Library of teambuilding games & icebreakers

A classic getting-to-know-you game, Twenty Questions is fun and easy to play, taking up minimal space and great for after-work activities or as a bar game on a company retreat.

How to play:

‍Split into a team of two or small groups and assign one person who will think of an object, animal, etc. The other team members can ask twenty questions to determine the person's feelings.

Another way to keep score is to time how long it takes for those asking the questions to figure it out. If you ask 20 questions and still don’t know the answer, you lose, and the other person wins. Those who find the solution in less time are the winners and get a higher score.

Materials you’ll need: A list of topics and a timer

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

Ready to put your employee’s engineering skills to the test? Paper Tower challenges your team to build the highest tower using nothing but a few sheets of A4.

Great for: Problem-solving, communication, collaboration

Duration: 5-10 minutes

Players: 6+

You’ll need: A4 paper

How to play Paper Tower

Setup: Divide your group into teams of about 4-6 players and give each team several sheets of A4 paper. It’s up to you how many pieces of paper you hand out, but make sure each team is provided with the same number.

To play: Teams have just five minutes to build the tallest tower possible using the paper provided. Teams are not allowed to use any bonding materials to strengthen their tower. Don’t forget to keep teams updated on the time by announcing how much time is left. Once the five minutes are up, measure the highest tower and discuss with each team what went well and what went wrong.

In match quest, everyone has the name of a famous pair (like “Batman” and “Robin”) stuck to their back, but they don’t know who they are. Players ask each other yes/no questions to figure out their identity and find their match. It’s a race to see who can complete their pair first!

This game is perfect for encouraging interaction and getting people mingling. It’s a lighthearted, playful way to break the ice and get the team laughing together, making it ideal for building connections.

How to play:

• Write the names of famous pairs on cards and stick one to each player’s back.
• Players ask yes/no questions to figure out who they are.
• The goal is to find your match as quickly as possible.

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 Finding Bonds

Try an identity game that will help players to find common bonds. Everyone takes a turn making “I am a…” statement. Some examples could be “I am a mother” or “I am a runner” or “I am an amateur chef”. Other players who identify with that statement should move to stand near the person speaking. To begin the game, players should be spread out across the room, and move toward speakers as they identify with statements shared.

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 Human snake

In this highly effective team-building game, players can focus on the value of trust and collaboration. The game requires people to follow the lead of the first player in a line to manage obstacles. This will require a large space that you can manipulate. Then come up with obstacles like books, chairs, or folded paper that you place on the floor. Have participants stand in a straight line to begin, and cover the eyes of everyone except the first player with a blindfold. The first player will walk through the space while other players follow in a line. The first person should help to guide everyone to avoid the obstacles and work as a team. If everyone successfully makes it to the end without stepping on any obstacle, the team wins!

How to play Panty Hose Game

Have you ever heard of “Minute to Win It” games? They’re exactly what they sound like! 60-second games that are over before you know it.

You can play for longer if you wish, but the idea is to keep things fast-paced and free-flowing. They’re ideal games for warming up, setting the tone for the day, or for whenever you want a quick-fire activity to fill a gap (or be part of another one – such as in a relay race or obstacle course).

Anyway, this Panty Hose Game is one example of a minute-to-win-it game that always goes down well. Here’s how to play:

• Lay rows of 5+ water bottles on the ground, with one row for each person/team
• Give everyone playing a small ball (e.g., a baseball) and some pantyhose
• Tell them to shove the ball into the foot of one pantyhose leg
• Tell them to pull the top of the pantyhose over their head, so the ball dangles at the other end like a strange antenna
• Their task is to move up the line of bottles, swinging the ball (no hands allowed!) to knocking each one over as quickly as possible
• The first person/team to knock their bottles over wins

How to play Gratitude Hot Seat

A gratitude hot seat is an exercise where employees express gratitude or appreciation for something or someone in the workplace.

In this exercise, one person sits in the "hot seat" and shares what they are grateful for or appreciative of at work, which can be anything from a relationship with a coworker to a successful project outcome. Other participants in the group are encouraged to listen as well as offer acknowledgment.

