Library of teambuilding games & icebreakers

How to play Bananagrams

A fast-paced board game, this is one you’ll need to purchase in advance. When you have the game in hand, distribute the letter tiles among the players. Every player will flip their tiles and start forming a crossword grid of intersecting words.

Players can rearrange their grid at any time to make new words. Once a player uses all their tiles, they can shout "Peel!" and everyone has to draw an additional tile. The game goes on until there are fewer tiles than players, and the first player to use all their tiles - shouting  "Bananas!" - wins the game.

How to play Truth or Dare

Want to discover new things about your workmates or challenge them to do silly stuff? Truth or Dare is a classic question game where you take turns choosing between a “truth” and a “dare.”

If you pick the former, you have to answer a personal question from one of your colleagues – no matter how embarrassing it might be! Opt for the latter, and you have to do something embarrassing, awkward, or otherwise unenjoyable.

As you can imagine, the truths and dares you’d do with close friends are likely to differ from what’s appropriate in the workplace! We suggest you keep the game “PG” when you’re with workmates – avoiding questions or dares that might make people too uncomfortable.

Potential “truths”:

• What’s your biggest fear?
• Who do you think is the best-looking person in the office?
• What’s the worst lie you’ve ever told someone?
• What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?

Potential “dares”:

• Do your best impression of [insert co-worker’s name here]
• Sing a song in front of the group
• Eat a spoonful of [insert condiment here]
• Call a random number and tell whoever answers that you love them

How to play Ghost

Ghost is a quirky little letter-building game, where the whole objective is to not be the person who finishes a word. 2 to 4 players work best. Let’s say you have a team of 3. Each person takes a turn saying a letter to begin spelling out a longer word, (e.g. F-L-O-U-). If the next person adds a letter that creates a full word, like R to create FLOUR, that person loses.

If you lose a round, you are given one letter of the word GHOST (just like the basketball game HORSE). The first person to get all 5 letters G-H-O-S-T loses the game!

This is another childhood favorite for many, and bringing it into your workplace is sure to create a little nostalgia. It's a simple and fun way to get everyone more comfortable working together.

Here’s how you play:

1. Have everyone sit down, either at a desk, on the floor, or wherever it makes sense (but everyone should be sitting). Everyone should close their eyes, put their heads down, and put their thumbs up.
2. Seven players will go around the room and touch one person’s thumb apiece. Each chooser will select only one person, and they should do so as quietly and discreetly as possible. The goal is for the chosen people to guess who picked them, so the more secret, the better.
3. Once all seven people have been picked, have everyone raise their heads and ask the seven chosen people to stand up. Now, they will guess who touched their thumb. Each person gets only one guess, and if they pick correctly, they will be one of the seven “choosers” in the next round.
4. The game continues with the new seven people, including anyone who guessed correctly in the previous round. Ideally, everyone will get a chance to be one of the “pickers”.

How to play Question mix and mingle

For this game, every participant creates 3 thoughtful questions that will help them get to know the other people better. Write each question down on a separate post-it note. Have everyone start to mingle and ask and answer questions in pairs. After asking a question and hearing the answer, the person should hand over the question they just asked. This means that in each meeting, participants will swap one question each. This event is great for groups up to 50 or 60 people.

How to play Resource scramble

In this game, teams will have the opportunity to practice some critical thinking and problem solving skills (as well as collaboration). Put people into groups of no more than 8, and give everyone a basket of simple supplies. For example, markers, paper clips, glue, and clay - things you have around the office are fine. Provide each team with a problem and have them use their set of resources to solve it.

Obviously this game works better if the resources could actually be applied to the problem, so you might want to suggest something like “Design a new logo” or “build a prototype of a new seasonal product”. Ideally, the group will come up with a few solutions and decide on their favorite, but they may only produce one if everyone is in agreement and timing is tight.

How to play Wikirace

The Wikirace is a simple game, loved by college students bored in class. In the chat, send one Wikipedia article hyperlink and call it ‘start page’, then another hyperlink titled ‘target page.’ The rules are that the player must get from the start page to the target page in a limited number of mouse clicks. It might be as random as going from ‘pizza’ to ‘Apollo 13.’

Try it out in teams to have everyone strategizing frantically. Try making it even more difficult by decreasing the amount of allowed clicks between pages. There’s no going back once a new hyperlink is clicked. Share your screen and try this one out for a laugh in a virtual meeting.

Expressing gratitude to employees by offering them continuing education through online training courses can be a great way to foster a positive work culture and boost employee morale. By offering to fund workshops and classes, employees can refine their skills and be better equipped to do their work.

