Library of teambuilding games & icebreakers

How to play Catch-All

For this group, have everyone stand in a circle and begin with a ball. Share which topic the exercise will be based on, and then let everyone know that they will be stating something they have previously learned about the topic. Then, throw the ball to the next person. If, for instance, your topic is accounting, then when one person has the ball, they might say something like “I learned that most tax issues come down to manual accounting errors.” Then they’ll toss the ball to the next person, who will share another bit of information they know or have learned previously. This makes training a lot more interactive, as everyone gets the chance to contribute and learn from a variety of perspectives.

How to play Limbo Contest

Instructions: Set up a limbo pole using a long stick or pole. Participants take turns attempting to pass under the pole by leaning backward without touching it. Gradually lower the pole after each round. The person who can go the lowest without touching the pole wins.

Materials needed: Limbo pole or stick.

Limbo Contest adds a fun and interactive element to the picnic. It encourages flexibility, balance, and friendly competition. It creates an atmosphere of excitement and laughter, bringing joy to both participants and spectators.

The next game is Mirror Image Drawing, a delightful activity that challenges your communication skills in the workplace.

How to play

1. Find a partner in the group. One of you will be the "drawer," while the other becomes the "instructor."
2. The instructor's task is to describe a unique abstract image or scene. Be creative, but keep it abstract enough to encourage interpretation.
3. The drawer's role is to listen carefully to the instructor's descriptions, without seeing any reference or the instructor's drawing.
4. Instructors must provide instructions verbally only; they can't draw alongside the drawer or use gestures. Be clear and concise.
5. Drawers must translate the instructions into a drawing on their paper. The goal is to recreate the instructor's mental image as accurately as possible.
6. Once both partners are done, compare the drawings. Discuss the challenges faced and the effectiveness of communication.
7. For a well-rounded experience, switch roles and try again.

Did you ever hear about that person who traded a paperclip for a house? Well, now it’s your employees' chance to do the same with Bigger and Better! In this fun team-building game, your employees must work together and leverage their sales skills to obtain more valuable objects through trade.

Great for: Communication, teamwork, energization

Duration: 45–60 minutes

You’ll need: Small “invaluable” objects such as paperclips or pens

How to play:

• Separate your group into teams. Then, give each team an invaluable item such as a paperclip or a pen.
• Find a suitable location such as a busy park or shopping mall.
• Explain that the aim of the game is to trade this item for increasingly more valuable items by using their sales skills.
• Set a time limit and start trading!
• When the time runs out, regroup with your employees and ask each team to present their new item. The team with the most valuable item wins! If it’s close, you can ask other teams to vote for the thing they consider more valuable, or turn to a website like eBay or Amazon to establish monetary value.

Upgrading office equipment regularly to show gratitude to employees is a thoughtful gesture that can improve morale, productivity, and overall job satisfaction.

Here are some ways to provide the appropriate equipment based on employees' unique needs:

• Ask what your employees need. Conduct a survey or host a feedback session to understand which office equipment or tools employees want or need upgrades so that you can prioritize your investments.

• Don’t skimp on equipment. Provide employees with the latest tech, such as tablets, laptops, and dual monitors, to help improve comfort and efficiency. Speaking of comfort, whether your employees are in the office or remotely, offering a budget or upgrading chairs and desks to ergonomic options can enhance employee comfort and reduce the risk of work-related injuries. Remember, additional office equipment, such as printers, upgrade software, and collaboration tools, are needed to do a good job and should be provided by the company.

It’s about providing the equipment and creating a work culture that values and appreciates employees, leading to a more balanced professional environment and higher retention rates.  

Make sure to conduct regular feedback sessions to find out what your employees like and what they need more of to show that you care about their well-being and are grateful for their commitment and 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.

How to play Remote FM

Remote FM is a nice recurring theme for the remote office. Employees take it in turns to host the company radio. This can be done by creating a playlist in Spotify and sharing the link in the team chat.

Instructions:

1. Divide participants into small groups of 4-6 people.
2. Explain the game's purpose: Explore leadership qualities and promote collaboration.
3. Set the scenario: Stranded on a deserted island, reach a designated rescue point within a time limit.
4. Provide teams with whiteboards, markers, and roles (Leader, Communicator, Problem Solver, Timekeeper, Recorder).
5. Present challenges related to survival, discuss strategies, and have teams present solutions.

This game is an awesome Icebreaker that encourages leadership skills to be developed. It throws participants into a stranded island scenario where they must navigate challenges and reach rescue. By assigning specific roles and promoting collaboration, it unveils individuals' leadership qualities. Teams strategize, communicate, problem-solve, and make decisions under pressure. Conflicts may arise, but they're resolved through teamwork. It's a crash course in leadership, where participants learn and grow while having a thrilling time.

