Library of teambuilding games & icebreakers

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!

Everybody likes to draw! This game is a fun opportunity for colleagues to relax and have some fun. The game is very simple, and it goes like this…

How to play Forensic artists

Step 1: Split the group into teams, you can have as many teams as you like, with a minimum of two per group.

Step 2: Explain that a crime has been committed, but fortunately one person from each team spotted the suspect.

Step 3: Using a random face generator, create a face for the witnesses to describe.

Step 4: The witnesses must try their best to describe the face they are seeing to their team members.

Step 5: The other members of the teams must try to draw the face as accurately as possible based upon the descriptions.

Step 6: The team with the most accurate sketch wins!

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

How to play Balloon race

Grab a small bag of balloons for this game and make sure you have enough space to run a small to medium size race. Like the coffee run, this game requires that you place a balloon between your knees and make it to the finish line without dropping (or popping!) the balloon.

Like the other races in the Office Olympics, make sure there’s plenty of open space for teams to move and play until each member of the team gets a chance to run.

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 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.

Looking for a team-building game that never has to end? Try Question Tag. It’s simple, accessible, and unites the team without having to take time off work or arrange an actual event.

How to play Question tag

To play, team members “tag” each other by asking one of their colleagues a question. The recipient answers it, repeats the same question and answer to another colleague, and then asks them a new question. You can play by passing notes, but we think it’s best as an ongoing email exchange. Just make sure everyone gets involved, rather than a few individuals who keep asking themselves questions!

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.

Can you imagine a scenario where the TV is on mute and you lose the remote? Well, as horrific as this may sound, there may be some fun in this. Welcome to TV On Sound Off - an engaging activity that sharpens your active observation and interpretation skills.

How to play

1. Assemble your colleagues in a comfortable space with a TV or projector where you can watch a show or movie of your choice.
2. Turn off the sound completely, no subtitles allowed. You're going to rely solely on visual cues.
3. Start with a scene from the show or movie. Make sure it has a mix of dialogue and action.
4. Each participant takes turns guessing what the characters are saying and what's happening in the plot. Keep it concise and imaginative.
5. After everyone has had a turn, unmute the sound and compare your guesses with what actually transpired in the scene.
6. Discuss what you've learned about active observation, interpretation, and the value of non-verbal cues.

Ready for a mini-adventure? In office quest hunt, teams race to solve clues and complete quirky challenges that lead them to hidden items around the office. It’s a mix of problem-solving, creativity, and—let’s be honest—a chance to snoop around desks in the name of fun.

This is perfect team-building activity for getting everyone up, moving, and working together to crack the clues. Plus, it’s always funny seeing who takes it way too seriously.

How to play:

1. Hide items around the office and give teams clues to find them.
2. Teams race to solve clues and complete challenges.
3. First team to find all the items wins!

It's time for the Goal Reflection Circle – a huddle of progress, challenges, and collective wisdom. Allow participants to form a circle, each taking a turn to share one of their recent exploits. It's a chance to share challenges, reflections, and receive constructive feedback from your cohesive team. This activity is like a group therapy session for your goals, promoting a sense of community

Top Tip for Facilitator:

• Foster an atmosphere of trust and support. As the facilitator, guide the circle with a gentle hand. Encourage active listening and constructive feedback. This activity is about building a community where vulnerability is a strength, and everyone is not just cheering for success but helping each other navigate the hurdles.

How to play My Superpower

This activity is great for bigger groups as well as teams that don’t know each other very well. Each participant will state his/her name and then share what their “superpower” is. This can be a special skill, a curious fact about their lives, valuable knowledge they can share, etc. You can choose to make it more professional, or keep things more personal as a way of getting to know each other better.

To make it even more fun, use a ball to signify which person is speaking. The person will then toss the ball to another player at random, keeping things spontaneous as the game progresses.

How to play Competitive Human knots

Human knot is a popular team-building activity that requires at least 6 people. To play, everyone stands in a circle, puts their hands into the center, and grabs somebody else’s hands with their own (ensuring they’re holding 1 hand from 2 different people).

The group then attempts to untangle themselves without letting go – ducking, twisting, and climbing over each other as they go. It’s fun, chaotic, difficult, and great for uniting teams, having fun, improving communication, and honing leadership skills.

In Competitive Human Knots, we take things to a new level.

This time, you separate your large group into separate teams of 6+ people and pit them against each other! The first team to untangle themselves wins. Alternatively, you could set a time limit to stop the activity from taking too long. The team that’s made the most progress by the end, wins.

Imagine your team deciphering riddles and tackling challenges to uncover hidden city gems - that's the essence of the City Scavenger Hunt. It's like a real-life puzzle where everyone's brainpower combines to crack codes and overcome obstacles. As you explore the city together, you're not only having a blast but also boosting your problem-solving and teamwork skills. It's a chance to unravel mysteries while strengthening bonds among your teammates.

Instructions

• Form teams of players.
• Distribute riddles or clues that lead to hidden city locations.
• Players decipher riddles, solve challenges, and reach each location.
• At each location, complete the challenge to earn points.
• Document progress with photos or videos.
• The team with the most points at the end wins.
• Encourage teamwork, problem-solving, and exploration.
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Bonus tip: Make sure to choose a city with a lot of history or landmarks- the more the city has, the more options you have to choose from!

