You found our list of fun virtual team building activities.
Virtual team building activities are group games, challenges and exercises via platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. Examples of activity types include icebreaker questions, virtual campfires, and group fitness classes. The purpose of these virtual activities is to build relationships, improve communication, and boost employee morale. These activities can be free or paid, and are also called “online team building activities”, “remote team building activities” and “virtual team bonding.”
These activities are similar to online team building games, team building activities for conference calls, and virtual group activities, and support virtual employee engagement.
This list includes:
- free virtual team building activities for work
- hosted virtual team building activities for work
- fun virtual team building activities for remote employees
- virtual team building ideas for small groups
- the best online team building activities for conference calls
- quick virtual team building icebreakers
- virtual team builders for adults
- virtual team build ideas
- virtual team building activities for large groups
- more virtual team building ideas
- virtual community building ideas
- virtual team outing ideas
Let’s get to it!
Free virtual team building activities for work
1. Virtual Team Building Bingo
Virtual Team Building Bingo is a fun team building activity for conference calls. The game is familiar, a little nostalgic, and perfect for both kids and adults.
Here is a template for your first game:
To play:
- Distribute cards to your team members.
- Use breakout rooms to encourage small group dynamics.
- Award prizes to whoever finishes a row or “x” first.
Here are rules and additional templates for icebreaker Bingo and Online Team Building Bingo.
2. 50 States Challenge
Years ago, I worked with a team of Americans. As the sole Canadian, I challenged my colleagues to a “name the 50 states” competition. I lost, but for 30 minutes my small team was deeply engaged as we struggled to remember Nebraska and Wyoming.
Here is a template you can use to play:
You can make your own maps too.
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3. Lightning Scavenger Hunt Activities
Lightning Scavenger Hunts are designed to be fun and quick virtual team building activities. To do this activity with remote teams, invite your coworkers to a virtual meeting and start firing off clues like “cuddle your pet,” “show a dictionary,” or “get your favorite mug.”
The first person to complete each clue gets a point. You can score by groups too.
Check out our full instructions for lightning scavenger hunts and virtual scavenger hunts.
Hosted virtual team building activities for work
4. Online Office Games (Hosted Event)
Online Office Games is a form of “Office Olympics” that includes spirited challenges, virtual team games and activities. Example virtual activities for employees include fast-paced trivia, Go Get It lightning scavenger hunts, and a communication game called “Can You Hear Me Now?”
Online Office Games is energetic, competitive, and everything you need to build some serious team engagement while working from home. It is also our most popular event type with 150,000+ guests to date. We often hear from participants that these virtual office games were the most fun they ever had in a Zoom room.
Your team experience includes:
- 90 minutes with an engaging teambuilding.com host
- Co-host(s) as needed to manage technical aspects or large groups
- All game materials and instructions
- Client advisor team to help with customizations and special requests
- 100% happiness guarantee
Learn more about Online Office Games.
5. tiny campfire ? (Hosted – Includes Kits)
tiny campfire is one of the world’s most popular virtual team building events. We created tiny campfire as a way to engage remote teams in a VIP experience that includes s’mores and an actual small campfire.
Before the event, we send your team members a s’mores kit that includes graham crackers, mini marshmallows, Hershey chocolate, and a tiny tealight campfire. Then, on “camp day” your team members log in to a video conference room for 90 minutes of camp games, trivia and historic ghost stories. The entire experience is run by one of our senior facilitators.
Your tiny campfire experience includes:
- 90 minutes with a professional teambuilding.com host
- Co-host(s) as needed for support and scale
- Premium s’mores kit shipped directly to participants
- Continental US shipping included
- All game materials and instructions
- Client advisor to help with planning the perfect experience for your team
- 100% happiness guarantee
tiny campfire is a world-class virtual team building event that you can try today.
Learn more about tiny campfire.
6. Ultimate Game Show (Hosted)
Ultimate Game Show is a fun and engaging virtual game show experience for teams. The event includes game mechanics inspired by Office Feud, Jeopardy, Price is Right, and more. Your team will strategize, compete, work together, and have a darn good time.
Your booking includes:
- 90 minutes with a trained teambuilding.com host
- Co-host(s) as needed
- All game materials and instructions
- 100% happiness guarantee
- And more!
Check out Ultimate Game Show.
Fun virtual team building activities for remote employees
7. “Who da baby?” (Fun ?)
“Who da baby?” is a quick virtual game you can play on Zoom or over a platform like email or Slack.
Instructions:
- All participants send you a baby photo. Photos from around 2 – 3 years old are best because you will see more distinct features and not just a 6-month bundle of joy.
- Post the images in a shared Google Doc.
- Each player makes a list, guessing who the baby might be.
- Collect the answers, grade the scores, and announce the winners.
By the way, the toddler in the photo is me at age three working on this article.
