Library of teambuilding games & icebreakers

Ready, set, puzzle! In puzzle dash, teams race against the clock to complete a jigsaw puzzle or brain teaser. The fastest team to finish wins, promoting problem-solving, quick thinking, and a bit of healthy competition.

This game is perfect for sharpening your team’s focus, collaboration, and time management skills. Whether it’s a jigsaw or a tricky brain teaser, puzzle dash brings out the best in quick thinking under pressure—all while having some fun.

How to play:

• Divide into teams and give each team a puzzle or brain teaser (e.g., a 100-piece jigsaw or a Sudoku challenge).
• Set a time limit and race to complete it as quickly as possible.
• The team that finishes first (or makes the most progress) wins!

How to play Icebreaker bingo

This is one of the best games for lengthier introductions and learning more about the people around you. Most people are familiar with a bingo format, so it should be easy to play. You can use an online bingo card generator to come up with squares and randomize them. Squares can be anything from “owns a boat” to “has 20 years with the company” to “met a celebrity”. Another great thing about this icebreaker game is that there are actual winners - so if you have some fun prizes to hand out, this exercise is perfect.

How to play Penguins and flamingos

This activity captures the magic of youth and gives everyone a chance to stretch their legs. One player acts as a flamingo and then everyone else is a penguin. Their goal is to “peck” one person on the head and make them a flamingo. The last person to remain a penguin wins!

How to play Bin Basketball

Grab two trash bins in the office and play ball! You can purchase a ball for this game but also just as easily use a tightly crumpled up piece of paper. Split into teams of two and play for around 10 minutes so each team member gets a chance to take a shot. Winner is determined by the team that makes the most baskets.

Learning about your coworker's wants and dreams outside of the office is a great way of building stronger, lasting relationships.

Great for: Interpersonal bonding

Duration: 5 minutes

Players: 4+

You’ll need: Nothing

How to play Bucket List

Setup: Ask your group to sit together in a circle, on chairs or on the floor.

To play: One by one, players tell five items from their bucket list to the rest of the group. This gives employees vital insight into the aspirations of their coworkers.

A classic, if you ask me. This game can get a little embarrassing, so it's a nice icebreaker!

How to play Chubby bunny

Two players go head-to-head, adding, placing and holding marshmallows in their mouth one by one. After each marshmallow has been added, each player tries and say the phrase “chubby bunny,” as clearly as possible.

Players keep adding a marshmallow until the judge declares a players “chubby bunny,” to be unintelligible.

How to play Value vs. feature

Knowing the difference between a feature and a benefit is essential, especially for more complex offerings like technology or industrial supplies. To begin with, everyone will need to review a document or a matrix that lists features as well as the benefits associated with each (obviously this is something you’ll need to prepare in advance if you don’t already have something like this created). Then, bring your group together for a virtual meeting and run through the different features or benefits. Pick them randomly so there’s no pattern.

After you share one, participants should chime in with whether that was a feature or a benefit. Finally, host a discussion about how easy or difficult the process was, and how people can better differentiate in the future.

Explanation:

‍One team writes the first half of a story, and the second team finishes it—often leading to hilarious and unpredictable twists.

The remote team kicks things off by writing the beginning of a story. It can be anything—an adventurous quest, a mystery, or even a funny office tale. Once they’re done, they hand it off to the in-office team, who has to pick up where they left off and complete the story. The catch? The teams can’t collaborate, so the second half is entirely up to the in-office group’s imagination.

Both teams come together to share the full story, often leading to laughs over the unexpected direction it took.

It's a creative way to bring different perspectives together while keeping things fun and engaging for everyone!

Think of this as your team's time-traveling adventure. The Historical Timeline Quest takes you to historical sites, but there's a twist. You'll decipher clues that unlock stories from the past. It's like solving history's riddles together. By working as a team, you'll connect the dots, piece together the timeline, and unveil the bigger picture. Through shared "aha" moments and collaborative detective work, you'll appreciate each other's unique knowledge and skills. It's not just history; it's a journey that brings your team closer, one clue at a time.

