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Use a game already available or create your own and have some fun!

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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As I was scrolling through my social media feeds this week, I noticed a trend that more tech companies are announcing a permanent move to hybrid or even a "remote-first" approach for the indefinite future. As companies look to 2021 and make their make budgeting and resourcing decisions, it's not a mystery why many are choosing to reduce investment in physical spaces and double down on the remote work infrastructure if their business model allows it. That means many of your meetings will be moving online to Zoom, Microsoft Teams, WebEx, Skype or any of the video conferencing applications available. As the experts in effective weekly meetings, executive team meetings and monthly meetings we are often asked by our client what are the best ice breakers for virtual meetings? So, we have compiled a list of the best Zoom Icebreakers (sometimes called Zoom Ice Breakers) for you to increase engagement and productivity at you next team meeting.

That means (you guessed it) all of those Zoom meetings and working remotely are here to stay, too! If you are finding that your team meetings are getting stale and the team is checking out, it might be time to change up your meeting and bring in a Zoom icebreaker for team building. While the virtual activities will be different for your team, the purpose of the icebreaker (or sometimes ice breaker) is the same-to energize and engage the team. A great icebreaker can make the meeting more fun!

Many articles have been written on the topic, so I've scoured the internet to bring you the best icebreaker ideas for your virtual team that I could find, categorized by the purpose of the activity. Just because we have to work from home on a video call, doesn't mean that we can't increase team engagement virtually.

Returning to Work (or Hybrid Model), you might want to read Use Core Values to Strategize Your Post-COVID Return to the Office and Organizational Alignment.

Ice Breakers for Zoom Meetings at Work

1. One Word or Phrase. We use this all the time at Rhythm Systems. I've seen lots of variations, ranging from very simple (one word to share how you're feeling today) to more complex (one word to describe our company culture or whatever the meeting is about). This is a great way to break the ice at the start of the meeting if you are a tight-knit team.

2. Future Headlines. Ask each person to write a newspaper or magazine headline for the company in 10 years. Give everyone time to work independently and have time for sharing with the larger group. Bonus points, use your BHAG goals from Rhythm's Strategy Execution Software.

3. Company Stories. We often open our monthly meeting with Core Values stories or brags about other team members who we've noticed living our core values. You can ask people to share any kind of company story or victory to help people feel more positive and engaged.

Zoom Icebreaker Questions

Round-Robin Questions. If you want to keep it simple, just open your meetings by having everyone answer the same question. You can change it up every day or week (based on your meeting rhythms). As you can imagine, the possibilities for these questions are endless, but if you need some help getting started, see the Icebreaker Question list below.

Would You Rather.If you want something faster than open questions, try giving everyone an option to choose (Ice Cream or cake? Beach or mountains? Netflix or Hulu? Again, endless possibilities). You can have everyone shout it out, raise a hand to vote or share round-robin as a great Zoom icebreaker game.

2 Truths and a Lie. The same classic game you played in childhood-just now over Zoom! Each person shares 3 things, and the group must guess the lie. For smaller groups, keep it conversational and shout out guesses; for bigger crowds, put the answers on a slide or virtual whiteboard and have everyone annotate a dot with their guesses.

Guessing GameThis one involves everyone sharing a little-known fact (something they did when they were younger, an interesting skill or story) and others guessing which fact belongs to which team member.

Share a Picture. There are so many variations on this one, too. You can ask everyone to share their most recent picture on their camera roll and tell what it is, have people share a photo that's meaningful to them and say why, ask people to share a photo of their desk or workspace, take a picture of something they saw outside their house, share an embarrassing photo, or their favorite food they cooked. You can also use photos to do a variation on the guessing game - guess who's baby picture is whose, or ask people to take very zoomed in pictures of objects in their home and have people guess what the image is.

Virtual Background Fun. Rather than just asking people to share a picture of something, ask everyone to come with a themed virtual background (maybe their favorite vacation spot, the place they are most looking forward to visiting, or a scene from your favorite TV show or movie).

