Library of teambuilding games & icebreakers

If you’re in a big team and want a fun and speedy energizer to lift the mood in record time, try Shock Wave.

How to play Shock wave

To play, clear a space and ask the whole team (except you, the moderator) to form a circle. Colleagues then have to join hands with the people next to them and shut their eyes. Next, quietly touch the shoulder of one person in the circle.

When they feel your touch, it’s their job to begin the “shockwave” – moving both their arms up and down in a wave-like motion, thus sending it to whoever’s on their left and right-hand side. Those people then continue the wave, taking the “shock” in one arm and replicating it in the other.

This continues around the entire circle until someone on the opposite side feels the movement in both arms simultaneously. At that point, they yell “KABOOM”, and everyone can re-open their eyes. Repeat as many times as you want to!  

How to play Balloon Pop Relay

Instructions: Divide participants into teams. Each team has a designated starting point and a finish line. One member from each team races to the finish line while carrying a balloon between their knees. They must pop the balloon before the next team member can start their turn.

Materials needed: Balloons

Balloon Pop Relay adds excitement and energy to the picnic. It promotes teamwork, coordination, and a competitive spirit. It also creates memorable and entertaining moments for participants and onlookers.

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.

How to play Personal treasure box

This exercise takes a bit longer and is a bit more involved, but involves a lot of introspection which can be a powerful exercise. Ask everyone to create their own personal treasure box and place items inside. You can get really creative and have literal treasure boxes at each seat, with different items symbolizing various aspects of life. Or, you can just use a pencil and paper.

The important thing is that everyone has time to think about what should go into their personal treasure box - the items, values, and people that are most special to them. Then, have everyone share with the group what they included and why. Since this exercise is more in-depth, it’s best to reserve at least an hour and maybe more for proper sharing and dialogue.

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 One-word icebreaker

This is a perfect exercise for kicking off a specific event or meeting. You need a group of 4 or 5 people, or to break larger groups into teams of that size. The goal is to have everyone describe their feelings on the event that is about to take place using only one word. Give them a few minutes and then go around the room having everyone state their word, like “excited”, “nervous”, or “curious”.

Ever seen superheroes team up? That's what collaboration feels like—bringing unique skills to the table, solving problems faster and having each other's backs. Another fantastic way to build relationships within the team.

Collaboration activity - Puzzle challenge:

• Provide each team with a jigsaw puzzle of similar complexity.
• Divide colleagues into small groups and give each group a puzzle.
• Instruct teams to work together to solve their puzzle within a specified time frame.
• After completion, have teams present their finished puzzles and share their collaborative strategies.
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This hands-on activity emphasizes the value of teamwork, communication and problem-solving in achieving shared goals.

How to play:

Divide the team into pairs. One person in each pair chooses an object or concept and mimes it without using any words or sound. The other person tries to guess what the mime represents.

Materials needed: None

Benefits:

• Enhanced nonverbal communication: Encourage your team to sharpen their ability to communicate effectively without relying on words. This activity fosters creativity in finding innovative ways to convey messages through facial expressions and body language.
• Boosted team spirit: Experience moments of laughter and joy as you witness your team members' hilarious and creative interpretations of various mimes. It's like a comedy show where your employees become silent performers, fostering camaraderie and a positive team atmosphere.

Challenge your team to think on their feet as they make up a story on the spot! In Swedish Story, the storyteller must make decisions quickly as they’re bombarded with random words.

Great for: Public speaking, decision-making

Duration: 5-10 minutes

Players: 4+

You’ll need: Nothing

How to play Swedish Story

Setup: Divide your group into teams of about 4-5 players then ask each team to pick one person to be the storyteller.

To play: The storytellers are given a topic to talk about. As they start to tell their made-up story, the other members of the team chip in with random words that the storyteller must incorporate into their story. For example, if the storyteller is talking about a hurricane, the other players might call out words like “cow,” “combine harvester,” or “Elvis Presley!” The aim is for the storyteller to maintain their composure as they incorporate irrelevant words and phrases. When the time runs out, you can end the game or play again with a different topic and storyteller.

