Library of teambuilding games & icebreakers

This game doesn’t take very long, but it’s a great warm-up for the beginning of your meeting. It’s a great ice-breaker, especially for teams who already know each other a little.

How to play Guess the emoji board

To play guess the emoji board, you’ll need to ask each participant to send you a screenshot of their “most recent” emoji board on their phone. Once you’ve gathered all the screenshots, you can share your screen and display them one by one to the group.

It’s now the participant’s job to try and guess who’s board it is based on the emojis they see. Some will be easy, while others will test your team’s powers of deduction.

A simple and low-stress icebreaker game that gets the ball rolling can be done on large and small company retreats.

How to play: Break your team into small groups with no more than five people. Give them the prompt, a simple question, like, “how would you describe your work day?” Each team has five or ten minutes to develop a one-word answer that sums up their response. After the exercise is finished, each team goes around and reads their answer out loud, facilitating discussion amongst the group.

You can play this game as many times with as many questions as you can come up with!

Materials you’ll need: Just your team!

How many people: Small to mid-sized groups

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!

5-minute energizers don’t get much better than this one. Got Your Finger is fun, fast-paced, suitable for groups of all sizes, and sure to lift the mood. Oh, and it requires no prior planning or preparation either.

Here’s how to play:

Ask the team to stand in a circle, close together, and face inward. Next, tell each participant to stick their right hand out with their palms facing the ceiling. They then have to put their left index finger on the open palm of whoever’s standing to their left.

Now the fun can start! When you shout “Go”, each participant must try to close their hand around their partner’s finger before they escape. It’s multi-tasking at its finest – trying to stop the colleague to your left from catching your finger, while simultaneously trying to grab whoever’s on the right.

How to play Mini Myers-Briggs session

If you work in a progressive environment, then chances are you’ve completed some form of personality assessment before, maybe even the Myers-Briggs version. In this popular personality test, you are assigned a four-letter personality type that gives insight into your behavior in relationships, at work, etc. Have everyone complete the test in advance, and then start your meeting by having everyone discuss the results.

How to play:

Provide teams with sculpting materials such as clay, Play-Doh, or modeling clay. Challenge them to create sculptures based on given themes or prompts, encouraging imaginative interpretations and creative expression. Select a judge to choose the best one to determine a winner.

Example: The prompt says design a Simpsons character with play-doh (unintentional pun).

Materials needed: Sculpting materials (clay, Play-Doh, modeling clay)

Benefits:

• Tangible manifestation of creativity: Get ready to witness magic in action as your team members mold and shape their creative visions into physical forms. Their sculptures will be concrete proof of their incredible imagination, leaving everyone in awe and inspired.
• Celebration of individuality: Embrace the uniqueness and diversity of interpretations as each team member unveils their extraordinary sculpture. This game creates an environment that celebrates individuality and appreciates the creative expressions of others.

Do you have anyone in the office who is an absolute pro on a bowling alley? Maybe you do, but you haven’t realized it yet. 10-pin bowling with cups demands precision and a little strategy. It works well in small teams too, with each teammate helping the bowler plan out their attempt.

You’ll need 10 cups per team, with each team member taking turns to bowl. Cups placed the right-way-up make knockdowns a lot easier! Here’s how to get it started:

Set-up:

1. Prepare an “alley” for bowling: Set up your cup formation, 10-pin style, at the end of a flat, smooth table (the longer the better!). To replace a 10lb bowling ball, just use a tennis or ping-pong ball.

2. Roll to your heart’s content!: Each player has 2 attempts to roll the ball along the narrow table and knock over as many “pins” as possible. Not everyone is going to bowl a “spare” or “strike,” so you might need someone keeping careful tabs on the scoreboards. Play over 10-frames to find and crown your winner.

It doesn’t take much to set up this cup and ping-pong ball game, so bring the excitement of a bowling alley to the workplace for teambuilding fun! Serve some popcorn and play the sound of pins being hit with each roll too, to get the atmosphere right!

Hosting a company-wide employee appreciation day is an idea to show employees gratitude and recognition for their hard work, dedication, and contributions to the organization. It's an opportunity for employers to express their appreciation and for employees to feel valued and motivated.