How to play First Letter, Last Letter

For this game, have everyone form a circle and sit down. Choose one person to start first. That person writes or says a word and the person next to them has to come up with another word using the last letter or the last few letters of that word. This is a verbal game that doesn’t require any materials or special preparation, which makes it a great activity if you have some spontaneous time to fill and want it to be productive.

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

How to play Live “Price is right”

If you’re familiar with the classic show, you know how into it people can get! Try hosting a variation of the show at work. Split everyone into two teams and have everyone guess prices on things from around the office. You can use items ranging from an executive desk to snacks in the kitchen.

Make sure you know the real prices so that you can fairly determine the winners each round. Bonus points for having fun props like large cards to write guesses on, or nameplates to display team names. You’ll have to give some consideration to just where to host this game - the space needs to fit everyone and also have room for bringing in the items.

For remote teams, staying fit and healthy can be a challenge. No longer do we need to walk or cycle to work, we just roll out of bed and place ourselves at our desks.

Sometimes, a little healthy competition is enough to give people the incentive they need.

How to play the ‘Healthy together‘ challenge

‍To play this game, think of a challenge like ‘run 1 kilometre every day.’ Everybody needs to prove that they completed the challenge each day (by showing a GPS route, for example). Every time the challenge is completed/failed it gets marked on a calendar. At the end of the month, the team member with the most completed days wins a prize!

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 play Bean Bag Toss

Instructions: Set up a bean bag toss board with different-sized holes and assign point values to each hole. Participants take turns throwing bean bags and aim to score the highest points. The player with the highest score after a set number of rounds wins.

Materials needed: Bean bag toss board, bean bags.

Bean Bag Toss is a versatile game that suits all ages and skill levels. It promotes hand-eye coordination, focus, and friendly competition. It encourages social interaction and allows participants to engage in casual conversation while playing.

How to Desert Island Exercise

For a quick and easy icebreaker that doesn’t require any materials, try this simple question and answer exercise. Simply ask what each person would bring if they were stranded on a desert island. Then go around the room and have everyone introduce themselves, along with the one item that they would choose. They should pick one thing and then offer a brief explanation of why they chose it.

Trusting your colleagues doesn’t just feel good. It also has very practical implications. After all, it means you can count on each other for help; to work together to achieve common goals.

The Perfect Square (otherwise known as the “blind square”) game teaches this lesson to your employees and sets in motion the teamwork that’s so pivotal to a successful working environment.

How to play Perfect/blind square

Here’s how it works:

Get your entire team to stand in a circle and give them a long stretch of rope to hold. Next, put a blindfold on each person. They then have to drop the rope, take a few steps back, and spin around a few times until they’re dizzy.

That’s when the fun really starts!

Their goal is to return to the rope and work together to lay it out in the shape of, you guessed it…a perfect square. You can give them as much time as they need or add some pressure by setting a time limit.

We like this activity for its simplicity, but you can definitely make it harder if your team’s finding it too easy! For example, why not get them to make a star, diamond, or pentagon? It’s sure to keep them occupied a little longer.

What you need:

• Blindfolds
• Rope

How to play Three-Word Check-In

This isn't exactly an activity but rather a practice you can encourage your employees to adopt on a daily basis. People come to the office with varying moods every day. It could be due to a challenging workload that makes someone feel on edge and emotional, or it might be personal issues like a recent breakup that leave them feeling angry. In reality, it's not your role to pry into the reasons behind someone's mood unless they choose to share with you.

So, if they don't open up to you, how can you gauge how they're feeling? This is where the "Three-Word Check-In" comes into play. Encourage individuals to express their emotions for the day using just three words.

For instance:

Imagine Martin is having a particularly difficult day where everything seems to be going wrong, leaving him agitated and frustrated. If a co-worker asks him how he's feeling, Martin can simply respond with "Agitated, frustrated, sad." In this way, his colleagues now have a better understanding of his emotional state and can give him some space and support until he begins to relax.

This could be perfect for preventing a potential conflict and is great for team cohesion!

Bring on the cuteness with pet parade party! Team members show off their pets (or favorite stuffed toys, if they don’t have pets) in a virtual showcase. Whether it’s a dog, cat, or even a pet rock, everyone gets a turn to introduce their little (or big) buddy to the team.