Robots takes the basic premise behind Human Objects (from earlier in this article) and pushes it a step further. This time, rather than individuals imitating random items, the entire team works together to embody a robot!

How to play Robots

This funny improv game begins with everybody standing in a circle. You then invite someone to walk into the center – pretending they’re a robot every step of the way.

After a few seconds, someone else jumps in and pretends they’re a new part of it, complete with their own movements and sounds. Repeat this process until you have an entire machine made up of colleagues in various body positions performing different functions, but ultimately operating as one.

Think: “The Office” meets “Transformers”. You’ll feel as if you’re back at school, giggling like little kids as your workmates manipulate themselves into ever more unusual positions (making robot noises as they go).

When it’s fully assembled, you can then ask the “robot” to complete a task or dismantle itself bit by bit. Heck, you could even get the team to build a robot that’s designed with a specific task in mind.

Whatever happens, the end result is a high level of collaboration. They’ll be joining arms, holding hands, and moving in sync in their effort to make and imitate a machine. The fun, physicality, and humor involved should forge tighter relations too.

How to play Group Postcard

For a more creative game, have your team collaboratively use postcards to make a bigger picture. Hand out several blank postcards and have the team work together to determine how they’ll create their picture.

Some people like to have a cohesive image in mind and then discuss how they’ll each do a small part. Other people like to bring up and color the postcards one at a time, adding a small piece to the growing image, and seeing what it becomes. Either way, this is a great way to facilitate teamwork, cooperation, and creativity all at once.

The classic TV gameshow Jeopardy can be adapted for an office setting with a few simple steps.

How to play:

1. Create categories based on your workplace, such as company history, industry knowledge, culture, and team building.
2. Develop challenging questions for each category and assign point values based on difficulty. Divide employees into teams and play the game.
3. The first team to buzz in and provide the correct answer earns the corresponding points.
4. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Playing Jeopardy in the office is a fun way to test your employees' knowledge and promote teamwork. It's also a great way to inject some fun and excitement into your workday.

How to play Interactive group map

In this engaging team warmup exercise, you have the group imagine the space that you’re in as a map. Their goal is to place themselves where they are from. The first few steps have the most energy, as people try to find relative geographies and move around the space and each other. This game can be played with teams of any size, but it tends to be more fun when people are from more diverse, spread out areas. If everyone is from the same state, simply scale down your map and have everyone stand in the town they’re from.

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!

In this activity, we'll help you and your colleagues discover your communication styles and discuss how to adapt them to improve workplace communication. So, grab your pens and let's get started!

Materials needed:

• Communication style quiz questionnaires (don't worry, we've got those ready for you).
• pens or pencils
• A flipchart or a whiteboard.
• Colorful markers.
• A cozy meeting space where you can comfortably chat.

Instructions:

1. Let's kick things off by talking about why effective communication is so vital in the workplace.
2. Remember, understanding your communication style can make your interactions with colleagues and bosses much smoother.
3. Here come the questionnaires! Take one and answer the questions honestly, without overthinking. Your responses are just for you.
4. You've got 15 minutes to complete the quiz
5. After collecting your completed questionnaires, we'll calculate your scores using the quiz key.
6. Then, we'll group you into different communication style categories, like assertive, passive, aggressive, or passive-aggressive.
7. Now, it's group time!

Chat about:

• What makes your communication style unique?
• How does it influence your daily work interactions?
• What are the strong suits and potential pitfalls of your style?
• Share real-life stories where your style worked like a charm or, well, maybe not so much.

Wrap things up with some key takeaways from your discussion.

Remember, being self-aware and flexible with your communication is the name of the game.

Go forth and apply your newfound wisdom to combat common workplace issues!

