a safety-based game… Facepalm…

Looking for a virtual trust-building activity that’s a little simpler than the one above?

Try the “One-question icebreaker”. A versatile game that you can use for any occasion, you can boost the bond between teammates in just a few minutes.

There isn’t a lot to this one! You simply open up a group video call with a single, thought-provoking ice-breaker.

The question itself could be silly or serious, work-related or totally random. Whatever the case, you give everyone on the call a chance to answer it and let those responses spark further discussion.

Here are a few proven ice-breaker questions you could use:

• What’s the worst fashion decision you’ve ever made?
• What’s your biggest irrational fear and why?
• Who was your first celebrity crush?
• If you could go on any game show, which one would you choose?
• Which emoji do you use more than any other?
• What’s the first bill you’d pass if you became president today? Why?
• If you won one million dollars, what’s the first thing you’d buy? Why?
• Which 3 celebrities would you want with you in a survival situation? Why?

What you need:

• If you’re good at thinking on your feet, then you don’t need anything for this trust-building exercise. However, it never hurts to prepare a few killer ice-breaker questions in advance.

How to play DIY Disc Golf

Disc golf is a sport where you sling flying discs (AKA Frisbees) at special targets made of metal chains and buckets. Like golf, the idea is to get your disc in the target in the fewest possible throws.

When it comes to Field Day games for adults, disc golf is awesome. But unless you have an actual disc golf course on-site, you’ll want to do things the “DIY way.” Create your own course by making targets out of big buckets of water (washing baskets also work) and placing them at different points around a playing field. You can then proceed around it, taking turns throwing Frisbees at the targets.

The goal? Get your Frisbee in the bucket with as few throws as possible! Each throw represents a “stroke.” Keep track of how many strokes it takes to hit each target, and then add them up at the end. The lowest score wins.

How to play Pass the clap game

Pass applause around the circle! To play, participants should gather in a circle and the leader will start the clap. Other players take turns clapping in a clockwise direction until the leader makes the final clap. There are some other variations, too. For example, the participants can start the clap slowly and then gradually increase the tempo over rounds.

How to play Invention-fest

A team that creates things together, stays together! Bring your group together to make something new. You can work as one large group but this is probably easier to facilitate if you break everyone up into smaller teams. Give people time to brainstorm ideas, and then come up with a workable prototype or model. This is a more in-depth activity that takes at least two days (one day for planning and one for bringing in supplies and building). A third day could be presenting the ideas and potentially having a panel judge the entries.

How to play Wordle

Another word game great for a motivational boost is Wordle. It can be played individually or with teams. Wordle is a letter-based guessing game, in which players need to guess a five-letter word within six attempts. Teams need to use letters of the alphabet to figure out what the chosen word is. Every guess needs to count!

There is usually a category to make things a little easier, like “films” “sports” or “animals.” A team chooses 5 letters from the alphabet, and the game host lets them know if they’re right or wrong.

After you guess a word, tile colors provide feedback:

• Green means the letter is correct and in the right spot.
• Yellow means the letter is in the word but in the wrong spot.
• Gray means the letter is not in the word at all.

Keep going for 6 total guesses and strive to find the Wordle of the game!

Bring a little mystery into your next event with this game. This one can add some comedy, but also become a sort of brain-teaser. It's fun for teams who don’t know each other that well (yet) since you don’t need to really know anything about each other to play. Obviously, as the name suggests, gauge your audience before playing - a game with pretend murder in it might not appeal to all audiences.

To play:

1. Create a circle with room for people to move around, and have one person in the center of it.
2. Secretly, select one person who is part of the circle (not in the center of it). You can just pick someone at random or maybe draw names in advance. Regardless, remember this should be a secret.
3. Once the game is started, the selected person is the “killer”. They “kill” people by winking at them. When they make eye contact and wink at someone, that person is down and should fall over onto the ground. They can be as dramatic as they want, but obviously bigger reactions will get more laughs.
4. The person in the middle is going to try and figure out who the “killer” is by observing the behavior of the group. They can have three guesses on who the culprit is. If they guess correctly, then the previous murderer is up in the center role. If they guess incorrectly, then they stay in the center and play another round.