Building stories together can help an agile team practice iteratively expanding ideas. Building stories has been helping teams grow in corporate events and quickfire meetings, so keep the focus on agile principles and you’ll be improving your employees’ collaborative skills.

Set up:

Dedicate some time to creating prompts beforehand, to make each step in the story open-ended and adaptable. Start with an opening that instigates conversation like “Our new app just launched…” The first team member adds to this line, which can turn the story in any direction, such as “Users flooded in on day one, and our servers went caput.” Encourage the next member to weave in some challenges or a milestone, with a line like “Our support team scrambled to handle user questions.” Keep iterating and adding and see where it leads. When the story ends, reflect as a team and focus on agile practices that helped them to adjust.

They say you can learn a lot about someone by looking at their home, which is probably why workspace tours are such good ways to build trust in remote teams!

How to play Home workspace tours

There’s absolutely nothing complicated about this activity. It’s as simple as giving each employee a chance to show their colleagues where they work. They pick up their laptop, smartphone, tablet, or webcam, giving the team a quick tour of their office – or wherever they happen to be working that day.

It’s surprisingly fun though! Employees learn new things about each other, discover mutual interests, reveal their quirks and eccentricities, and gain a much clearer picture of who they work with.

Expect giggles, jokes, friendly banter, and fresh camaraderie to ensue.

You can do these tours at any time. However, we think they’re most enjoyable when saved for morning meetings or the final group video call of the day. Take that approach and you either start or finish the workday with something light-hearted. It’ll set a positive tone and put a smile on people’s faces.

What you need:

• N/A. However, you may want to send an email in advance to check everyone’s happy to give a tour of their workspace (and give them time to hide anything too embarrassing!).

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 Shrinking circle

Adaptability and flexibility are huge in the business world. One way to focus on both of those items is by playing this simple and silly game. Start out by using a rope to create a large circle that everyone can fit in. Then, every few minutes, make the circle a bit smaller. Depending on how large the circle is in the first place, you can take away an inch or a foot each round. The challenge is for everyone present to stay inside the circle. This will require some serious innovation once the circle gets small, and lots of laughs almost always ensue. Note: People are likely to end up touching each other in this exercise. It’s difficult not to once the space gets small, like a game of Twister. You know your colleagues best - if that level of closeness would make anyone uncomfortable, it’s probably best to try a different exercise.

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.

One of the benefits of working in a team is that you always have someone to offer their support when you need it. Whether you feel down and need an emotional lift or have too much to do and need some practical input, a sympathetic colleague can step in to ease the burden. This is teamwork and collaboration at its finest.

Unfortunately, Fortunately draws on that supportive reality by asking teammates to reframe each other’s problems into something positive.

Here’s how it works:

Ask one person on the video call to say something they’re struggling with. It shouldn’t be too heavy or serious – nothing that’s going to be uncomfortable to disclose. Next, go around the virtual circle, taking turns to reframe their “problem” in a positive light.

For example, Brian might start by saying, “Unfortunately, I’m finding it hard to wake up on time at the moment.” Upon hearing this, Sheryl might say, “Fortunately, you have such a comfortable bed to sleep in!” And Anthony might follow up with, “And fortunately, you need a good night’s rest to perform at your best!”

It continues from there until everyone has disclosed an issue and received a bunch of positive reframes from their colleagues. By the end of the task, everyone will have practiced their listening skills and offered/received support to/from their teammates.

Explanation:

‍Employees submit “impossible” tasks, like opening a door without touching the handle or moving an object without picking it up. Teams brainstorm creative ways to solve these challenges together.

For the hybrid setup, remote workers can submit their impossible tasks via text, video, or even a live challenge. The in-office team will brainstorm ideas together, while remote workers can jump in via video call or chat to contribute their own solutions. Whether you’re using random office supplies or thinking way outside the box, the goal is to come up with the most creative and doable solution. Afterward, everyone shares their quirky solutions to see which team cracked the “impossible” the best. It’s a light-hearted way to get everyone thinking and working together, wherever they are.

How to play Communication chain

This is a great game for a team and involves participants expressing activities through gestures. Have everyone stand in a line facing the same direction. The last person on this line is the lead. They should write down an action (such as “I was walking my dog and tripped and fell”). The person next to them in line acts out the particular action without any verbal cues, and then the next person in line does the same, and so on. The first person at the beginning of the line will have to guess what the action was.

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The rolling chair race is a great way to get creative and transform the office into a playful space for the Office Olympics. Using different rooms, furniture, and anything you can find, create an obstacle course that can be completed in an office chair. This means making sure spaces are wide enough for the chair to fit, and ensuring that team members can actually get through so all they have to focus on is winning the race.

Time each person completing the obstacle course and the team that makes it through in the least amount of time takes home the gold.

Explanation:

‍Teams take creative photos that capture the spirit and quirks of the office, like the breakroom plant or that one messy desk. The goal is to create a fun photo journal that showcases the character of the workplace.

For this hybrid setup, in-office workers can snap photos of the office environment—those little things that make the space unique. Meanwhile, remote workers can take photos of their home office setups or capture quirky things around their workspace. All the photos are combined into a digital photo journal that showcases both the in-office and remote workspaces, reflecting everyone’s unique style and creativity. It’s a laid-back way to celebrate both environments and have fun seeing what makes each workspace special.