Here are some ideas and suggestions for celebrating Employee Appreciation Day:

1. Write personalized thank-you notes to each employee, highlighting their contributions and efforts.
2. Offer gift cards to employees to take themselves to lunch or coffee.
3. Hand out employee awards that highlight outstanding employees with awards or certificates, such as "Employee of the Month."
4. Host a company-wide employee breakfast where employees can relax and bond with one another.
5. Take the day off for team-building activities that encourage employee bonding and camaraderie.
6. Take the day off to volunteer day and use all that appreciative energy to do some good. Volunteer for a charitable cause or support a community project as a team-building activity.
7. Acknowledge each employee's unique interests and preferences, which can make the recognition more meaningful.
8. Share employee accomplishments on social media, the company website, or a company newsletter to highlight their contributions.

Employee appreciation day is all about celebration and showing gratitude and should be made an ongoing practice within the workplace to maintain a positive and motivated workforce.

How to play What do we have in common?

In large organizations, it can be hard to encourage interaction. Use this exercise to improve relations whether in person or in virtual meetings. The moderator should simply ask the group to come up with 5 or 10 things they all have in common. This could be a favorite pizza flavor or Starbucks order, or the ability to speak another language. Colleagues will have to have an extensive dialog to learn about each other and come up with these commonalities, which can be really beneficial for relationship-building.

How to play Confess then guess

This is a simple “getting to know you” game for groups of all sizes, especially people who are just getting to know each other. In every round, participants write down the answer to a prompt (that was previously created) and then put the answer into a bowl. A host will read out each reply and players have to guess which person wrote the answer. Some prompts to try are:

• Your greatest fear
• Your favorite animal story
• Who you were in a past life
• Your favorite activity for relaxing
• What you were voted in high school
• What you wanted to be when you grew up
• The first item on your bucket list
• Your personal hero
• Something you’re allergic to

Team-building doesn’t only need to be about silly games. Sometimes, you strengthen your team while contributing something valuable to your local community.

Great for: Company culture, company perception, job satisfaction

Duration: 2–3 hours

You’ll need: N/A

How to start:

• Consult your team about the type of community service they’d like to get involved with. It could be anything from a beach cleanup to helping out at an animal shelter.
• Once you’ve settled on an activity, reach out to your chosen organisation and inform them you’d like to offer a helping hand.
• Don’t forget to document the event by taking photos or making a video—these images will make additions to your employee breakroom!

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!

How to play Pantry pop quiz

A piggyback off of the desktop exercise, learn about your colleagues favorite foods with this challenge. Have each person send a photo of the inside of their fridge or pantry and then show them during the meeting and have everyone guess who each picture belongs to. For example, many people will think it’s obvious that the bachelor in the group has only ketchup and beer in the fridge. This is a fun peek into the lifestyle of the people you work with.

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How to play Paper airplane race

Like the pencil javelin, the paper airplane race centers on how far you can get your paper airplane to fly. Each team constructs their best engineered plane and marks where they ultimately land. Each person on the team should have a chance to fly the place and the team that gets the furthest is declared the winner.

How well do your team really know each other? Team Trivia is a fun and simple game that will put your employee’s relationships to the test.

Great for: Interpersonal bonding

Duration: 10 minutes

Players: 6+

You’ll need: Nothing

How to play Team Trivia

Setup: Before you can play Team Trivia, you need to compile interesting facts about your employees. The easiest way to do this is to send out a survey designed to extract as many cool facts as possible.

To play: Team Trivia can be played online or in person, making it a great solution for remote teams. Bring your team together and start asking questions to your team. These can be things that they might already know, like, “Who is the tallest member of the team?” Or things they will need to guess at, like, “Who in the office has eight siblings?” The player with the most correct answers is the winner!

How to play Which cartoon character would you be?

What silly character (or creature) are you most like? Have everyone go around the room, and in addition to the basics like name and role, ask them to share which cartoon character they would play and why. For example, a rugged outdoorsman might say he is like Sven from the Disney classic Frozen, while a particularly studious young woman might say she is like Lisa Simpson from the old Simpsons show.