How to play Penny stack

Players should try to stack 25 pennies in under one minute using only one hand. This game works best for small groups and is ideal for groups of three players competing in rounds of play. You’ll need to make sure you have a few rolls of pennies to start the game.

How to play Who Said It?

For this game, you’ll need to have several quotes from famous individuals prepared. Start by giving everyone a quote and challenging them to guess who said it. Whoever submits the first correct answer wins. It’s easiest to have pieces of paper with the quotes printed on them, that you can just hand out as people enter the room.

How to play Dot voting

Does your team tend to go off on tangents and get into circular discussions when talking about projects or issues? Meetings that devolve into unrelated conversations are a big challenge in many workplaces. You can practice these skills with this exercise, dot voting. To do it, all you need to do is present the issue and then have everyone suggest ideas for a solution.

Write them down on the white board so everyone can see. Then, hand out sticky notes and have everyone place their papers under the ideas they like best. You might let them choose only one, or up to 3. Once everyone has had their turn, you will have an obvious visual that shows which of the ideas was most popular. This is a great tactic that can be used in many different meetings, discussion, and brainstorming sessions.

Remember the Pinball exercise we described earlier? Well, Willow in the Wind is very similar. This time, however, there’s no walking involved…

How to play Willow in the wind

Instead, everyone stands in a circle, with one person in the middle. You then put a blindfold on whoever’s in the center and tell them to a) lock their legs and b) put their arms across their chest.

Then comes the nerve-wracking part:

They have to fall forward, or in any other direction, trusting their colleagues to stop them from hitting the ground! Each time they fall into someone, that person has to keep them upright and push them softly to another side of the circle.

After 30 seconds or so, swap the blindfold around and give someone else a turn. The activity ends when everyone has been in the middle.

Our pro tip is to stop the blindfolded person from falling too far! The further they fall, the harder it becomes to hold them up and push them away. Stay close together to make life easier and prevent accidents from happening.

For a variation of Willow in the Wind, consider doing a trust fall.

A popular team and trust-building exercise, the principle is the same except the blindfolded individual stands at a height (e.g. on a table or wall) and falls backward into the arms of their colleagues below.

What you need:

• Blindfold

This team-building activity allows individuals to express themselves playfully and creatively. It’s an excellent game for helping team members get to know one another more intimately. It would be well suited for an onboarding exercise or bringing together teams that typically work remotely.

How to play:

‍Split up into small teams and give each participant a piece of paper and drawing materials. Have them fold their paper into four sections and spend five to ten minutes drawing their responses to four questions. Questions can be personal or related to a workplace topic, such as “What do I expect from my team” or “What do I see in my professional future.”

After players finish drawing their responses, have them regroup with their team and discuss their visual answers.

Materials you’ll need: Paper and makers, general art supplies. Tables and chairs for drawing surfaces

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

Throwing the discus was one of the first Olympic sports introduced in ancient Greece, so it’s a must-add to your Office Olympics roster. Frisbee is also an easy game to play in and out of the office, should you decide to use a sunny day and have access to outdoor space.

How to play Paper plate frisbee

If you’re stuck inside, there’s no reason to give up the game; instead, get creative, and instead of buying a frisbee, use a paper plate from the office kitchen. There will be less risk of breaking anything in the office, and it’s using materials used, hence being true to the event's purpose.  

Mark off where each team member’s frisbee lands and the team that threw the furthest distance is the winner.

After gathering everyone together in a remote arena, a game of Emoji Communication is a great way to get teams working together. This game highlights how easy it is to misinterpret digital messages and the importance of thoughtful communication. It helps members build agile skills where tone and context need extra clarification.

Set up:

One person in the remote meeting is chosen as the messenger. They create a message, a clear and cohesive sentence using only emojis. No words allowed! Everyone else works by a timer and writes down their guesses. Dish out points for correct guesses and rotate the messenger. Some example sentences to start you off could be:

"Let’s grab coffee and chat" ☕👫💬
"Team celebration tonight!" 🎉🍻🎶🕺
"Emergency! Need a quick solution" 🚨🧠⚙️⏳

How to play:

Divide the team into pairs or small groups and provide them with a random scenario or prompt. The teams must improvise a skit or scene based on the given negative scenario, using their creativity and spontaneity to deal with the issue

For example; the scenario could be “Child screaming in a supermarket”. Teams have 30 seconds to act out deal with their scenario

Materials needed: None

Benefits:

• Quick-thinking superheroes: Tap into your team's mental agility as they come up with witty lines and hilarious improvisations on the spot. It's like a comedy club where your team's creativity takes center stage.
• Teamwork with a twist: Collaborate with your scene partners and build upon each other's ideas, creating a seamless and entertaining performance. It's like a theatrical ensemble where the final act is a testament to your collective genius.

We love improv games that are lively, dramatic, and force you out of your shell. But not everybody does! In fact, for employees who are less confident in nature, these types of activities can be downright stressful.

