Library of teambuilding games & icebreakers

Get ready for a real-life puzzle adventure that could lead anywhere. In the Mystery Destination Chase, your team will follow a trail of clues to an unknown final stop. The catch? You'll need to put your heads together, strategize, and make decisions as a team to crack the code. This game isn't just about reaching the destination; it's about the thrill of unraveling a mystery together. With excitement building at each clue, you'll experience the joy of teamwork, the rush of discovery, and the satisfaction of navigating the unknown side by side.

Instructions

• Assemble teams with diverse skill sets for balanced gameplay.
• Kick off the chase with the first clue to ignite excitement.
• Decode each clue to pinpoint the location of successive checkpoints.
• Collaborate on decision-making to interpret clues accurately.
• Build anticipation by unveiling the final surprise destination and celebrate as a unified team.

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 Truth or Dare

Want to discover new things about your workmates or challenge them to do silly stuff? Truth or Dare is a classic question game where you take turns choosing between a “truth” and a “dare.”

If you pick the former, you have to answer a personal question from one of your colleagues – no matter how embarrassing it might be! Opt for the latter, and you have to do something embarrassing, awkward, or otherwise unenjoyable.

As you can imagine, the truths and dares you’d do with close friends are likely to differ from what’s appropriate in the workplace! We suggest you keep the game “PG” when you’re with workmates – avoiding questions or dares that might make people too uncomfortable.

Potential “truths”:

• What’s your biggest fear?
• Who do you think is the best-looking person in the office?
• What’s the worst lie you’ve ever told someone?
• What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?

Potential “dares”:

• Do your best impression of [insert co-worker’s name here]
• Sing a song in front of the group
• Eat a spoonful of [insert condiment here]
• Call a random number and tell whoever answers that you love them

How to play Brain teaser challenge

Test everyone’s problem-solving skills with some fun riddles. Put together a list of brain teasers for everyone to take a crack at. This is a great activity to take a team approach to. Break everyone up into small groups and share the list of questions with a time limit. Highest score wins!

Here’s an ice-breaking, energizing, and entertaining game that’s great for small teams of people who know each other already. Expect it to open up funny conversations and help everyone learn more about their colleagues in the process.

How to play Most likely to

Super simple, you play in a circle and take turns asking “who is most likely to”, followed by a specific trait or activity. For instance, Sally might ask the group:

• “Who’s most likely to bungee jump off a bridge?” Or
• “Who’s most likely to play a prank on the boss?” Or
• “Who’s most likely to be a night owl?”

Each team member then votes for whoever they think is most likely to do that activity or possess the trait. To spice things up, you could say that the participant with the most votes must perform a light-hearted punishment, such as making everyone a cup of coffee or handling the next tricky customer!

How to play:

Create a word search puzzle using safety-related terms (e.g., "first aid," "PPE," "emergency"). Distribute the puzzles to employees and offer a small prize for the first person to complete it.

This quick office game is a simple yet effective way to familiarize employees with important safety vocabulary. It’s a relaxing activity that can be done during breaks, reinforcing key terms and concepts in a fun way. The satisfaction of finding that last hidden word is a great bonus.

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

How to play Posture obstacle course

If you have a space that is good for moving around, such as an open concept office, you can give this one a try. Use various furnishings or furniture to create a short obstacle course that everyone must go through in one minute. The catch? They need to balance a book on their head to ensure “proper posture”. If the book falls off they must start over. Have everyone go, one at a time, setting a minute timer for each instance.

How to play Boggle

The letter game Boggle has been around since the early 70s. It was designed by Hasbro and uses letters printed onto multiple dies. There are 3x3, 4x4, and 5x5 boards that make a game more or less challenging. This one works great for 4+ players.

All of the letter dice are placed into the square-ish grid, with a clear dome over the top. Every player gets a pen and pencil. The letters on the grid get scrambled, and each player gets three minutes to write as many words as they can. The key is, each letter must be touching vertically, horizontally, or diagonally in a chain. You can't skip or "jump" across letters. Try this one out with your teams today!

