Team Building Activities designed to provide fun and improve communication while reinforcing a team culture. Looking for inspiration on what to do? We compiled the ultimate list of things to do and have fun with during a meeting as well as some activities to spend time together besides the daily hassle. From virtual kickoff to year ending party. There are many occasions to celebrate.
“The key is co-creating with your team to build a virtual event that they’re excited about and that keeps them interactive.”
Which activity to choose?
Our answer is, it depends. Searching for something before, during or after a meeting? There are fun activities which don’t require a lot of time and effort to break the ice (Ice Breakers), activate or to have fun while participating in a meeting (Activators). Or maybe you and your colleagues want to spend more time together and create an event to experience a feeling everyone enjoys (Online Team Activities & Games) – like the after-work event people have when working on an actual location. Choosing the right activities for your team, will greatly influence team building effectiveness.
There are also special “Kickoff Meeting Games” you should consider.
Ice Breakers
Activators
Online Team Activities
Ice Breakers
Generally we distinguish two types here. One we call ice breakers and the other we call activators. Ice breakers as the name indicates are designed to break the ice, usually when participants first meet. Activators are designed to liven up a meeting or to function as a fun ending.
1.1 Rock paper scissors tournament
Start your meeting with an all time long forgotten game of our childhood. It’s a great way to break the ice, test people’s reflexes, responsiveness and encourage spontaneity.
| Time | About 1 minute per person |
| How To | Two people square off, play the game and the winner goes on to play the next person on the team, and so on. |
| Tipp | It’s even a better starter for brainstorming sessions. |
1.2 Rose & Thorn
Rose & Thorn is a classical ice breaker for the start of a meeting. It doesn’t require any preparation and is relatively quick to get started with. You can quicken things up a little by letting participants prepare answers beforehand.
| Time | About 1 minute per person |
| How To | Start your ice breaker by having everyone share their rose of the day/week and also their thorn. Choose if rose/thorn should be work or non-work related. What is a rose? A rose is something that made you feel happy, or grateful. What is a thorn? A thorn is a challenge you’re facing, or something you’re working hard on. |
| Example | Work related Rose: If closed my first big customer this week. Thorn: I’m having a hard time finding new prospects. Non-work related Rose: I’ve found time to run this week. Thorn: Maybe I’ve eaten too much junk this week. |
1.3 Answers out of the box
This game awakens critical thinking and encourages participants to think outside the box. A quick, uprising activity to start with.
| Time | About 2 minutes per person or 4 minutes per team. |
| How To | Start by preparing one or two of the Lateral Thinking Questions. If you want to play it per person, give each individual 30 seconds of time to think. Then let every team member share their answers. Play with a team – If you want to play it in teams, divide participants into teams between 3 and 6 each. Each team has 2 minutes to decide for an answer. One representative will present the answer. |
| Optional | Spend about one minute discussing the differences in your answers and what you each learned from one another. |
1.4 Team Memory
Get to know each other? With a fast Team Memory warum-up people get to know each other from a different perspective.
| Time | About 10 minutes. |
| How To | Each team member is invited to introduce themselves including a random fact about them. After the introduction, players try to recall the random facts and match them with the right person. |
| Restrictions | Only applicable for larger team sizes. |
| Variation | Players know each other well? Try mixing it up. Let them present three random facts and let others guess which are right or wrong. |
1.5 Do you know your Team?
This game is great for team spirit. Finding out more about your teammates while playing a game is a real conversion starter. Make sure to give enough time for participants to discuss the results.
| Time | About 10 minutes |
| How To | Before your next meeting, ask all your teammates to answer three “about me” questions and collect them in a document. After the meeting, share the answers and have your teammates try to pair the answers with the right person.Once everyone has guessed, reveal who gave the right answer. |
| Questions to ask |
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| Optional | Play the game in teams or make it a challenge. |
1.6 Sell it?
Even if your group doesn’t work in sales, “Sell it” is a fun way to break the ice. It works well for teams of all sizes. Break larger groups in teams to 5 for the sake of time.
