Library of teambuilding games & icebreakers

How to play Hula Hoop Challenge

Instructions: Each participant is given a hula hoop and must keep it spinning around their waist for as long as possible. The person who keeps the hoop spinning the longest wins.

Materials needed: Hula hoops.

The Hula Hoop Challenge promotes physical activity, coordination, and determination. It adds a light-hearted and nostalgic element to the picnic, and participants can cheer each other on and share in the fun.

In this physical activity, there will be a facilitator instructing the larger team. You’ll also need ample space so make sure you are in a location that can accommodate a large group moving around. Have the facilitator start by instructing people to do some simple, engaging activities. For instance, they could start by saying “stand up”. Then, the facilitator says “stop” and then the instruction is flipped to its opposite. So, if they say “stand”, that really means “sit”. If they originally had said “walk”, that would now mean “stand still”.

As you can imagine, this leads to pure chaos and a lot of laughter. This is helpful for getting more physical but also in encouraging people to communicate better throughout the day.

This activity tests the strength of every link in the chain. In paperclip chain relay, teams compete to craft the longest paperclip chain within a time limit.

‍Set up:

1. Split everyone into teams of 4 to 6. Enough brains to brainstorm, but not too many cooks to spoil the broth.
2. Hand out equal piles of paper clips to each team. Ready, set, clip!
3. Decide on a time limit. 5 to 10 minutes should do the trick. Start your timer and keep it viewable.
4. Roam the room and cheer teams on as they make the longest chain possible. When time’s up, measure each chain to find the longest.

How to play:

‍Play a game Simon says with a safety theme added to it. Choose a leader to give safety-related commands (e.g., "Simon says put on your safety goggles," "Simon says find the nearest fire exit"). Employees must only follow the commands that begin with "Simon says."

Safety Simon says is a playful way to reinforce safety habits and quick response times. It keeps employees alert and engaged while reinforcing important safety behaviors in a fun and interactive manner.

Charades is a classic family party game everyone knows and loves. It also lends itself perfectly to online team-building events, although beware, the game can become considerably more difficult due to the limited view provided by the camera.

How to play Charades

Playing charades online also means you can eliminate any chance of cheating (all too common in the traditional game) by asking the performer to mute their microphone before starting.

Can your team protect an egg from a high drop using only a few materials? In the egg armor challenge, small teams work together to design a structure that keeps an egg intact when dropped from a height. Limited resources mean creativity is key!

This challenge brings out everyone's engineering skills, teamwork, and a bit of friendly competition. Plus, it’s always entertaining to see the wild contraptions people come up with. A little messy, but a lot of fun—and a great way to boost problem-solving skills in the office.

How to play:

• Split into teams and provide each with limited materials (e.g., paper, tape, straws).
• Teams design a structure to protect an egg.
• Drop the egg from a height and see whose egg survives!

Explanation:

‍Teams are given a random office scenario—like a virtual meeting gone wrong—and have to respond using only GIFs. The most creative and funny response wins the round.

Whether you’re in the office or working remotely, everyone can join in on GIF Wars. Teams are given a relatable scenario (like dealing with a tech glitch during a big meeting), and each person responds with their best GIF via chat or on a video call. Remote workers and in-office folks can jump in together, and everyone votes on the funniest or most fitting GIF. It’s a quick, entertaining way to add some humor to the day!

Red Light Green Light is another popular team warm-up/energizer that you may remember from childhood.

How to play Red light, green light

Simple to play and fun to participate in, your team has to line up on one side of a room and move toward a finish line whenever you – the facilitator – shout “green light”. When you yell “red light”, they have to stop.

If they keep moving forward, fall over, or do anything other than stand completely still, then they’re out. The winner is the first person to get to the finish line.

You can also play in separate teams instead of doing it individually though. In this version, you’d split everyone into 2 main groups, with the winner being the first group to get everyone across the finish line.

Top tip: Like many large group energizers, Red Light Green Light works best when you have a bigger space to do it in. Consider going outdoors to a local park if your office can’t accommodate the exercise.

Think you’re good at following directions? This game will test how good you are, testing your communication skills, so you follow the right directions.

How to play:

Pick one person from your team who will pick a game or activity that is complex or hard to follow. After reading the directions out loud to the rest of the group,  everyone else will attempt to play the game only based on what the speaker has told them.  They will have to work together and communicate to figure out how to play correctly.

Afterward, the leader and team can briefly discuss where there were any communication breakdowns and what could have been improved.