Instructions

• Assign roles to team members for efficient operation.
• Distribute clues that reveal historical landmarks.
• Visit sites, solve clues, and document significant events.
• Collaborate to accurately piece together the historical timeline.
• Keep historical references handy to aid in solving challenging clues.

How to play Office “Great race”

Have you watched The Great Race? It’s a competition show where teams race around the world competing various tasks, finding out what their next task is when they complete one. You can create your own version in your office and have teams go on a quest before ending at a finish line. You can make a day of it, or break things up over a few weeks.

We all fall on hard times. But victimising ourselves and dwelling on the negatives can lead us to overlook growth opportunities. Silver Linings alters perspectives of apparent failures and misfortunes.

Great for: Mindset development, positivity

Duration: 5 minutes

Players: 6+

You’ll need: Nothing

How to play Silver Linings

Setup: Divide your group into pairs. You might wish to pair employees together who don’t often have the opportunity to interact.

To play: The first partner starts by sharing a negative experience. This could be something from their personal or professional life, as long as it’s true. Upon hearing the experience, the second partner attempts to reframe the story in a positive light. Then, the first partner retells their story, highlighting silver linings they may have missed the first time around. The players then switch roles and start again.

How to play 10 things I do well

Another version of simply sharing information about yourself, ask people to come up with a list of ten things they do well. It’s a good idea to have a pen and paper at each place setting in advance so that people can brainstorm. Have everyone stand up and share their list with the group. This is actually a really powerful way to understand group dynamics and who is best for what, which is important for collaboration in the workplace. Plus, it’s a sort of forced reminder for individuals about what they are good at, which is a confidence builder.

How to play “Pass the energy” circle

People love this one because it’s high-energy and good for engaging groups. Here are the steps: begin with everyone in a circle. Have a “caller” who will kick off the game by choosing a noise to make (such as “ahh” or “boom”). The person next to them must replicate the noise and it goes around the circle until it gets to the last person, who makes a new noise. Everyone should try to make the noise as fast as possible around the group. If you want to add some extra fun, try timing the exercise for each sound and seeing how fast the group can run through a single noise.

In 3-question showdown, you’ve got a mission: mingle around the room and ask open-ended questions to get to know your teammates—fast. It’s speed-dating, but without the awkwardness, and way more about finding out who loves pineapple on pizza.

It’s a fun way to break the ice and discover fun facts about people you usually only see in meetings. Plus, who doesn’t love finding out who the office cat person is?

How to play:

• Mingle and ask each teammate three open-ended questions.
• Share fun facts you learned after the showdown.
• Walk away knowing way more about your coworkers (like who’s secretly a karaoke pro).

Hangman can be more than just a childhood pastime. It's a great way to break the monotony of the office and encourage team building.

How to play:

1. Choose a word or phrase and draw a line for each letter of the word.
2. The other player guesses one letter at a time. If they are correct, write the letter on the corresponding line.
3. If they are incorrect, draw a part of the hangman on the gallows.
4. The game ends when the word is guessed correctly or the hangman is completed.
5. Alternate roles and repeat.

Not only does Hangman sharpen vocabulary skills, it also allows colleagues to work together to solve a common puzzle.

How to play My Superpower

This activity is great for bigger groups as well as teams that don’t know each other very well. Each participant will state his/her name and then share what their “superpower” is. This can be a special skill, a curious fact about their lives, valuable knowledge they can share, etc. You can choose to make it more professional, or keep things more personal as a way of getting to know each other better.

To make it even more fun, use a ball to signify which person is speaking. The person will then toss the ball to another player at random, keeping things spontaneous as the game progresses.

How to play Jump over the imaginary ball

This is a warm-up game for many theater groups. It involves leaping over an imaginary ball. Everyone should stand in a circle and the leader will throw “the ball” to a participant. They jump over it and pretend that it rolls to another person for them to jump over. The game goes until everyone has had a chance to jump.