| Time | About 10 minutes |
| How To | At the start ask each participant to grab an item next to them. But don’t explain why. Once everyone grabbed an item, let them present their choice as they would sell it on a TV show. Beforehand give everyone one minute to set the price and to prepare their sales pitch. |
| Optional | Play the game in teams or make it a challenge. |
1.7 Stranded on desert island
A simple and easy starter to keep communication going. Make sure you prepare a large enough list of items so a great discussion can begin.
| Time | About 15 minutes |
| How To | First tell your group the scenario: They are stranded on a deserted island with seven objects – but they can only grab three.
Prepare a list of items, make these objects as obscure and challenging as possible, so that your teammates are forced to really use planning.
Then split the team into small groups and allow them to collaborate on which items they want to pick. Once all discussions have finished, get onto a team video chat and discuss the results. |
| Optional | Play the game in different rounds and let the team choose only one item per round. |
Activators
2.1 Your hidden talent
This game reveals some real talents, but it requires a lot of courage from your participants. The game fits best when teammates know and trust each other. It’s recommended for a cheer-up during or after a meeting.
| Time | About 5 minutes of preparation + 1 minute per participant |
| How To | Give everyone the task to prepare something to perform on a virtual stage.
Ask them to sing a song, play the guitar, read a poem, tell a joke… anything they want! After 1 minute of preparation let them perform. Allow ten seconds in between each for a rush of snaps and applause. |
| Optional | Make it a competition or play it in groups. |
2.2 Virtual Dance Party
It takes confidence to speak up, so it does to dance. Activate your participants with a little dance jam. Most practical when a little energyzer is much needed.
| Time | About 5 minutes |
| How To | Tell everyone about the dance party, choose a song. Share audio and make a quick audio check, making sure everyone can hear the music. Start your jam, dance and laugh. |
| Optional | Let the participants choose their own song and dance together. |
2.3 GIF Wars
Ever heard of GIF wars? You should, easy to play. No real set-up, no long talks. Just a selection of fun and the best GIFs the world wide web has to offer.
| Time | About 5 minutes per person |
| How To | You need a virtual meeting tool to allow gif sending. Choose a topic or theme and start the battle. Each participant chooses one GIF that fits the Theme best. At the end vote who’s got the best. |
| Tip | This can be a recurring virtual activity with different themes each week. |
2.4 Online Meeting Bingo
Zoom Meetings can sometimes be dull and boring. Online Meeting Bingo is a great way to make it more fun. The game is familiar and a little nostalgic and perfect for longer meetings.
| Time | During the meeting |
| How To | Hand participants a sheet with typical meeting sayings. Let them cross out each clichée when the corresponding event happens. The player who crossed out every clichée wins. |
| Tip | There are a lot of pre-field bingo boards online. Make it even more unique by creating your own customised one. |
2.5 Picture Charades
Like Charades but with a remote twist where you can only use images to explain. Encourage creativity and engage your participants.
| Time | About 15 minutes |
| How To | Let participants describe a famous film, series or songs using images only. Open an online document and start the guessing. |
| Variation | You can play the game with emojis instead. |
2.6 Home treasure hunt
Get your colleagues out of their chairs for a bit – they’ll appreciate a little physical activity.
| Time | 3 to 10 minutes |
| How To | Give your teammates a little task like: “You have 30 seconds to find something red.” Let them present the stuff they found. |
| Variation | You can take it further by making it a whole team building activity. Write down a list of tasks to accomplish, set a timeframe and go. |
| Examples |
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Online Activities for team building and fun
Even we don’t like the word “team building” for such activities – it has its application here. A well chosen online activity serves the goal of giving your team memory-making experiences they can share no matter how far apart they are. Strategically designed virtual team building activities provide communication while reinforcing a shared team identity. These activities can also mitigate the engagement-draining challenges of a remote or distributed workforce.