Materials you’ll need: A game with complex directions

How many people: Small to mid-sized teams (8-16 people)

Here’s another awesome energizer for small groups that enables co-workers to have fun and get to know each other at the same time.

How to play the chair game

To play, you’ll need to find a sturdy chair for each employee and put them all in a single line. Next, ask everyone to stand on one, facing the same direction. From there, the group must reposition themselves in order of age (or height, or some other metric of your choice) – swapping places without touching the ground.

It goes without saying, but make sure a) your office chairs are sturdy enough to hold people safely and b) everyone is physically capable of doing the task! If there’s any risk of harm, or if somebody may feel left out if they’re unable to play, consider skipping this energizer for something else on this list.

How to play Interdepartmental pitch battles

For this hybrid version, teams can collaborate online through virtual meeting platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, while those in the office can meet physically or join virtually. Remote team members can contribute their ideas via shared documents or collaboration tools like Miro or Slack. Each team presents their pitch live via video call, with remote judges participating online and in-office judges scoring live. The presentations can be recorded so that all participants can watch each team's ideas, ensuring everyone stays engaged.

How to play Posture obstacle course

If you have a space that is good for moving around, such as an open concept office, you can give this one a try. Use various furnishings or furniture to create a short obstacle course that everyone must go through in one minute. The catch? They need to balance a book on their head to ensure “proper posture”. If the book falls off they must start over. Have everyone go, one at a time, setting a minute timer for each instance.

Short, snappy, funny, physical, and with a powerful message about collaboration, this energizer for large workgroups is hard to beat.

How to play Stand back to back

It starts with participants pairing up with someone of a similar build. They then sit back to back on the floor and link their arms together. Their task?

To stand up while remaining with their backs together and arms interconnected.

Aside from providing plenty of laughs, this warm-up activity provides a valuable opportunity to discuss the importance of trust, alignment, teamwork and moving in the same direction to achieve a common goal. Take advantage of it!

Always be sensitive to people’s differing physical capabilities though. Skip this exercise for something else if it doesn’t seem appropriate.

How to host a Photo caption contest

Pick out a funny meme or cool photo and ask everyone to come up with a clever caption. You can either have one person pick a winner, do so by committee, or share with the company and let audience applause dictate the most popular caption. This is a quick team-building activity and easy to put together, and a good option for when you have a short window of time to bring everyone together. This activity is an ideal choice if your current bandwidth only allows gathering everyone in the breakroom for an hour or so. Simply share the image the night before and let everyone bring their A-game in the morning.

How to play Trivia

Questions games don’t get much better than good old-fashioned trivia! A classic way to test people’s knowledge on a range of topics, you can ask questions on everything from science and current events to religion, sports, and history.

Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from playing a “personal trivia” game too. Take this tack, and you’d ask questions to test the team’s knowledge about each other instead! For example, who did what at the last Christmas party? Which team member was born overseas? And who has a middle name that starts with “K”?

You get the idea!

Whatever type of trivia game you choose, the idea is to play in teams and compete against each other to see who can answer the most questions correctly. Award prizes to the winner to incentivize participation.

How to play Dice game

Sales is a numbers game, and the more thoroughly that your reps understand this, the more motivated they'll be to keep making calls and taking meetings. You’ll need teams of 8 players, so either keep your group small or break larger groups into smaller ones. Give each 8-person team one dice and a timer (set to 30 seconds). Have each person take a turn rolling and have one “secretary” in the group write down the results for every roll. In particular, they should write down each time someone gets a “6”, and record how many tries it takes to get that result.

The key is that the players can roll as many times as they want in the 30 second interval. You’ll quickly see people moving a lot faster in order to have more tries at getting the “6” - just the way the overall sales process should work. The faster you move, the more prospects you have, and the more likely you are to get your desired result. It’s a quick visual representation to drive home what makes a truly productive sales person.

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Role Reversal is a great team building game, giving employees the chance to swap roles with their colleagues for a select amount of time!

Materials needed:

• Grab those job role descriptions for everyone.
• Dig up documentation or guides related to each role.
• Make a schedule for the big switcheroo.

Instructions on how to play:

1. Before the big day, hand out the job role stuff to each team member.
2. Tell everyone they're swapping roles for the day – meetings, tasks, and all.
3. At the end of the day, get everyone together to spill the beans on their experiences.