• Communication and de-escalation course
• Emotional Intelligence Training
• Team building methods
• Diversity and Inclusion Training
• Leadership Development
• Mindfulness and stress reduction

Many of these courses are found on popular online learning platforms like Coursera, edX, and Udemy. If your team prefers an in-person learning session, contact professional development and HR organizations for tailored training programs. Tailoring your training to your organization's specific needs and culture is essential for practical gratitude expression.

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!

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!

Here’s a simple game that always goes down well with small groups – especially when it’s a new team that’s still getting to know each other. FYI, Magic box also works well when you need an improv game that’s less daunting or full-on.

How to play Magic box

To play, you’ll first have to assemble a box full of random objects. It doesn’t matter what goes inside! The stranger and more varied, the better. Candy bars, coffee cups, plants, pictures, water bottles, business cards, books…you name it.

With your box ready, the fun can start. Each person sits in a circle and takes turns picking out an item. They then have to tell the group something about themselves that relates to that object.

The trick is to do it without overthinking. Heck, this is improv! They can make something up entirely if they want to. Play it that way and the group could then try to figure out whether it was a true story or not. Bonus points if whoever’s telling the story can link it to a central topic or theme of the workshop.

Whatever version of this game you play demands quick thinking and creativity from participants. It can also showcase their personalities and help the team learn more about each other, becoming a closer group as a result.

As an aside, Magic Box can also be played by remote teams. All you need is a virtual box of items (a web tool like this can be helpful) that people select at random. We’ll go through more examples of remote improv games later.

Here’s another awesome improv game that involves groups of 3 people performing to an “audience”. This time, though, you’re back to using your bodies to imitate objects! With an element of mime, a sprinkle of role play, and oodles of silliness and fun, we can’t recommend “I Am a Tree” enough!

How to play I am a tree

The first step is to divide the team into groups of three. As always, you can pick the teams or let them choose their partners. From there, take turns to “perform”.

As the name of the game suggests, one person in the trio might stand up and proclaim, “I am a tree” – sticking their arms out to resemble branches and swaying in the breeze to prove it. Then a second person jumps in, pretending to be a different object that fits with the first (e.g. “I am a bird”).

The final group member then completes the scene. In this example, they might say something like, “I am a cat” and drop to all fours as they pretend to hunt the bird.

Then it’s the next trio’s turn! They can either continue the scene or start a brand new one. Whatever happens, you keep going until everyone’s had a try. Of course, you can also decide to create one giant scene that involves the entire team! You could then take a picture of the final result, framing it as a memento of the event.

We recommend “I Am a Tree” for various reasons.

Firstly, the fact you aren’t expected to say anything is a big plus for employees who don’t like the limelight. Secondly, teammates have to work together to create a cohesive scene. And thirdly, it speaks to the reality of teamwork: that sometimes you have to perform tasks and play a role purely in support of your colleagues.

Kanban is a Japanese word literally meaning “visual card.” It is one kind of agile methodology first developed by Toyota, and in this system, teams use visual cues to keep all tasks flowing in a process. One of the best ways to make an agile game with this system is by creating a simulated pizzeria. Let’s break it down:

Set-up:

Create a pizzeria with stations for each pizza-making step (e.g., dough rolling, cheese sprinkling, baking), represented by sticky notes as orders move through. Your teams will iterate with each order to speed up every round. Improving each round and redesigning how many workers are at each station makes great practice for agile methodology.

Explanation:

Each team member describes themselves using traits from a famous movie or book character, without saying who they are. The rest of the team has to guess the character based on the clues.

This game is perfect for hybrid teams! Whether remote or in the office, everyone gets a chance to participate. Each person describes themselves using personality traits or quirks of a famous character via video call or chat, and everyone else guesses who they are. It’s an easy-going virtual icebreaker that gets people laughing, thinking creatively, and learning more about each other.

How to play What If?

Want to inject some energy into proceedings and trigger some silly, serious, and generally scintillating discussions at the same time? Play What If. A super straightforward question game, you simply take turns asking “what if” questions for your teammates to answer.

You may find that the best discussions come from questions people make up on the fly. Nevertheless, here are some great “What If” questions to get things started:

• What if you could travel back in time?
• What if the power went out for a month?
• What it there was no internet anywhere in the world?
• What if your high-school crush contacted you out of the blue?
• What if you stopped drinking coffee for a week?
• What if a famous director asked you to star in their next movie?
• What if you had 24 hours left to live?

Listening is a huge part of communicating, and it’s hard to step back and hear what others say when we get stressed at work. This group exercise encourages teams to practice their listening skills, allowing others to speak and respecting their voice.

How to play:

‍Team leaders will choose a topic that will be discussed in subgroups, ideally of two, with an assigned speaker and listener. After the speaker is done, the listener will summarize what they said and subsequently switch roles.

Afterward, the group gets back together to review the process and talk about what it felt like to speak without interruption and what positives came out of that experience. Listeners are also encouraged to give feedback on how it affected them.

