I often get asked for ideas for icebreakers, checkins, or fun activities to do online. There are SO many resources out there, it is really hard to choose. (Some of my favorite resource libraries are listed at the end). If I had to suggest just a few useful ideas for some looking to either spice up their team meetings, or perhaps a leader trying to get a little more engagement out of their team, the following activities will surely get every voice in the (virtual) room.
Note that some are pretty straightforward, and for others I provided a brief explanation and then a link to another site for more details.
Checkin In Ideas
Daresay Checkin Generator (best for quick checkin topic)
StokeDeck (if you have a bit more time)
Virtual Energizers/Spicers (to shake things up!)
3 hands, 3 walls
Everyone on their feet, as quick as possible shake three hands and touch three walls (in any order), and return to your seat. Do this to shake off boredom!
In this short and very physical energizer, the group shakes out their bodies one limb at a time. Starting with eight shakes of the right arm, then eight shakes of the left, eight shakes of the right leg, then eight shakes of the left. It continues with a round of four shakes of each limb, then two, then one, ending in a big cheer. A good energizer when time is limited and the main aim is to get people moving.
chair up!
The game is played over email, messenger or conference call, and is specifically meant to counter the doom and gloom that sometimes guides conversations. Whenever someone calls out “chair up!”, everyone must stand up and do something cheerful. For example, you could do yoga sun-salutations, clap your hands, laugh or have a small dance party.
exciting sponge
Done in breakouts, exciting sponge is a quick and easy storytelling game that you can use for remote team building. To play on virtual team calls, each team member grabs a random object in arms length and creates a story about it, or can default to describing a generic sponge. The goal is to exaggerate the truth about what makes that object amazing. Exciting Sponge is to remote team building activities as regular sponges are to washing the dishes; not necessarily essential, but pretty darn useful.
Virtual Icebreakers
In this short exercise, a group must count up to a certain number, taking turns in a random order, with no two people speaking at the same time. The task is simple, however, it takes focus, calm and awareness to succeed. The exercise is effective to generate calm and focused collective energy in a group.
Werewolf is a game of cunning deceit and tactful manipulation, and the online version is much of the same. The game relies primarily on the spoken word, which makes it perfect for remote teams. One person narrates and uses chat to secretly assign roles of werewolf, villager, medic, etc. to players. It is a little tricky to get setup the first time as a host, but easy for teams to understand and LOTS of fun.
Something in common (10 min)
Something in common is a connection game you can play during virtual happy hours, video conference calls and similar. To play, first organize your attendees into manageable sized groups of four or five people and gently push them into breakout rooms. Each group has the goal of finding three similarities they have in common with other members of that group. For example, “we all have cats, no-one was born in Chicago and we loved Hamilton.”
For the next round, keep the same teams and add a restriction that you can’t mention locations or physical similarities. For the round after that, remove pets and preferences. The goal is to make the game increasingly difficult and encourage your remote workers to deep dive into what they may have in common.
Ten strikes (10 min)
Ten Strikes is a fun online team building game you can play on virtual conference calls. The mechanics make this an icebreaker game, so a good way to get to know new team members, or to build deeper relationships with existing teams.
Here is how to play: All participants hold up 10 fingers. The youngest person on the call goes first, and shares one true statement about themselves. For example, “I have a pen pal.” Anyone that the statement is true for gets to keep their fingers up, while anyone that the statement is not true for puts one finger down. If all of a player’s fingers are down then they are out of the game. Play until only one player remains.
The strategy in Ten Strikes is to share facts about yourself that are unique enough that other players will not be able to say it is true of them and will have to put fingers down. Ten Strikes is a fun and creative way to get to know the members of your team and boost engagement for remote employees.
Pro tip: You can also play Five Strikes or Twenty Strikes. Generally the more fingers and toes you start with, the longer the game will go.
Can you hear me now? (15 min)
Can You Hear Me Now is one of the best online games for virtual teams. You play this game in a virtual conference room, and nominate one person to be the speaker and the rest are artists. The speaker uses a random image generator to source a suitable image, and the goal is to describe that image in such a way that the artists can draw it successfully.
The one guideline that makes this task challenging is that you speaker must only use geometric shapes. For example, you could say “draw a large circle and then there equidistant triangles” but not “write the letter E.” By limiting instructions to geometric shapes and positions, the speaker needs to exercise extremely accurate communication skills, and the artists need to listen and interpret. This game is a proxy for effective online communication, and is also just really fun. Consider doing this in breakouts to have small groups
Guess the refrigerator (10 min)
Guess the Refrigerator is similar to “Who Da Baby?” and other guessing games. To play, everyone submits a photo of the inside of their refrigerator to one point of contact. That organizer then posts the photos to a channel where all participants can study the contents and make best guesses at which refrigerator belongs to who. The players submit answers to the organizer, who then tallies up the scores and announces a winner.
Tree or Bob Ross (15 min)
Tree or Bob Ross is an online game you can do entirely through the spoken word. The game mechanics are similar to 20 Questions or Eye Spy and other virtual activities where players aim to identify the object of another player’s attention. To start, one player chooses an identity, which can be anything from an object to a concept.
The player with the identity is known as The Post, and all other players can bombard The Post with unlimited questions to figure out what the identity is. The opening question is traditionally, “is it more like a tree, or more like Bob Ross?”, to which The Post must answer only by naming one or the other.
The following questions are framed as “is it more like _____ or more like _____?”, where the first blank is the answer from the previous question. For example, if the answer to the first question was tree, then the next question is “is it more like a tree or more like _____?”, where the second blank could be literally anything that may give you some clue to the answer.
Tree or Bob Ross does not have a limit on the number of questions; only on your sanity. Repeat the questions over and over again until you get to the exact right answer. When you get the answer, everyone cheers and The Post role passed to the next player to choose an identity and continue.
Additional Resource Libraries
If you find yourself still wanting after reviewing the list above, the following resources are some of my favorite collections of virtual facilitation ideas in the realm of checkins, icebreakers, and team building.
Radically Remote Toolkit (Joshua Davies, Knowmium)
Playmeo (comparable to Joshua’s Library above, but bigger)
Museum Hack Team Building Resources (where many of those above came from)
RetroMat (the definitive collection of retrospective ideas and formats)
Wrapping Up
Try some of these ideas with your team. I will bet you can get everyone having some fun and start to make the personal connections that are the bedrock of any great team. And if you find any more in those resource libraries, or someplace else, drop me a line. Enjoy!
Until the Next Iteration . . .
Jason