3.1 Virtual Happy Hour
It’s an opportunity for your colleagues to get together and bond outside of work, remotely.
| Time | 30 – 45 minutes |
| How To | Create a space where participants can meet at a certain time of the week. Pretty much like a real happy hour chat, play and have fun together. Prepare some mini games to keep the engagement going. |
| Things to Do | Play Games like Home Treasure Hunt, Picture Charade, GIF Wars, Quizes… Held virtual tastings or virtual cooking classes. |
3.2 Play Mafia/Werewolf Online
Mafia is known by a couple of different names, and is often played by large groups. Essentially, the game is a “whodunnit” mystery-solving challenge.
| Time | 30 – 45 minutes |
| Requirements | Video Conferencing Tool with a chat box. Slack or other another alternative messaging tool of communication (like Whatsapp) |
| How To | One of the players is a silent “killer,” and it’s up to everyone else to figure out the culprit. There’s a couple of roles to assign in Mafia to keep organisational structure, like “Doctor,” “Townspeople,” and “Detective.” Here is a detailed description of “How to play online”. To make it a remote game, use the chat box, Slack and the feature of turning off cameras to re-imagine the campfire classic in a virtual setting. |
3.3 Never Have I Ever
Never Have I Ever “Remote Work Edition” is another classic that helps your team learn more about your colleagues.
| Time | 30 – 45 minutes |
| Requirements | Video Conferencing Tool of your choice. |
| How To | A team member says something they’ve never done before, but if those playing have done it, they lower one of their fingers. The person with the most fingers up left wins the game. |
| Questions to get started with | “Never have I ever bought a car.”
“Never have I ever sold something on ebay.” “Never have I ever failed a school exam.” …. |
3.4 Play Scrabble or other classics
Everyone loves the wordy game Scrabble, there is a similar free online game out there to play with your colleagues.
| Time | 15 – 120 minutes |
| Requirements | Video Conferencing Tool of your choice. Every Team Member needs a free Lexulous account. |
| How To | Follow the rules of the instructions given. |
| Get the link | Welcome to Lexulous – It’s the fun word game you can play online. For free! |
3.5 Five Clicks Away
Five Clicks Away is a fun game played with wikipedia. You’ve heard right, it’s a little difficult to get started with, but it’s really fun when playing with a team.
| Time | 15 – 60 minutes |
| Requirements | Video Conferencing Tool of your choice. Browser for Wikipedia |
| How To | Before you can start, set a starting topic and an ending topic. A starting and ending page could be anything wikipedia has to offer. For example, the starting point is the wikipedia article about KingKong and your endpoint should be the wikipedia article about Mount Everest.
Each player starts on the set starting point. The goal is to reach the ending point with no more than five clicks. No typing allowed. |
| Get the link | Wikipedia |
| Variation | A great variation is to play this game in a team of five, where you battle other teams. Decide together on where to click and count the number of clicks needed to get to the end point. The team with the least amount of clicks wins. |
3.6 Geoguessr Game
Geoguessr is really fun and a great game to play as a team building activity. It encourages communication and coordination when played in Teams.
| Time | 30 – 60 minutes |
| Requirements | Video Conferencing Tool of your choice. Browser Paid Geogussr Team Account |
| How To | Create a Geogussr Pro Team Account (starting at 39,99€ for small teams). Invite other Team Members and play together. Players are placed at a location marker on a zoomable map. After the placed marker is submitted as a guess, GeoGuessr reveals the true geographic location and assigns the player a score depending on how far away the player’s guess was from the true location |
| Get the link | GeoGuessr – Let’s explore the world! |
| Variation | There are many different challenges online. We recommend dividing participants into smaller groups of four/five and let them discuss and guess as a Team. |
3.7 Among Us
This game can be tricky to set up for your Team but even more fun to play. It’s pretty much a game version of “Mafia/Werwolf”. The game uses all these tools to bring out some creativity and force the team to work together to achieve a common goal. It’s something our team looks forward to at the end of the day on Monday and creates a breather for everyone to chat and have some fun.
