Library of teambuilding games & icebreakers

Here’s one to spark your teams’ creative sides. “Pictures paint 1000 stories” morphs random photos into fun and memorable tales. Here’s how to set the game up:

Set up:

1. Have each person bring in their quirkiest photos, and the more random the better. Pets, street art, and even something from grandma’s old photo album will work well.
2. Create teams of 3 to 5 people. Tell them they’ll receive a handful of random photos, and their job is to create a story that links each photo.
3. Once the giggles settle, watch as your teams weave their pictures into a seamless story. Embrace the weird and wonderful as they craft their narrative masterpieces.
4. Each team takes center stage to spin their yarn. Let the crowd or a panel of discerning judges decide whose tale tickled their funny bones and crown your winners.

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.

Here’s one you may have played with family over Christmas, or as a drinking game with friends at university! This time, though, it’s strictly professional – a trust-building exercise that teaches the virtues of communication and teamwork, while also providing some good light-hearted fun.

Sticky Notes (otherwise known as “Who Am I?”) involves giving each employee a sticky note and pen and asking them to write down the name of a famous person or character. These people can be alive or dead, real or fictitious (e.g. from a movie), but should be a name that everyone in the group will recognize.

How to play Sticky notes/Who am I?

Each team member then takes their sticky note and puts it on a colleague’s forehead – ensuring they don’t see who’s written on it! Their task is to figure out the name on their note by asking “yes/no” questions to their colleagues.

For example:

• “Am I male?”
• “Am I alive now?”
• “Am I on TV?”
• “Am I an historical figure?”

You can play the game in different ways, depending on the size of your team. For smaller groups, it’s fun to sit in a circle and take turns asking questions. For larger teams, it may be easier to walk around as if you’re at a networking event, mingling with others and asking questions as you go.

What you need:

• Sticky notes and pens

This is a guaranteed good-time game that can be played after work on a retreat or at a weekend getaway with your team. It only requires the game Jenga and adequate seating and surface area for playing.

How to play:

‍The same rules apply to Jenga Thoughts to the original Jenga. There is a tower made out of rectangular wooden blocks that players have to remove, so the whole tower doesn’t fall strategically.  

With this team-building-friendly version, each block has a question the player has to answer. The objective is to keep the tower intact, but questions facilitate discussion and break down walls, bringing teams together while playing.

Materials you’ll need: A Jenga set, multiple, and seating areas with tables where people can play.

How many people: Small to mid-sized teams and a large one for setting up the game so everyone can play. If you have multiple Jenga sets, ensure you have several tables to seat and several small groups.

Remember that game from childhood, “the floor is lava”? The one where you had to make it around the room without touching the floor. Good times. Shrinking vessel is somewhat similar, except you are working with a team. Strategy and Tetris skills will help me excel at this exercise.

How to play:

‍Mark the boundaries of the areas where team members will be placed. Slowly, the edges of the borders are moved and made smaller, and team members must work together to ensure they don’t fall outside the lines. They cannot step out of the line.

Materials you’ll need: Anything temporarily marks the floor, like a string or tape, even a blanket, will do. Enough space to fit a small team of 4-5 people at a time is also needed.

How many people: Mid-size to large teams

How to play Country ambassadors

This is a lively game which only requires some knowledge of geography. Assign each player a country. You can do this by using a random country generator, or just selecting at random. Once countries are assigned, each person should take a turn describing their country without mentioning it by name. The goal is for all the remaining players to be able to guess their country. If you want to make the game competitive, then keep a running list of all the players and how many countries they’ve guessed. The person who got the most correct wins.