8. Minesweeper Online Team Tournament
Minesweeper is a virtual game you can play on online via Google. You just search for “minesweeper” to play. Challenge your remote employees to a cutthroat round of the classic online game, and time your scores to see if you can beat each other and me.
You can organize an epic Minesweeper tournament for your people and see who can race through the game the quickest. This online team building activity requires patience, precision, and thoughtful risk-taking; which are all good attributes to develop for remote teams.
I recently finished a round in four seconds, unsuccessfully, so the bar is both high and pretty darn low.
9. Praise Train
When it comes to praise at work, people tend to respond in one of three ways.
- Soak the praise up like golden rays of sun on a Bali beach.
- Accept the praise and “keep cool.”
- Aggressively deflect that praise onto literally anyone else, AKA the Michael method.
Each member of your team will likely fit into one of the above categories. However, one thing will secretly unify your people regardless of category: they love getting praise. Start a praise train where each person compliments each others work in succession and watch the employee engagement take off.
For example, you could praise someone on their work ethic, and that person could praise a colleague on a successful client call, and that person could praise someone for writing a great blog article and so on.
This activity is excellent for virtual team bonding with remote workers.
10. Guess the Emoji Board ?
You can snap a screenshot of your most frequently used emojis and upload it for your team to see. If, like me, you and the folks on your remote team gravitate toward shrugs, flexes, Canada flags and Pokémon balls, then it is fun to see the record of it.
You could also play a quick virtual team building game like “Guess the Emoji Board.” Here is how you play:
- Distribute a list of all players to each player.
- Everyone has five minutes to guess the five most used emojis by each person on the list.
- Reveal the answers and award points both for “having it in the top 5” as well as “having it in the right order.”
If you are looking for ways to make a virtual meeting fun or engage a virtual team in ways that are not lame, then a quick round of emoji ranking can help.
Virtual team building ideas for small groups
11. Mister Rogers Calls (Team Favorite ?)
Mister Rogers Calls are one of the best virtual team building activities during quarantine. The name comes from the goal: to get to know your remote work neighbors.
We have been doing Mister Rogers Calls for years, and follow a simple format. First, we use the Donut app to randomly assign conversation partners every two weeks.
The call itself should be 30 minutes, over video, and avoid work topics. Encourage your remote coworkers to talk about hobbies and interests outside of the job. For example, you can talk about how long you can keep a houseplant alive.
This post has themes and topics for virtual coffee chats.
12. Virtual Debate Club
In high school, I joined the Debate Club and attended weekly meetings. For the entire year, we had exactly one debate with another school. I don’t remember the topic, but I remember the guy who won spoke with fiery passion.
To run a successful Debate Club for virtual teams, you can:
- Schedule a 45-minute video call.
- Share best practices for debating effectively, including clear communication strategies and identifying logical fallacies.
- Do mini debates on inconsequential topics. For example, a debate theme could be whether cookies with raisins should exist or not.
Here are some good debate club topics:
- Could you make a cookie larger than Earth?
- What is the best movie ever?
- Oceans or forests?
- Which way should the toilet paper go?
- Who makes the best pizza?
- Does Australia exist?
- Aunts or ants?
- What is the best way to cook eggs?
- Is a hot dog a sandwich?
- Should humans time travel?
As your Debate Club grows in sophistication, invite more team members to join. The experience will help develop important communication skills and relationships.
13. Virtual Ambassadors
Ambassadors is a virtual activity where each person acts as a country’s ambassador. During each round, a team member must describe their country without saying the country’s name. The other team members guess which country the person is describing to earn points. At the end of the game, the player with the most correct guesses wins!
You can assign countries to team members using a random country generator.
The best online team building activities for conference calls
14. Tree or Bob Ross
The Tree or Bob Ross game mechanics are similar to 20 Questions or Eye Spy and other virtual team builders. To start this virtual activity, one player chooses an identity, which can be anything from an object to a concept. On a road trip to Canada, one friend chose to be a small rubber ball. Explore your imagination, and feel free to choose really difficult identities.
The player with the identity is known as The Post, and all other players can bombard The Post with unlimited questions to uncover the identity.
The opening question is, “is it more like a tree, or more like Bob Ross?”, to which The Post must answer only by naming one or the other. For example, if the identity was a sunflower, then the answer is “more like a tree.” If the identity is Pinocchio then you have a choice to make, and must commit to one.
The following questions incorporate a new word into the game. For example, “is it more like a tree, or more like a pile of leaves?” which can provide clues toward the final answer.
Here are more question games to play with remote teams.
15. Virtual Werewolf
Werewolf is one of the best virtual team building activities for conference calls, as it is a game of speaking, careful listening and voting as you seek to survive the night.
To start the game, players draw roles of werewolf, villager, medic or seer. Werewolves do the eating, villagers vote werewolves off the island, medics can save a player and seers can peer deep into another player’s soul to reveal their wolf-status.