Share an Object. This one's another classic that works excellently on Zoom-the old "Show and Tell" from elementary school. You can leave it open-ended or ask for something specific, like something that reminds them of their goals, brings them joy, or makes them laugh.

Meet the Pets (or Kids or Partners). You've probably had enough guest appearances to feel like you know your coworkers' pets, roommates, and family members, so you might as well make it official. Ask everyone to introduce their person or pet to the team.

Virtual Tour. If their signal is strong enough, you could take turns having team members tour their homes, workspaces, or neighborhoods.

Build a Birth Map. Create a collaborative map in Google Maps and ask everyone to drop a pin where they were born. Then, you can ask people to share something about where they were born.

Essentials or Favorites. Ask each person to share the essential app on their phone, book on their shelf, appliance in their kitchen, etc., and compile a list of essentials to share with the group. Or, ask everyone's favorite recipe, TV show, song lyrics, movie lines, etc., and share those.

Bucket List. Ask everyone to share their bucket list of things they want to do before they die. We did a similar exercise once, and our founders went out of their way to help people on the team cross off items like authoring a book or pursuing a dream of acting.

Zoom Background. Some company cultures like to have lots of fun to build employee engagement and motivation in a unique way. Zoom has many backgrounds created that you can choose from, or you can download your own. You can also use Snapchat filters to do everything from putting a cat on your head, a funny pair of sunglasses, or looking like the tiger king.

Zoom Icebreaker Games

1. Personality Inventories. If you have more time and some budget to invest, you can also have your team take personality tests and share the results - what most surprised them or one thing each person felt was most and least accurate about their results. This is a wonderful way to learn about each other; popular tools include Myers Briggs, StrengthsFinder, DiSC, and many free quizzes out there, too.

2. Life stories. Pair people into breakout groups and ask them to share their life stories in 5 minutes. Then, the person listening has to tell the story to the larger group.

3. Common Ground. Put the team into small groups or pairs and ask them to list as many things as possible that they have in common in a set amount of time. The team with the longest list wins!

4. Rapid Fire Teams. Randomly assign people into pairs in breakout rooms and have them complete a task together in 2 minutes: create a "secret handshake" based on their hometown, a "touchdown dance" based on a recent victory, or a nickname based on a childhood story.

5. Fun Fact. Have each team member share a fun fact about themselves that they don't think anyone else on the team would know. This game is fun and always brings up something to engage the group.

Zoom Teamwork and Problem-Solving Ice Breakers

1. Simulated problems. Create scenarios based on something the team may actually face one day. Ask them to strategize together, devise a solution, and plan to communicate and execute on it.

2. Alien Invasion. Could you divide up the group and tell them that aliens have landed? Each team has to create five simple drawings to explain what your company does so the aliens will understand. Share the images and look for common themes from team to team.

3. Letter Hunt. Put the team into breakout rooms and give them all 5 minutes to find an object for every letter of the alphabet (a - apple, b - book, etc.). One person on each team will write the things down. The team must communicate well to prevent overlap and get creative on some of the letters.

4. Birthday Lineup. In this challenge, the participants have to put themselves in order by their birthday - month and day, not year 🙂 - without talking or typing to each other. Each person has to write down the number in order they believe they fall (if there are ten people and I think my birthday is first, I'd write down 1.) When time's up, everyone reveals their numbers, and the facilitator checks to see how the team did.

5. Desert Island. Give each small group a list of items and ask them to select which three they would bring on a desert island with them and why. The teams have to work together to come up with the list.

Zoom Meeting Exercises to Get Moving

1. Dance Break. If the team gets punchy, put on a song and do a 30-second dance break. Cameras are optional for this - you can get a good laugh from each other's dad moves, or you can let people dance like nobody's watching. Another fun version is having everyone mute Zoom and dance to their own music.

2. Moving Trivia. For a more extended brain break, you can ask a few yes or no trivia questions and have people stand up for yes, sit down for no, or do some other physical activity (jump for yes, hand up for yes, etc.) If someone misses a question, they can turn off the Zoom camera to be "out" until the next round.