How to play Human machine

Effective collaboration is an important part of a well-functioning team. This training game is a great way to encourage strong cooperation. Have everyone stand in a circle with one person in the middle. They should mimic part of a “machine” by making appropriate sounds or motions.

After 5 seconds, another person should enter and connect to the first person, also making the right “machine” sounds and motions. Every 5 seconds a new person joins, until everyone is connected as a well-running machine. This game is also good if you’re looking for some physical activity to break up a long day, or a quick office game.

How to play Ping Pong Tournament

As open office plans became more popular, more companies started setting up breakout rooms where employees could decompress by grabbing a coffee or playing ping pong. If you already have a ping pong table in the office, this is an ideal game to add to the Office Olympic games—a ping pong competition works well with individual players and teams.

While there is the classic two-person setup for table tennis, there are numerous games, like playing with two balls at a time or a group game that gets smaller as people must step out if they miss their turn to hit the ball.

This trust-building game is simple and requires only a blindfold and players willing to work together. While you don’t necessarily need a big field to play this in, it would be better to have an open area to avoid too many hazards getting in the way.

How to play:

‍Break groups into small teams of two. One player is the leader, and the other wears the blindfold. The leader has to guide the blindfolded player to the endpoint while making sure they avoid bumping into objects.

For example, pick a start and end location; players start in the office and end at an outdoor seating area.

Materials you’ll need: Blindfold(s)

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

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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!

You can discover even more fun team-building activities to bring your team together in our full guide.

How to play Restaurant pricing

“Price” is one of the four Ps of marketing, but is an often overlooked element. An exercise that helps your team to come up with a pricing strategy and see how it impacts overall revenue can be really helpful. This game takes about 45 minutes and you’ll need someone who is an Excel whiz to document the numbers portion. To begin, come up with a menu of items for your “restaurant”. You’ll also need an Excel or Google Sheet that has rows for each item, and columns to place cost of goods, price, number sold, and margin.

The goal of your group is to come up with pricing for each item that nets a great profit. However, they need to be realistic about things like the cost to make each item and how many people will buy it. If the price gets too high, they should plan to have less customers. This can start a great conversation on pricing strategy overall. How high does the price need to be before customers turn away? How low can you keep prices while still getting a decent margin? Using a template that has formulas built in means your team can just plug in different numbers to come up with several scenarios. This is a great way to drive home the point that even small price changes can make a big difference on the bottom line.

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Bingo blitz turns your workday into a game by creating Bingo cards filled with everyday office tasks or events—like “send an email,” “have a meeting,” or “drink a coffee.” As these things happen, players mark off their Bingo cards. First person to get a full row or column wins!

It’s a simple, fun way to make the office day a little more engaging and adds a bit of light competition to the regular routine.

How to play:

• Create Bingo cards with common office tasks or events.
• Players mark off tasks as they happen during the workday.
• The first person to get a full row or column shouts "Bingo!" and wins!

Explore more team building activities for work to make your office days more interactive and fun.

A memory wall is a space for spreading good vibes and positivity in the workplace. Here, you’ll create a collage of good memories that your team can appreciate every time they pass by.

Great for: Company culture, job satisfaction

Duration: N/A

You’ll need: Paper, various coloured pens

How to organise:

• Give each employee a pen and piece of paper and ask them to write down some of their favourite memories from previous experiences like Christmas parties and offsite retreats. These can be personal memories or experiences they shared with colleagues.
• Then, ask your employees to create colourful drawings of these memories. If the memory is shared with a colleague, they can pair up and make the drawing together.
• Collect the drawings and use them to make a colourful collage somewhere in the office. It should be in a shared space where it can be appreciated throughout the day.

How to play Marshmallow stuff

You’ll need big bags of fluffy marshmallows for this one. Simply have contestants stuff as many marshmallows as they can into their mouth in one minute. Bonus points for asking them to repeat a silly phrase once their mouths are full.

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.