Library of teambuilding games & icebreakers

How to host Video game projection

Do you have some gamers in your crew? If so, set up a large projection screen, some comfy seating, snacks, and drinks, and let everyone go nuts. Make sure you have a variety of controllers and games available and plenty of space for everyone who is not actively playing a game at the moment. Keep things really comfortable and casual. This is a great activity for an office-takeover type of event or a fun Friday activity to close out the week.

How to play Cold call point system

For an ongoing game that will add some fun to the daily routine, start a cold calling point system. Take five minutes out of each day and have employees record their cold calls. It can be really fun to see points add up over time and learn from each other. Keep a whiteboard or other points-tracking system in view so everyone can get a status. Here are some options for tracking points:

1. 30 points for getting the prospect on the phone
2. 20 points for keeping them on for more than a minute
3. 40 points for scheduling a follow up
4. 10 points for getting a new contact from the call

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:

Organize a scavenger hunt where employees search for potential hazards in the workplace. Provide a checklist of items to find, such as trip hazards, improper storage, or blocked exits. Once found, employees report them to a supervisor or safety officer.

This game turns safety into an interactive challenge, encouraging employees to be more observant and proactive about identifying risks. It's like playing detective with the reward being a safer workplace. Who doesn’t enjoy a bit of healthy competition?

How to play Count to 20

Truly one of the simplest and fastest team-building games to play. This exercise doesn’t require any planning and can be done completely spur of the moment. Have everyone sit or stand in a circle together. Start the game by saying “one”. Next, another player will say “two” and so on. The goal is to make it to 20 without two people saying the same number at once. This requires observing your colleagues and predicting when they will speak up. If two people say the same number, the game starts over. Make sure to review our list of minute to win it games, too.

We love Fizz Buzz. A classic energizer game you may remember from your school days, it involves standing in a circle and taking turns to count upward from 1. However, there’s a mathematical twist that complicates proceedings…

How to play Fizz buzz

Every number that’s divisible by 3 is replaced with the word “fizz” and everything divisible by 5 is replaced with “buzz”; numbers divisible by both 3 and 5 are replaced with the words “fizz buzz”. For instance, a typical round would look like this:

“1, 2, Fizz, 4, Buzz, Fizz, 7, 8, Fizz, Buzz, 11, Fizz, 13, 14, Fizz Buzz, 16…”

The idea is to go around the circle as quickly as possible. If someone hesitates or makes a mistake, they’re eliminated. The last person standing is the winner!

What was the defining moment of your life? What’s the best thing that ever happened to you? What incident(s) enhanced your personal and/or professional life? What’s the most exciting, adventurous, or rewarding thing you’ve ever done?

How to play Final 30 seconds

Those are the types of questions around which this trust-building exercise revolves. Put them to your team at the next virtual meeting! To help them narrow down their search for answers, frame the initial question like this:

“What moment from your past would you choose to relive in the final 30 seconds of your life?”

Give each person a while to think about it and then go around the proverbial circle sharing your answers. Oh, and feel free to start proceedings with a story of your own! Telling the team about a special time in your life will encourage participation.

Honest and unpretentious, this exercise is a potent way to create a newfound sense of unity among remote employees. Having had a glimpse into their colleagues’ backgrounds, desires, and personalities, they’ll understand and be able to relate to one another better. Expect teamwork and trust to improve as a result.

What you need:

• N/A

Looking to spice up your office meetings? Look no further than the classic guessing game Hot Potato! Not only will it get everyone out of their seats and moving, but it can also be a fun and educational way to boost team morale and office knowledge.

How to play:

1. Gather a group and form a circle.
2. Take a small object, like a ball or beanbag, and pass it quickly around the circle.
3. Set a timer for a random amount of time.
4. Whoever is holding the object when the timer goes off is out.
5. Continue playing with shorter timers until only one person remains.

So next time you're feeling like your meetings are a little stale, toss in a game of Hot Potato and watch the office energy go through the roof! (Just try not to accidentally throw the potato at Jim from accounting's head...)

How to play One-word story

Storytelling exercises help people to overcome shyness and work on their articulation skills. In this game, a group of people takes turns saying one word to create a story. Start in a circle and move clockwise or counter-clockwise. Many times this exercise starts with “Once upon a time” and goes from there. The final players should say “the end”.

Put on your thinking caps for code breakers! Teams are given a series of cryptic riddles and challenges to solve, with each solution leading to the next clue. It’s a mental race to crack the final code and declare victory.

This team-building game is perfect for testing problem-solving skills and teamwork. Plus, there’s nothing like the thrill of solving that final puzzle before the other teams.