3. Pass the Love. Ask everyone to turn on the Gallery view in Zoom and stand up. Have everyone think of something extraordinary to share with someone else on the team. When it's your turn, pretend to hold a box or ball, explain your lovely idea, and pretend to pass the box to a person who's next to you in the Gallery view of Zoom. They receive the package and pass the love on to someone else.

Zoom Icebreakers Games - Just for Fun

1. Theme Days. Have different themes for your weekly team meetings where the team dresses up or uses a virtual background related to the theme. Hawaiian shirt day, PJ day, hat day... you get the idea.

2. Games. It could be simple, like Paper Rock Scissors, online trivia, or another virtual group game.

Rhythm Systems has conducted hundreds of virtual strategic planning sessions, weekly meetings, annual planning, and quarterly planning sessions via Zoom calls. If your company wants to build accountable and productive teams in the work-from world, check out our virtual strategic planning service or read a comprehensive list of accountability examples.

The possibilities are ENDLESS, thank goodness, because so are the virtual meetings. If you haven't had enough, here's a list of all the resources I used for this article so you can dig for more gold 🙂 If you are looking for ways to improve your business for the new normal, check out our popular SWOT Analysis blog article to get started.

Need help getting your team aligned to achieve your growth goals? Rhythm systems software was ranked the #1 easiest software to use, highest ROI, fastest implementation, and highest adoption rate on G2.

Here are additional resources for Zoom Icebreakers and remote meetings:
5 Best Practices to Manage Remote Employees
Strategic Planning Tips: 17 Tips to Create a Winning Strategic Plan
How to Engage Remote Employees How to Use Daily Huddles to Stay Aligned with Remote Teams 5 Steps to Having a Productive Virtual Monthly Meeting Big Hairy Audacious Goals: Classic BHAG Examples (Relevant in 2021)The Anatomy of a Great Quarterly Plan (Infographic)
Rhythm Systems Quarterly Planning Resource Center

Resources used in this blog:
https://miro.com/guides/remote-work/team-building https://snacknation.com/blog/virtual-team-building/https://biz30.timedoctor.com/virtual-team-building/https://medium.com/@ExperiencePoint/six-icebreakers-to-liven-up-your-daily-zoom-meetings-f0dbed1a40ec https://www.atlassian.com/blog/teamwork/virtual-team-building-activities-remote-teams https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ice-breaker-games https://www.summitteambuilding.com/icebreakers-10-activities-to-energize-your-zoom-meetings/https://blog.weekdone.com/10-not-lame-virtual-team-building-activities/https://medium.com/future-of-design-in-higher-education/zoom-friendly-warmups-and-icebreakers-3400c8b7263 https://teambuilding.com/blog/virtual-icebreaker-questions
Photo Credit: iStock by Getty Images
Ted Skinner

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Zoom Icebreakers: Original Comprehensive List of Ice Breakers for Team Meetings in 2023

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Looking for fun and engaging ways to start your virtual meetings in 2023? Our comprehensive list of Zoom icebreakers will help kick off your calls on the right foot and keep everyone motivated throughout the meeting.

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This Google Slides presentation is a compilation of pilina (relationship, connection) activity ideas curated by members of the UH Instructional Design Professional Learning Community.

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Quick Brain Break & Pilina (Relationship, Connection) Ideas

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Fact or Fiction (2 Truths and a Lie) Google Slides Template

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Fact or Fiction (2 Truths and a Lie) Google Slides Template

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Check out this holiday-themed Google Slides template created by the UHOIC team for use during a Zoom meeting. To make a copy within Google Slides, select File > Make a Copy > Entire Presentation.

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Icebreakers For Your Class in Zoom (Google Doc)

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Icebreakers For Your Class in Zoom (Google Doc)

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This compilation resource provides you with fun, engaging ways to break the ice and make connections using Zoom.

Created by Jamie Sickel, Kapi‘olani Community College and Laureen Kodani, University of Hawai‘i Maui College.