A water-tight relay is a great game to get everyone active, if a little bit wet! You’ll need 2 or more teams, a cup for each player, and a source for refilling water. The objective is to carry water in a cup to a teammate, creating a relay chain until all water is collected at the end.

Set-up:

1. Carry water carefully: Create teams with an equal number of members, each member should be the same distance away from their teammate. The first person in the line is given a full cup of water. They move to the second person and pour water into their cup. They can only pour water backward over their head!

2. Continue the chain till the end: Each member repeats the action until the last person pours their water into one large container. The first member in the line then gets another full cup and repeats. Put a measurement on the final container (3 or 4 full cups of water), and the first team to reach the line wins.

Speed does not always beat a steady hand in this game. Try this one out as a fun Friday activity. Just make sure you’re away from electrical equipment!

How to play Business card collection

To introduce people who haven’t met before, you can try this game. Set a timer and have everyone try to collect at least 3 new business cards in the room. Through the conversations they have with others, they should write down at least 3 details about the person on their business card. So, once the timer goes off, you can go around the room having each person name the people that they met and the information they found interesting (from their notes on the card). If people want to collect more than 3 cards, that’s fine, as long as they are taking the time to also get to know some details about each individual. Remember, the goal is to get to know others, have real conversations, and recall both names and other facts about each person.

Inspired by the classic game “Telephone,” The Communication Game requires players to accurately pass a physical message from one end of the line to the other.

Great for: Communication, observation skills

Duration: 10 minutes

Players: 6+

You’ll need: Nothing

How to play The Communication Game

Setup: Ask your group to stand in a single-file line, about arm’s reach apart, facing in the same direction.

To play: Ask the person at the back of the line to come up with a short movement sequence. Once they’ve created the sequence, they tap the shoulder of the person in front of them, asking them to turn around. The player turns around and observes the movement sequence. Then, they turn around, tap the shoulder of the player in front of them and perform the same sequence. This pattern continues until the movement sequence reaches the person at the front of the line. Hopefully, the sequence will be somewhat preserved!

In back-to-back sketch, one person describes an image while their partner, sitting back-to-back with them, draws it based solely on the description. No peeking allowed! It’s a great way to test communication skills—and usually leads to some very entertaining (and often unrecognizable) drawings.

This game encourages clear instructions and active listening, with plenty of laughs thrown in.

How to play:

• Pair up teammates to sit back-to-back.
• One person describes an image while the other draws based on the description.
• Compare the final drawings with the original image for some laughs!

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!

How to host Creativity contest

If you really want to encourage creativity, pick a theme and ask everyone to make something related to it. There’s so many directions people can go in, which makes this extra fun! You may decide to give people supplies in advance or pick one type of material for them to use. If you have a large group, perhaps you want to take a team-based approach to increase collaboration and bonding. Allow everyone to come up with their own work of art, and have a panel of judges pick the one that is most creative.

Picture this: a chat where everyone's honest and open. That's open communication! It's like a recipe for trust and harmony, stopping confusion in its tracks and making the team feel like a united front.

Be transparent and open in your communication. Share your thoughts, ideas and concerns honestly and encourage your colleagues to do the same. Clear communication helps prevent misunderstandings and promotes trust.

Open communication activity - Honest feedback board:

• Create a physical or digital board labeled "Honest Feedback."
• Provide sticky notes, pens and markers nearby.
• Encourage colleagues to anonymously share constructive feedback, ideas, or concerns related to work on the sticky notes and attach them to the board.
• Designate regular intervals (e.g., weekly or monthly) for team members to review and discuss the submissions collectively.
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This team building activity promotes transparency, builds trust and establishes a platform for open communication.

Obstacle sprint is a high-energy game where blindfolded team members navigate through a “minefield” of objects, guided only by their teammates’ verbal directions. It’s all about trust and communication, and watching people stumble around makes it a lot more fun!

This game is great for building trust and sharpening communication skills—plus, it’s always good for some laughs.

How to play:

• Set up an obstacle course with random objects in a designated area.
• Blindfold one team member, while the others give verbal instructions to guide them through the course.
• First team to navigate the course successfully wins!

Find even more team building activities for small groups to strengthen teamwork and communication in your office.