Why it's a great team building game:

• Feel the feels: It helps everyone understand what their teammates go through, creating more empathy.
• Break the walls: Opens up communication by smashing those silos and getting people to talk.
• Team Power-up: Makes your team even stronger by finding new ways to work together.

Top tip to help the game run smoothly: Remind everyone it's not about finding faults but about understanding and appreciating each other. Keep an open mind, folks!

“It’s 11.30am on a midsummer’s day and your plane has just crash-landed on a remote desert island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Your task is to rank these 20 items that were salvaged from the plane in order of their importance to the survival of you and the team.”

That’d be one way to introduce the classic team and trust-building exercise called Desert Survival! A powerful way to demonstrate that teams outperform individuals and that collaboration’s key to success, this activity always goes down well.

There are three ways to play:

• With actual items that the team can hold and put in piles
• With pictures of each item or
• With items simply written down on a board or piece of paper

In any case, the team gets around 40 minutes to discuss each item, reflect on their respective pros/cons, and work together to decide what they’re going to keep. In the process, they’ll realize the:

• Need to speak up if they wish to make a point
• Problem with stubbornness in a collective environment
• Value of compromise and sacrifice in search of unity
• Gaps in their personal knowledge/reasoning that others can help fill

From a managerial perspective, the Desert Island scenario also reveals how well the team works together and how easily they find solutions to a problem. You’ll see how rapidly they approach a state of synergy – where collaboration enables them to leverage their individual strengths and become greater than the sum of their parts.

What you need:

• A selection of items to be used on a desert island (or pictures of them) – unless you choose to write them down instead.

How to play Giant Twister

Instructions: Create a large Twister board on the ground using colorful circles or mats. Players take turns spinning the wheel and placing their hands or feet on the corresponding colors without falling. The last person remaining on the board wins.

Materials needed: Large Twister board or mats.

Giant Twister adds laughter, physical activity, and friendly competition to the picnic. It promotes flexibility, balance, and creates a lively and entertaining atmosphere for participants and spectators.

How to play Birth map?

There’s a lot of value in knowing where people come from. This is especially true if your organization has several offices or a hybrid workforce that is scattered. For this exercise, have a facilitator place a large map in front of the room. Have plenty of pins available and have each person come up one at a time to place a pin on the city where they were born. If you want to expand the exercise into a dialogue, try asking some follow up questions like “Whose birthplace surprised you most?”. You can also leave the map up during the rest of the day as an interesting conversation starter.

How to play Defy gravity

For this game each player needs two balloons. Using only one hand, each player tries to keep them both from touching the ground for a whole minute. If you want more of a challenge, increase the amount of balloons to three per player. No holding onto the balloons! Tip: Use different colored balloons so you can better keep track of which have touched the ground.

How to play Timeline creation

A collaborative creation is a great way to help teams to bond, and the bonus is that you get something to display and remind your employees of a fun day and group effort. Start by rolling out a large white scroll of paper in a big space or outdoors. Provide plenty of drawing materials and ask the team to work together to create a timeline of the company. In this way, employees will share important milestones that they know about the company - and newer staff will learn them. It’s a great facilitator of discussion around what makes your organization great.

How to play Virtual gratitude wall

Utilize the power of digital whiteboards that allow you to save your groupwork, creating a mural of positivity through a virtual gratitude wall. This simple idea brings a stronger sense of unity in teams and solidifies team morale.

Look for a digital whiteboard, or go a step further and get on a collaboration platform like Padlet, letting users add sticky notes and share videos. The emphasis is on positive reinforcement and morale-boosting through remembering what we’re grateful for. Try this one out to get a positive atmosphere flowing.

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Ever wish you had a roadmap to success that's so clear it practically unfolds itself? Well, here's a twist on traditional goal-setting – the Backward Goal Setting activity. Instead of starting at square one and plotting your course forward, imagine you've already reached the pinnacle of success. What does it look like? Now, work backward to identify the steps and milestones that got you there.

This technique transforms lofty long-term goals into manageable, bite-sized chunks. It's like reverse-engineering success – a strategic approach that breaks down the journey into actionable tasks, helping you pave the way to your objectives with confidence.

Top Tips For Facilitators:

• Encourage participants to break big goals into small, manageable steps. Sometimes the big goals can get overwhelming!
• Plans can change, and that's okay. Let know that they need to be adaptable to unexpected shifts.
• Share stories of success with backward goal setting for inspiration. Perhaps an employee from a different department or an inspirational figure online!