How to play:

• Give teams a series of riddles and cryptic challenges to solve.
• Each solution leads to the next clue.
• First team to crack the final code wins!

Do you have anyone in the office who is an absolute pro on a bowling alley? Maybe you do, but you haven’t realized it yet. 10-pin bowling with cups demands precision and a little strategy. It works well in small teams too, with each teammate helping the bowler plan out their attempt.

You’ll need 10 cups per team, with each team member taking turns to bowl. Cups placed the right-way-up make knockdowns a lot easier! Here’s how to get it started:

Set-up:

1. Prepare an “alley” for bowling: Set up your cup formation, 10-pin style, at the end of a flat, smooth table (the longer the better!). To replace a 10lb bowling ball, just use a tennis or ping-pong ball.

2. Roll to your heart’s content!: Each player has 2 attempts to roll the ball along the narrow table and knock over as many “pins” as possible. Not everyone is going to bowl a “spare” or “strike,” so you might need someone keeping careful tabs on the scoreboards. Play over 10-frames to find and crown your winner.

It doesn’t take much to set up this cup and ping-pong ball game, so bring the excitement of a bowling alley to the workplace for teambuilding fun! Serve some popcorn and play the sound of pins being hit with each roll too, to get the atmosphere right!

How to play Pitch tournament

An important part of selling is understanding customer needs: what they want or what drives them to buy something. Help your team to hone these skills by pitching items to you or another panel of judges. Pick a few regular objects, such as things from around the office. Then, pair people up (or work as individuals if your group is already small) and have them take turns pitching the item to your judges. Give everyone a few minutes to come up with a unique presentation and make sure they understand the product. Add a prize for the winner to up the ante a bit.

Searching for another indoor team-building game that demonstrates the virtue of clear communication? Try this one. To play Descriptive Artist, start by pairing teammates up and giving each duo some paper, a pencil, and a picture (making sure only one of them sees the picture).

Sitting back-to-back, one person describes the image while the other tries to draw it based on that description! After 5 to 10 minutes, the activity ends and the artist has to guess what they’ve drawn. You’d then tell everyone to swap roles, hand out new pictures, and repeat the process.

How to host Virtual hackathon

This is a great option for remote teams or teams who are spread out geographically. Online hackathons are one of the most popular and effective team competition ideas.  A hackathon is a marathon competition where teams compete to sketch or design a new product over the course of a few days. To host one, pick a theme (like sustainability or pop culture) and announce it at the beginning of the competition. Make sure to announce the contest in advance of starting it so that teams have time to gather supplies, implement the right collaboration tools, etc.

Divide your group into teams and let them get started! Then, at the end of the allotted time, wrap up the competition and set a time for everyone to present their finished products. Then judges will pick a winner and award a prize. Maybe the product ideas could even be implemented someday!

Ready for a question game with communication at its core? Quick, fun, and energizing, Question Game ticks all the right boxes. Here’s how it works:

Working in pairs, players must bounce rapid-fire questions back and forth for as long as possible. If someone hesitates for too long, says something nonsensical, or makes a statement instead of asking a question, they lose!

Here’s what it might sound like:

• “What’s your biggest fear?””
• “Isn’t that too personal for work?”
• “Are you dodging my question?”
• “What do you think?”
• “Why won’t you tell me what you’re scared of?”
• “Why don’t you just guess what my biggest fear is?”
• “Is it spiders?”
• “Does that mean you don’t like spiders?”
• “Are you turning the question on me?”

Another way to play the Question Game is in a group, where everyone takes turns asking the next question in the sequence. If they mess up, they get eliminated! The winner is the last person standing.

“Yes, Let’s” is a classic improv game that’s taken straight out of drama class. We like it for a host of reasons! However, one of its main draws in the context of boosting collaboration is that it involves everyone who is present.

Unlike other activities of this nature, the focus is never on a single person – which is ideal for anyone who doesn’t like being the center of attention.

Here’s how to play:

In a large open space, ask everyone present to start walking around the room. Next, shout out a suggestion for something the group should do.

For example, you could yell, “let’s go swimming in an ice-cold lake”, “let’s ski down this mountain”, or “let’s crawl on our bellies through this minefield.” It can be anything you want, but the game works best when it involves movement.

Whatever you suggest, the group has to respond enthusiastically by yelling back, “yes, let’s!” Everyone then does the action in question, moving around the room “swimming”, “skiing”, or “crawling”. After a while, someone else shouts out another action (“let’s cook a feast for our Viking guests”), and the process repeats.