Explanation:

‍Teams bid on fictional items by describing them in the most creative way possible. Whether it’s a "self-warming office chair" or a "never-ending snack drawer," the challenge is to sell these imaginary products with over-the-top descriptions.

In-office and remote teams come together to craft the most outlandish descriptions for fictional items. Remote workers might create wild product ideas (think: an "anti-gravity backpack" or "teleporting coffee") and in-office teams will take turns describing why their made-up product is the best one. The fun lies in the creativity and the bizarre backstories teams come up with to "sell" their imaginary items. The best (or most hilarious) pitch wins the auction, and everyone has a good laugh at the absurdity.

Test your team’s spelling skills with a spell-off showdown! Contestants take turns spelling increasingly difficult words until someone slips up. It’s like a mini virtual spelling bee, but with more laughs and less pressure.

This game is great for keeping the brain sharp and having fun at the same time—especially when you realize nobody remembers how to spell "mnemonic."

How to play:

• The host gives players words to spell, starting with easy ones and getting harder.
• Each player takes a turn spelling their word.
• The last person standing after everyone else misses a word is the winner!

One of the hardest parts of joining or working in a large group is remembering everyone’s name! Collaborative Portraits is a warm-up activity that helps tackle the problem, while also providing an entertaining way to get to know your colleagues.

How to play Collaborative portraits

To run the exercise, hand out a piece of paper and pen to everyone in the group and ask participants to write their names at the bottom. They should then start walking slowly around the room.

When you say “stop”, they must find someone nearby, swap their pieces of paper, and draw their partner’s eyes. When that’s done, they swap back (so they’re holding the paper with their name on it).

You then repeat this process for the remaining facial features (i.e. nose, ears, mouth, hair, chin, accessories, etcetera…). By the end of the task, everyone should be holding a full “self-portrait” that’s been drawn by their colleagues!

Top tip: Consider displaying these drawings somewhere in the office. It’d be a fun memory of the exercise and could become a decorative focal point for people to look at in idle moments.

How to play Solving a riddle

If you don’t have time for an entire case study resolution, start simpler: a riddle. Check our article with plenty of riddles that don’t take a lot of time to solve. You might want to make it a little contest, and begin by sharing the riddle and seeing which team can solve it first. Need some inspiration? This one is from the classic book, the Hobbit: “This thing all things devours; Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town; Beats the high mountain down. What is it?” The answer is time!

A water gun fight is an opportunity for your employees to leave the stresses of the office behind them and enjoy some harmless fun.

Great for: Interpersonal bonding, relieving stress

Duration: 30 minutes

You’ll need: An open space, various water guns (at least one per person)

How to organise:

• Mark approximate boundaries for your water gun fight. If you’re in a park, this might simply be the approximate confines of the park itself.
• Scatter various water guns through the space for your employees to discover once the fighting begins.
• When you say “Go!” players will scatter to find a water gun and start firing at other players.
• There are no fixed rules here—the idea is simply to have fun!
• Blow a whistle to signify the end of the game.

How to play Blind Volleyball

Volleyball’s always fun to play with friends. However, this version of the game adds a memorable twist that makes it even better! Rather than playing with an ordinary net you can see through, you place a cover over the top that stops you from seeing the team on the other side.

This simple change completely alters the volleyball experience! It becomes something like Battleships. You have to guess where the opposition is so you can place the ball where you hope they aren’t. In essence, you’re playing blind.

Assuming you can find a volleyball net and ball, this Field Day game for adults is nice and easy to organize as well. The rules are exactly the same as normal, other than the cover you’ll put over the net (an old bed sheet does the trick nicely). Just be conscious of hitting the ball too hard! You don’t know where people are on the court, so smashing it over the net is asking for trouble.

How to play Compliment train

This simple no-prep activity keeps the aim of positive reinforcement and maximizes a productive atmosphere. It is so simple it can be run during a virtual water cooler chat. Each person in the group simply chooses one other attendee, and then that person chooses someone who hasn’t been complimented yet and tells them something positive they’ve done.

The effectiveness of this simple activity comes from the fact the complimenting is done at a peer-to-peer level, rather than from management.

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