Looking for a quick team-building activity to refine your group‘s listening skills before a meeting? Then Stop-Walk is the game for you!

Great for: Listening skills

Duration: 10 minutes

Players: 8+

You’ll need: Nothing

How to play Stop-Walk

Setup: Find a large room and delegate one person to be the “leader.”

To play: The game starts simply. The leader introduces two basic instructions: “stop” and “walk.” When the leader says “walk,” everybody starts walking around, and when he/she says “stop,” everybody stops. Then, the leader announces that the meanings of these phrases have now been reversed, so “stop” means “walk” and “walk” now means “stop.” Once the group has got to grips with these commands, the leader can slowly introduce new pairs of commands such as “clap” and “jump,” now and again reversing the meanings. Whenever somebody performs the wrong action, they are eliminated from the game.

Every now and then, differences crop up. Conflict management skills are like the superhero toolkit to sort things out, keeping relationships smooth and stress levels low.

Conflict management skills activity - "Resolution theater":

• Prepare several workplace conflict scenarios with varying levels of complexity.
• Divide participants into small groups and assign each group a scenario to act out.
• Instruct groups to perform a role-play where they present the conflict, pause at critical points and discuss potential resolutions.
• After the role-play, encourage groups to share their proposed resolutions and engage in a constructive dialogue.
  ‍

This interactive activity provides a safe space for practicing conflict resolution strategies, sharing insights and learning from different approaches.

Office DJ challenge brings some rhythm to the office! Teams collaborate to create themed playlists—whether it's “Monday Motivation” or “Friday Chill”—then share them to boost morale and get everyone in a good groove.

It’s a fun, creative way to connect over music, brighten the office mood, and maybe discover some new favorite tunes along the way.

How to play:

• Teams work together to create a themed playlist (e.g., “best road trip songs”).
• Share the playlists with the office.
• Enjoy the music and vote on the best playlist for the day!

Looking for more team building activities for small groups? Explore our full guide for more ideas to energize your team.

How to play Kiss, Marry, Kill

Looking for a quick and funny way to start a meeting? Try Kiss Marry Kill. A perennial crowd-pleaser, this question game involves choosing which of three people you’d rather kiss, marry, or – you guessed it – kill.

They can be fictional (e.g. characters from well-known movies) or real (e.g. singers, sports stars, or people in the office) and you take turns presenting three names for the other players to choose from. Expect light-hearted debate to rage as each participant justifies who they’re kissing, marrying, or killing!

If you want to make this game slightly more PC, then consider the alternative: “Kiss, Marry, Avoid.” The process is the same, just with slightly less offensive language.

Similarly to Kanban practices, an Estimation Game helps your employees manage their tasks and workflow. The premise of the game is to estimate the time or effort needed for project tasks. This can be especially helpful for newer team members and those working across departments. Here’s the setup.

Set up:

Have team members write down some of the important tasks they carry out at work on sticky notes. Get them displayed across your groups. These could be tasks like “creating a project timeline” or “preparing a corporate presentation.” The guesses need to be from people who don’t perform those tasks, estimating how long each one takes. The task owner reveals to the group the actual time needed, with the closest guess gaining a point.

How to play “MacGyver” challenge

MacGyver is an older television program where the hero escaped sticky situations by improvising tools made of unlikely materials. You can recreate this set-up in your event space or office. To play, challenge participants to use 3-5 items to reach a desired end result. For example, something like “a way to pick the door lock” or “escape vehicle” are fun options. You can either set out some various equipment, or have people collect their own based on what they can find around the office. Note: if you are doing this in a conference room or other rented space, it makes sense to have a table set up with random odds and ends for people to pick from.