Materials you’ll need: Just your team and various seating areas to break them up into groups and a stopwatch/timer.

How many people: Small to large teams (8 to 25+ people)

How to play Rice bowl

Everyone could use more practice with chopsticks. Have players use them to transfer as much rice as possible from one bowl to another with only one hand (and their chopsticks). If you want to make things more difficult, you can use uncooked rice, which is much harder to maneuver.

How to play Water pong

If you have ever played the popular college drinking game “beer pong”, then this will look familiar to you. Fill plastic cups with water and place six of them on the opposite ends of a table. Take turns throwing ping pong balls with the goal of landing in the cups. Whoever sinks the most shots in a minute is the winner.

‍How to play:

Provide necessary materials. Encourage team members to create vision boards by cutting out images, words, and phrases that represent their aspirations and goals.

Materials needed: Magazines, scissors, glue, boards or poster paper

Benefits:

• Encouragement and imagination: Encouraging your team members to create vision boards allows them to tap into their imagination and express their aspirations visually. By curating the materials that represent their creative visions, team members gain focus and inspiration for their work.

How to play Pop explosion

Another game that’s best for outside! If you have ever seen YouTube videos of dropping a mint into a soda bottle, then you know that a large explosion happens. This is a fun little experiment that you can make into a game by seeing who can reach the explosion first. You may also want to name a winner for the highest-reaching eruption too.

Background noise can be a common challenge if you work in an office or go to your desk in the living room daily. This game relies on an everyday challenge, asking players to listen with intention and remain calm, even if the environment is overwhelming.

How to play:

‍Pick two people from your team to be the “speaker” and the “noise maker.” The person in charge of making noise is as loud as possible while others usually talk.

Team members listen carefully to try and retain as much information as possible. Many suggest that other team members close their eyes to try to hear as much as possible without visual distractions or prompts.

Materials you’ll need: No materials needed, just your team!

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

We all loved arts and crafts when we were kids, and this game brings out our inner child while encouraging problem-solving and creative thinking.

How to play: Split the group into two teams. Make sure you have enough space to place people to be apart or use a sheet to divide the space. Teams work together to construct one-half of a bridge, which will eventually be together. It’s essential for each group not to be able to see the other’s progress. The two groups can communicate verbally to ensure the design will result in a stable, “functioning” bridge.

Materials you’ll need: Construction materials, like newspaper, tape, legos, cardboard, etc. Make sure you have a device for measuring, like tape or a long rule—enough space for teams to work privately.

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

21 Questions is the perfect game for passing the time, learning more about each other, and exercising critical thinking skills. Here’s how it works:

One person in the group thinks of an individual (e.g. a celebrity), a place, an animal, or an object. Then everyone else takes turns asking “yes/no” questions to work out what it is! The aim of the game is to work together to find the answer as quickly as possible. If they don’t succeed within 21 questions, they lose.

Here’s an example where Player One is thinking of an elephant:

• Player Two: “Is it an animal?”
• Player One: “Yes.”
• Player Three: “Does it fly?”
• Player One: “No.”
• Player Four: “Is it a large animal?”
• Player One: “Yes.”
• Player Two: “Does it live in Africa?”
• Player One: “Yes.”
• Player Three: “Is it a giraffe?”
• Player One: “No.”
• Player Four: “Is it an elephant?”
• Player One: “Yes.”

They’d then swap roles, with Player Four (i.e. the person who guessed the answer) thinking of something for everyone else to guess.

How to play Three-line scene

Anyone who’s played beginner improv games before may have encountered a game called “Yes, and”. In it, people work together to build an increasingly ridiculous story. For example:

• Person 1: “I went to the gym this morning.”
• Person 2: “Yes, and your arms look fantastic.”
• Person 3: “Yes, and they’d be perfect for arm wrestling.”
• Person 1: “Yes, and I want to tattoo my partner’s name on them.”
• Person 2: “Yes, and they’ll probably want to marry you after.”

Three-Line Scene takes that concept and simplifies it. This time, pairs of colleagues work together to say one line each, using “yes, and” to build on whatever the previous person said. Heads up, it works best when you say statements vs questions. For example:

• Person 1: “I went to the gym this morning.”
• Person 2: “Yes, and you’re making me feel guilty about eating this cake.”
• Person 1: “Yes, and I’m not going to stop until you become my gym partner.”

The aim is to move fast, think quickly, and not worry about saying the ‘right thing’. The game works well because it rewards creativity and is inherently positive. Those enthusiastic “yes, and” responses embolden new improvisers and make them feel comfortable thinking on their feet and contributing to the task.

We don’t have to explain how helpful that is to team collaboration! The fact teammates practice the art of agreeing with their colleagues (vs dismissing their suggestions) is useful too. With any luck, it’ll transfer into everyday conversations.