How to play Travel back in time…

In this creative exercise, ask everyone to imagine that they are able to travel back in time to a singular event. Where would they go, and why? Most important: what would they change? What would they make sure was done differently? And, with those differences, what would the outcomes be? Would our lives be different today if their version of events had happened?

In business, an important part of strategy is thinking multiple steps ahead, and understanding “if this/then that”. This exercise asks everyone to think ahead about various repercussions of certain events. It’s a great game to play if you want to flex those strategic muscles, and also leads to some really interesting conversations.

How to play:

Provide each team member with a journal or notebook and encourage them to engage in creative journaling. They can write, draw, or use any form of artistic expression to capture their thoughts, ideas, and reflections.

Materials needed: Journals or notebooks, art supplies (optional)

Benefits:

• Encouragement of self-expression: Open the floodgates of creativity and provide a safe haven for your team members to unleash their inner artists. This activity embraces the exploration of personal thoughts and emotions, transforming journals into captivating canvases.

This game is great for better understanding how your coworkers' minds work. What better way to bond than to create something together - in this case, a story. You can do this with any number in your group. Plus, you can play this game as many times as you want, and the outcome will be different each time.

Here’s how it works.

1. Have everyone stand in a circle or semicircle where the entire group can get a good look at each other.
2. The person who is running the event should decide on a story topic. You can pick anything, but be sure to use your imagination. Something like the middle ages to underwater adventures adds an element of fun (vs. a typical day at work or something more mundane). The more creative you can be, the better it will be for the group.
3. Choose a person to kick things off with a few sentences. Then, they “pass” to the next person to continue the story.
4. The passing continues until everyone has had an opportunity to add to the story. A few lines are sufficient, but encourage people to be creative.
5. The last person to go should wrap up the overall story. It’s a good idea to let them know in advance that this will be their responsibility so they can think of a clever ending.

Mix up the usual routine with a community impact day. Instead of the office grind, teams head out to do some good activity - whether that’s cleaning up a park or helping out at a local charity.

Not only does it feel good to give back, but it’s a refreshing break from the usual. Plus, nothing says team bonding like rolling up your sleeves and making a difference together.

How to play:

• Organize teams for a community service project.
• Tackle tasks like clean-ups or volunteering.
• Enjoy the good vibes from making a real impact!

How to play Invention-fest

A team that creates things together, stays together! Bring your group together to make something new. You can work as one large group but this is probably easier to facilitate if you break everyone up into smaller teams. Give people time to brainstorm ideas, and then come up with a workable prototype or model. This is a more in-depth activity that takes at least two days (one day for planning and one for bringing in supplies and building). A third day could be presenting the ideas and potentially having a panel judge the entries.

In memory lane wall, teammates write down their fondest workplace memories and pin them on a designated wall for everyone to see. It’s a simple but powerful way to spread positivity and reminisce about shared experiences that have brought the team closer.

This is a heartwarming way to boost morale and remind everyone of the good times they’ve had together in the office.

How to play:

• Provide a space for team members to write down their favorite workplace memories.
• Pin the memories on a shared wall for everyone to read.
• Enjoy the positive vibes and walk down memory lane together!

As the name of this game suggests, the human knot brings teams together in a very literal sense! A fun trust-building exercise that you can do anywhere and anytime, it’s sure to generate giggles galore.

How to play the human knot

To play the Human Knot, you’ll need an even number of employees and 6 or more people on the team. The more people you have, the harder the task becomes.

Start the activity by asking everyone on the team to stand in a circle.

Next, tell them to reach their right hand into the center and to hold hands with someone on the opposite side of the circle. They must then do the same thing with their left hand, ensuring they grab hands with a new partner. Take note: you’re not allowed to hold hands with whoever’s immediately on your left or right.

By this point, they should be well and truly knotted. Their goal is to unravel the knot, without letting go of each other’s hands. Want to make things harder? Give them a 5-minute time limit! Feel free to take as long as you want though.

One of the biggest reasons to do the Human Knot is that it levels the playing field. Rather than one person acting as leader and issuing orders, the focus is on working together; everyone has an equal role in achieving the desired outcome.

What you need:

• 6+ people
• An even number of team members