Few team-building games create equal parts laughter and confusion, but the Human Knot certainly does!

This classic team-building game looks simple on the surface, but it quickly turns into an exercise in communication and patience.

The premise is simple: Teams must untangle themselves from a knot of interlocked arms without letting go, using nothing but cooperation and a bit of flexibility (both physical and mental).

It’s quick to set up, completely equipment-free, and perfect for breaking down barriers in any group, from new hires to long-time teammates.

What you’ll need

The Human Knot is refreshingly low-tech. All you need is people, space, and a sense of humour.

• Open space: An area big enough for everyone to move around safely without bumping into desks or walls. Spaces with a softer floor may be a bit kinder on the knees, too!

• A large group of participants: You’ll be breaking the whole team down into smaller groups. Smaller circles untangle faster, while larger ones create real puzzles (and more laughs).

• Comfortable clothing: You’ll be stretching, twisting, and possibly spinning in quite a few circles. Best leave the tight jeans at home.

• A timer (optional): Consider adding a big timer that everyone can see for a little competitive energy between teams.

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That’s it; no props, no setup, no mess. The only challenge is convincing everyone that it’s not a crazy trust fall or an elaborate escape room.

How you can do it (step-by-step instructions)

Getting started is simple. Follow these steps to form your knot, untangle it, and hopefully come out stronger (and still friends).

1. Split the group into teams

If you’ve got a large group, divide everyone into smaller circles of around six to eight people. Smaller teams make for faster, more focused gameplay, and fewer elbow-related accidents.

2. Form the circle

Each team stands shoulder to shoulder in its own circle. Everyone extends their right hand into the centre and grabs someone else’s hand. However, you have to tell your teams that they cannot hold the hand of the person standing directly next to them.

3. Complete the knot

Now teams need to do the same with their left hand, grabbing a different person’s hand this time. When every hand is connected, you’ve officially formed the “human knot,” a super-tangled web of arms that needs teamwork to be solved.

4. Start untangling

Without letting go of anyone’s hands, teams must work together to unravel back into a circle. Participants can twist, step over, duck under, or rotate carefully. Whatever it takes to break free, they can use it, as long as they never let go of a person’s hand, as this would break the chain.

5. Add a timer (optional)

If you wanted to make this a bit more challenging, or if you’ve got a team who have done this before, you could add a countdown timer to see which team untangles itself first. Just make sure everyone’s focused on synchronized movements; otherwise, you might see a few accidental wrestling moves come out.

6. Celebrate your victors

If your group forms one perfect circle, give them a round of applause. If you end up with two smaller circles instead, that still counts as success (because taking part is as important as winning, right?). The aim is communication and cooperation; you don’t always need perfect results to learn from an exercise.

Facilitator tip:

Encourage teams to talk through their ideas and move slowly. Rushing only tightens the knot (both literally and figuratively). If teams get stuck, let them pause, communicate, and rethink their approach. The real “win” will be found in how they solve the problem as a group.

Variations and twists

Once everyone’s mastered the basic Human Knot, you could get a bit devilish by adding a few creative twists:

• Silent knot: No talking allowed. Teams must rely entirely on gestures, eye contact and intuition to untangle, which usually leads to equal parts frustration and laughter.

• Double knot: Two smaller circles join hands and intertwine to form one giant mega-knot. The goal here is to separate back into two circles, still without letting go.

• Reverse knot: Start untangled in a perfect circle and challenge teams to intentionally tie themselves into a knot as quickly as possible, then untangle again. You might find some interesting reverse engineering at play with this one.

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Debrief: What teams picked up in the activity

Sure, The Human Know is a tangle of limbs and a barrel of laughter, but inside the activity are some powerful lessons about teamwork in motion. Once the knots are undone (and everyone’s regained feeling in their arms), gather the group to reflect on what just happened:

• Patience and flexibility: The fastest way out isn’t always the most direct. Sometimes you need to pause, breathe, and rethink your next move.

• Communication under pressure: Success rests on the back of clear communication, listening actively, and making sure everyone’s voice is heard.

• Collaborative problem-solving: There’s no single leader in the knot; progress comes from coordination and relying on the others in your group.