This is a fun, lighthearted way to bond over something everyone loves—adorable animals. Plus, who doesn’t love a chance to show off their furry friends?

How to play:

• Each team member gets a turn to show off their pet (or stuffed toy).
• Introduce the pet and share a fun fact or story.
• Enjoy the cuteness and some laughs as you meet everyone’s pets!

Imagine sitting in a circle with your colleagues, weaving a story together one sentence at a time. This is the essence of the Storytelling Relay, a playful yet powerful activity that fosters active listening in the workplace.

How to play

1. Form a circle with your team members. Ensure everyone has a clear line of sight to the person speaking.
2. The game starts with one person. They utter the opening sentence of a story, anything that comes to mind.
3. The next person continues the story with a single sentence, following the lead of the previous speaker. It should make sense and smoothly connect to the previous sentence.
4. Go around the circle, with each participant adding a sentence. The goal is to build a cohesive narrative.
5. This is where active listening comes into play. Participants must pay close attention to the unfolding story to ensure their contributions fit seamlessly.
6. It's essential not to interrupt or correct others. The story may take unexpected turns, but that's part of the fun!
7. Continue until you reach a predetermined ending point or when the story feels naturally complete.

Whether you’re onboarding new employees or simply want your current employees to form a more cohesive unit, Hypeman’s sure to help. Incorporating personal introductions and an element of role play, it’s a popular activity that never fails to create a positive atmosphere in the office!

How to play Hypeman

Give it a shot by dividing the team into groups of 3 and asking them to assign themselves roles:

• Player 1 has to share some basic personal information with the group (e.g. where they’re from, what they do, what hobbies they have, and so on)
• Player 2 introduces Player 1 to the audience by recounting what they just learned about them in a simple, matter-of-fact manner
• Player 3 is the “Hypeman”. Their task is similar, except they introduce Player 1 in an exaggerated, hyperbolic way that makes them sound amazing!

For instance, Player 2 might introduce Player 1 by saying, “This is Arthur. He’s a salesman for our company who enjoys playing tennis at the weekends.”

Then Hypeman would step in and say, “Here’s Arthur – AKA, the coolest guy I know! He’s so good at his job that he could sell an ice pack to an Inuit! Oh, and he wields a tennis racket like Roger Federer too. Honestly, you’d be a fool not to be his pal.”

You’d then mix up the roles so everyone had a chance to be the Hypeman (and to be hyped by their colleague!). Encourage witty and outlandish claims; crazy compliments that make people laugh. You could even go a step further and award prizes for the most successful Hypeman – as voted by the group!

How to play:

Host a fashion show where employees model various types of personal protective equipment (PPE). Have participants walk the runway and explain the purpose of each piece of equipment. Judges can score the presentations, and winners receive prizes.

A PPE fashion show catwalk adds a fun and creative twist to learning about essential safety gear. It helps employees become more familiar with the equipment they should be using and encourages them to take PPE seriously. Watching coworkers strut their stuff is always hilarious

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You would be surprised how competitive colleagues become over a typing speed race. This game is a great way to kick off the fun.

How to play typing speed race

The best way to play the game is for the competitors to take turns completing a typing test and sharing their screen as they do so. This way, spectators can cheer them on as they type.

Once they’ve completed the test, their scores are entered into a league table. Fancy upping the stakes? Encourage the team to ‘place bets’ on who they think will be the fastest before starting the competition.

Explanation:

‍Teams are presented with rapid-fire problems to solve, ranging from everyday office issues to totally wacky scenarios (like planning for a zombie apocalypse!). The goal is to come up with creative solutions as fast as possible.

In this hybrid version, teams—both in the office and remote—can get hit with rapid-fire challenges through video calls or chat. Each team works together to brainstorm and present their solutions as quickly as possible. In-office workers might tackle more physical challenges, like figuring out how to fix something in the room, while remote teammates might handle tech or creative scenarios. It’s a fun, fast-paced way to get everyone involved, thinking on their feet, and laughing at the wild scenarios they come up with!