Hilarity ensues as colleagues look around at their teammates doing all manner of crazy movements and mimes! Expect to energize the room, laugh until your belly hurts, and remember the joy of playing.

Furthermore, you’ll reaffirm a key element of collaboration: that there’s no such thing as a bad idea. Creative problem-solving demands a culture of acceptance, where people feel confident about raising their hand to offer a suggestion. “Yes, Let’s” normalizes unexpected ideas, rewards engagement, and stops people from feeling self-conscious. You’re sure to reap the rewards in the office.

How to play Instant win games

Instant gratification is a powerful motivator for most people. If you want people to buy more of your product, try putting together a game where they can find out if they won or lost immediately. For example, having people scratch to win, spin a wheel, or pull a lever on a slot machine are all simple actions that could result in an exciting prize for your customers.

It can be as simple as a retail store putting together a wheel to spin that has various prizes or discounts attached, and asking each customer if they want to give it a whirl. If you put it near the front of your store, you may be surprised how many people stop in. Make sure to promote it (and the winners) on social media for even more traction.

How to play Don’t answer that

Fun and laughter are guaranteed with Don’t Answer That. A verbal exercise this time, all participants have to do is stand in a circle asking each other questions! As you’d expect, though, there’s a caveat…

You don’t answer the questions directed at you.

The person standing to your left does it instead. For example, imagine that James asks you, “What’s the most embarrassing moment of your life so far?” You’d have to stay silent while Jeanette – the person to your left – claims it was when you got drunk at the last Christmas party and told the CEO you loved her.

The idea isn’t necessarily to be truthful (although it isn’t a rule that you can’t be!). The goal is simply to have a good time, make people laugh, and lift the mood.

How to play Timeline creation

A collaborative creation is a great way to help teams to bond, and the bonus is that you get something to display and remind your employees of a fun day and group effort. Start by rolling out a large white scroll of paper in a big space or outdoors. Provide plenty of drawing materials and ask the team to work together to create a timeline of the company. In this way, employees will share important milestones that they know about the company - and newer staff will learn them. It’s a great facilitator of discussion around what makes your organization great.

How to play Online (useless) talent show

Here’s a game that aims to draw out hidden talents among your teams. Ask each person in the next virtual meeting to showcase a talent they have. The only thing is, a lot of people might feel they have no hidden talents to show, so by calling it a ‘useless’ talent show, you might help reduce any pressure that is felt.

Allow them to be as random and creative as they wish. Older talent videos from the 2000s had some creative gems, like the famous Daft Hands. Simplicity is key for a talent show, as well as an atmosphere of zero pressure, so give a (useless) talent show a shot in your next virtual happy hour.

This one is perfect for newcomers to agile practices. It’s quick and interactive, focusing on iterations and adapting to customer feedback. Teams work together to design a chocolate bar to please their “target market” (other team members), iterating each time depending on the feedback they get.

Set up:

Every round, one person is the Product Owner and they give basic instructions for making chocolate (like milk or dark chocolate, fillings, toppings, colors, packaging). They design the product on a whiteboard and then release it to their “customers” for feedback. The product owner takes the feedback to the group to reiterate for the next release. Working within timers for design, the cycle continues until most customers are happy with the end result.

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.

As a child, was there anything more fun than playing balloon keepy-uppy with your friends or siblings? Well, it’s time to relive those memories in the office with this simple yet entertaining team-building game!

Great for: Energising your team

Duration: 5 minutes

Players: 6+

You’ll need: Balloons in a variety of colours

How to play Keep up the Balloons

Setup: Divide your group into teams of three or more. Then, hand each team a set of coloured balloons. The number of balloons per team should be at least double the number of people in the team. For example, if team 1 has four people, they would get eight red balloons.

To play: When the referee sounds their whistle, the teams throw all their balloons into the air. The aim of the game is to keep the balloons from touching the ground for as long as possible. If any of the team’s balloons touch the ground, they are eliminated. The winners are any teams that make it to the end of the time limit without their balloons touching the floor.

Explanation:

‍One team writes the first half of a story, and the second team finishes it—often leading to hilarious and unpredictable twists.

The remote team kicks things off by writing the beginning of a story. It can be anything—an adventurous quest, a mystery, or even a funny office tale. Once they’re done, they hand it off to the in-office team, who has to pick up where they left off and complete the story. The catch? The teams can’t collaborate, so the second half is entirely up to the in-office group’s imagination.

Both teams come together to share the full story, often leading to laughs over the unexpected direction it took.

It's a creative way to bring different perspectives together while keeping things fun and engaging for everyone!