• Humour and resilience: Laughter keeps frustration at bay, and it’s often what brings people closer together in the face of real challenges.

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Use the wind-down moment to link back to the teamwork they use every day. The same qualities of communication, adaptability and persistence are needed as much in untangling as they are in the office!

FAQs:

How many people do you need for the Human Knot?

Ideally, each team should have around six to eight members. Smaller groups can untangle faster, while larger ones make the challenge more complex, but also more entertaining.

What does the Human Knot teach teams?

It’s a simple, low-pressure way to practise teamwork, communication, patience, and creative problem-solving. It’s a great way to break the ice for unfamiliar team members, and it encourages focus, while not taking oneself too seriously!

What are the rules of the Human Knot?

Each person must hold hands with two different people who aren’t standing next to them. Once the knot is formed, the group must untangle, without ever letting go of a hand (breaking the chain).

How to host Talent show

For more silly fun, let employees know that your next happy hour will be a talent show. To execute this idea, you probably need to be in your own office space or another venue where you have the space to yourself. This is also a nice idea for a big outdoor space. Announce the talent show in advance and let everyone prepare an “act”. Or, for even more fun, put people on the spot during the event and see what everyone can come up with at the last minute.

You can encourage more cross-department collaboration by having people split up into groups for their talent act, doing things like a group poetry recitation or improv scene. If you want to ensure more networking, divide up the groups in advance.

When the whole gang's aiming for the same bullseye, see it as though it’s a motivational magnet. Shared goals keep everyone on track, turning coworkers into the dream team who want to see the best in you.

Shared goals activity - Vision board creation:

• Set up a creative station with magazines, newspapers, scissors, glue and large poster boards.
• Instruct colleagues to create individual vision boards by cutting out images, words and phrases that represent their career goals, aspirations and values.
• Encourage participants to share their completed vision boards with the group and explain their choices.
• Discuss common themes and goals that emerge, showcasing the team's shared aspirations.
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This visually engaging activity strengthens the sense of unity and purpose among colleagues.

How to play

This is perfect if you don’t plan to leave the office for your meeting or event. Have people break into pairs and then create a craft from materials they find around the office. They should try to be really innovative and come up with the best creation that they can - having a prize can help with this. You might be surprised at the great items they come up with, like a suncatcher made from coffee filters and highlighters. If you want to combine an icebreaker with this exercise, assign pairs randomly so that people will work alongside someone they don’t see very often. It provides the perfect opportunity for getting to know someone better.

Frostbite’s an effective trust-building exercise that encourages strong communication and listening skills – not to mention teamwork as a whole. Like the other activities in this section, it works best if you’re in an open space, so head on down to the local park (or clear an area in the office!).

How to play Frostbite

When you get there, break your employees into smaller teams of 5 to 6 people and ask each group to choose a leader (or do this for them if there are certain people you think would benefit from this role). Their objective?

To build a makeshift “tent” using newspaper, string, tape, and other office supplies*! But there’s a catch...

The leader of each group has “frostbite” and can’t move. And, to make matters worse, the other members have “snow blindness” and can’t see. In reality, this involves asking the leader not to do anything practical and putting blindfolds on the others. The only way to pitch the “tent” is to listen to the leader’s directions.

Spice things up even more by setting a time limit. The team with the best tent at the end wins a prize.

*Of course, this same principle can apply to any task, which is good news if you’re short on time and/or want an easier activity!

What you need:

• Blindfolds
• Office supplies to build the “tent”
• Stopwatch

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 thought of completing tasks in a foreign language with your team? The Language Barrier Quest throws you into an international adventure where you'll face language challenges head-on. Teammates support each other as you navigate through linguistic puzzles. It's not just about learning new words; it's a chance to build trust and embrace different cultures. This quest transforms language barriers into bridges, all while strengthening your team's cohesion.

Instructions

• Divide participants into teams.
• Assign tasks or challenges that require communication in a foreign language.
• Provide resources like translation tools or basic language guides.
• Teams work together to complete tasks, overcoming language barriers.
• Encourage assistance within teams.
• Reflect on the experience to promote cultural understanding and teamwork.

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.