That’s where a game like Quick-Fire Questions comes in. Not only is it well-suited to remote teams, but it’s also a great introduction to improv. Nobody’s singled out, there’s no miming/acting, and you don’t even have to turn your webcam on.

How to play Quick-fire questions

To play, all participants must do is have a conversation – taking turns to contribute a line at a time. The twist?

Anything and everything they say has to be a question!

For instance, Dave might start by asking Sally, “What type of music do you enjoy listening to?” And Sally could reply, “Where shall we go to rave this weekend?” To which Joe might ask, “What’s the name of the forest just outside town?” And Dave might respond with, “How many forests are there in this part of the country?”

Easy, right? Wrong! You have to think on your feet, be creative with your answers, and frame your reply in the correct format. If someone hesitates, asks something unrelated, or doesn’t ask a question at all, then they’re out.

You can play a round-robin tournament, with one person facing off against another. Or you could try to play all together, asking one question at a time. Whatever the case, the “conversation” should help energize the virtual room, generate lots of laughs, and boost team spirit to boot.

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Minefield is a fun energization game that improves communication and listening skills. All you need is an open space and a bunch of soft-edged objects.

Great for: Listening skills, communication, energization

Duration: 10–15 minutes

You’ll need: Various soft objects like balloons, foam blocks, plastic cups, etc.

How to play:

• Divide your group into teams of about 4–5 players and blindfold one player from each team.
• Spread out your soft-edged objects throughout the space.
• Ask the teams to stand at one end of the room.
• When you shout “Go!” the blindfolded player must make their way to the other side of the room without touching any of the objects on the floor. The players without blindfolds are allowed to give verbal commands to the blindfolded player. They are NOT allowed to touch or guide the blindfolded player in any way.
• The team to reach the other side of the room first without touching any of the objects wins. If a team touches an object, they must return to the start.

A gratitude board is a physical and visual representation of gratitude, which can be anything from notes about specific moments to vacation photos. The board can be set up in an office as an ongoing reminder of the positive aspects of the workplace and can be an excellent tool for promoting a positive mindset during the workday.

Here are some of the ways to create and maintain a gratitude board:

1. Provide your employees with materials, such as a backboard made of cork or cardboard, paper, writing utensils, pins, and plenty of room for positivity. If you're a remote team, consider a digital board or chat space dedicated to gratitude.
2. Create a list of the things you're grateful for. These can be big or small, from personal achievements in the workplace or something unique. Give employees a chance to write these reflections, or ask them to bring photos or keepsakes that can be placed on the board.
3. Keep up with the board and ask employees to add new items once a week or make updates on professional achievements when they happen.

Gratitude boards can be a simple but effective way to bring employees together and boost morale in the workplace. Regularly engaging with a gratitude board in the workplace can promote work-life balance.

How to play Stranger conversation practice

Boost team confidence by practicing talking to people you don’t know well. Pair people up in groups of two and then give them a few prompts. Their objective is to learn this information from each other using a natural dialogue. For example, maybe the goal is to learn about their favorite international cuisine, or their favorite place to vacation. It’s great practice for having an objective in mind and then being creative about how to get there.

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This game is designed to get your team’s creative juices flowing and encourage them to think on the spot.

How to play the rhyming game

The idea is really simple. Each person takes it in turns to make a sentence. Each sentence needs to rhyme with the previous one. For example, “John woke up and went to work” … “It was his last day so he gave a smirk...” And so on.

Set a rough time limit for each person to say their sentence (we recommend three seconds). If they are too slow they lose the game and are out for the next round. Then a new story begins. If a rhyme is said twice then that person is also out of the game.

The game continues until two people are left for the ‘final showdown’.

For this game, you need a large space to accommodate everyone.

Here is what to do:

1. Have all players get together and form a circle.
2. Choose a random item within your reach and give each player up to 60 seconds to pitch to other participants.
3. Have everyone focus on the notable features and try not to repeat a sellable attribute that another participant mentions.
4. Any player who cannot remember a feature within 60 seconds leaves the game.
5. The last standing player is the winner.

How to play Lucky Charms

Give all players a large bowl of Lucky Charms cereal. Have everyone sort the charm marshmallows into categories as fast as they can (for example, all hearts together and all clovers together). Whoever sorts through the most cereal in a minute wins.

Rotating roles in your teams can immerse them in healthy agile practices while developing their adaptability, and giving a fresh perspective on the tasks their colleagues perform. By rotating through positions like designer, developer, and tester, they’ll be gaining insights on team contributions and will be more empathetic of task ownership.

Set up:

Assign every member an initial role, and give them a small hypothetical project, like designing an app feature. Let them play out their roles for a few minutes before rotating. Encourage each member to build on the contributions of those before them. Shifting from role to role comes with a perspective shift, so reflect on how each rotation improved on the last to reinforce agile principles of incremental improvement.