| Time | 30 – 60 minutes |
| Requirements | Video Conferencing Tool of your choice. Browser or Smartphone Every Participant needs a free iOs or Android Version of Among Us or a paid Windows Version to play together. |
| How To | You need at least 4 players to play, but the best games are had when playing with 10. Download the game and set up Among Us accounts. Start a group game, select the map and play. |
| Get the link | Among Us (innersloth.com) A great guide for Among Us as Team Building The Ultimate Guide to Playing Among Us as a Team Building (or Breaking) Exercise | Bulb Digital |
3.8 Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
You’re alone in a room with a bomb, your teammate has the info you need to defuse it. A fun and thrilling game to play with your Team online.
| Time | 30 – 60 minutes |
| Requirements | Video Conferencing Tool of your choice. Browser or Smartphone. At least one paid “Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes” Version |
| How To | There are two roles. The “Defuser” is alone in a room with a virtual bomb. The other players are “Experts”, they have the manual needed to defuse it. But the Experts can’t see the bomb, so everyone will need to talk it out – fast! The one who wants to play the Defuser needs a paid Version of the Game for PC or Smartphone. The Experts only need the “Bomb Defusal Manual” which you can download for free on the website. |
| Get the link | Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes – How to Play Remotely (keeptalkinggame.com)
Free Alternative similar to “Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes”: Escape the BOOM! (escape-the-boom.com) |
3.9 Play board games and Cards Against Humanity online
You can play various virtual card games with your team online – for free, with PlayingCards.io. There are a lot of great classics like Backgammon and Chess, but there is a fun Cards Against Humanity alternative to play too.
| Time | 30 – 60 minutes |
| Requirements | Video Conferencing Tool of your choice (just to Chat during Games) Browser A free PlayingCards account for each Team Member. |
| How To | Create a free Account, choose a game. Create a room, share the room link and play. That’s it. |
| Get the link | PlayingCards.io Virtual Tabletop |
| Tipp | The maximum number of players per room is six. Make sure you split your large group into smaller groups before playing. |
3.10 Play Psych!
Psych is a free game where you try to outsmart your friends by making up fake answers to real trivia questions in categories about animals, entertainment, and more. You don’t need to share your screen in order to play, but video chatting with your friends during the game will give it a more authentic game-night atmosphere.
| Time | 30 – 60 minutes |
| Requirements | Video Conferencing Tool of your choice (just to Chat during Games) Every participant needs a smartphone to download the free App |
| How To | Download the Game, create a free Account and invite your teamates. |
| Get the link | Android: Psych! Fun Party game to play with friends – Apps on Google Play iOs: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/psych-outwit-your-friends/id1005765746?ls=1 |
3.11 Jackbox Games
Jackbox might be the official game of the lockdown, offering a wide selection of party games. With the ability to join team members via Jackbox TV, you can play together fun games with only one paid account.
| Time | 30 – 90 minutes |
| Requirements | Video conferencing tool of your choice (for screen sharing) Every participant needs a smartphone or a computer. |
| How To | Purchase a Jackbox Game pack and install it on your desired device. Share your screen with your teammates and let them join by giving them a code to enter on Jackbox TV |
| Get the link | https://www.jackboxgames.com/ |
3.12 Powerpoint Karaoke
Ever given a presentation you’ve had no idea of. What sounds like a teens school nightmare is a fun game to play. It’s a game that tests your skills, gets people laughing, and keeps everyone wondering what will happen next. Present in groups to make it a great team exercise.
| Time | 10 minutes per group/presenter |
| Requirements | Video conferencing tool of your choice
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| How To | The game consists of three simple rules:
Choose the presenters, share the screen and let the magic happen. |