Then, the game master announces that night has fallen, and players close their eyes. The game master asks the werewolves to wake up and select a victim, followed by the medic, who points to one person to save, and the seer, who points to one person to reveal. Finally, the game master announces the sun is rising and reveals whether a villager became wolf-grub during the night.
Anyone the werewolves eat becomes a ghost and cannot speak for the remainder of the game. The survivors debate who might be a werewolf, and then vote to either eliminate someone or skip the round. Repeat until you only have villagers or wolves left.
Here are more detailed instructions on how to play Werewolf.
16. The Longest Word
The Longest Word is a quick virtual activity you can do on video chats and conference calls. To play, arrange your people into teams and challenge them to spell a very long word.
For example, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is as hard to say as it is to spell. The team that gets closest to the correct spelling, judged by an arbitrary eye, wins. The winning team can then bet double or nothing by guessing the meaning of the word too.
Use this long word generator for your game:
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This list has more vocabulary activities for teams.
Quick virtual team building icebreakers
17. Virtual Team Building Icebreakers (Easy)
One simple way to start team building virtually is to add a round of icebreaker questions at the beginning of video conference calls. You should plan for 30 seconds per participant.
You can use this random icebreaker generator for your prompts:
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Here are a few virtual icebreakers to start with:
- Where would you haunt for all of eternity?
- What was your favorite sandwich growing up?
- What is the last movie you watched and was it good?
- Do you have a favorite family recipe?
- What is your morning routine?
For successful virtual icebreakers, the host should designate who is next throughout the activity.
Here is a list of virtual team building icebreakers, list of icebreakers for virtual meetings, list of icebreaker questions, and a random icebreaker generator.
18. Something in Common
One of the quickest virtual team building activities you can play is Something in Common, which is a challenge that encourages your remote employees to learn more about each other. For this game, assign your people into small groups and then have each group identify the three most unique things they have in common. For example, a group might find a common love for Shakespeare’s Macbeth, experience with childhood violin lessons, and a disdain for fiery Cheetos. If you want to do multiple rounds, then you can make the virtual activity more challenging by removing broad categories like movies, books, and food.
Here are more icebreaker games for work.
19. Two Truths and One Lie
Two Truths and One Lie is one of the most common virtual team building activities for work meetings. The activity is conference call friendly, since all you need is a reliable WiFi connection and a little cunning deceit.
For the remote work version, give each participant two minutes to prepare two truths and one lie. For example:
- I can read and write in Chinese.
- I have consumed 3.5 KG of pure 100% cocoa during quarantine.
- I once hacked into my high school computer.
Number two is the obvious lie; it has been at least 3.6 KG.
Have each participant share three facts and guess which one is the lie. You don’t really have to keep track of points for this game, because the fun is in learning about each other.
Two Truths and One Lie is a fun virtual game to play with drinks. Here are more online drinking games that are work-friendly.
20. Blackout Truth or Dare
This activity is a Zoom team building version of Truth or Dare.
To play:
- All players start with their cameras on.
- The host states a truth or dare like, “show us the floor around your desk” or “how old are you really?”
- Players can choose to leave their cameras on to indicate they are willing to reply, or turn off the camera to opt out.
- The host then asks one or more players to complete the truth or dare.
Use this tool to generate prompts:
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Typically, a successful player from the round leads the next prompt.
Virtual team builders for adults
21. Pancakes vs Waffles
Pancakes vs Waffles is a fun game I learned on a group trip. The game mechanics revolve around friendly debate and unanimous decision making, which can be helpful for remote team building activities.
To play Pancakes vs Waffles:
- Announce the great debate; either pancakes or waffles is going to disappear from existence and your team has to make the choice.
- When the team decides, anyone can nominate a new contender. For example, if pancakes survived the first round then someone may suggest cabbage.
- The nominations tend to scale up into existential questions quickly. Bunnies or love? Love or humanity?
You can play until your team is ready to move on. Pancakes vs Waffles is a great way to engage the introverts on your team, because everyone has an opinion about the trivial subjects of debate. You can play Pancakes vs Waffles over Zoom, Webex, Google Hangouts and other virtual meeting platforms.
Here is an example game of Pancakes vs Waffles that demonstrates how it might go.
And here are more virtual games to play with large groups.
22. The Price is Almost Right
The Price is Almost Right is a digital team building activity where the host of a virtual conference call holds up household objects and other attendees shout out prices. The first person to guess within five cents of the actual retail price without going over gets 1 point for their team. If you guess over the retail price, then you are out for that round, but your team members may continue.
23. What Would You Do?
What Would You Do? is one of several scenario-based virtual team building exercises you can do.
How to play:
- Split employees into teams or discuss as one big group.
- Pose hypothetical questions.
- Let employees talk through a plan of action.
Not only does What Would You Do? foster fun and engagement, but this virtual team activity allows coworkers to learn each others’ problem-solving processes in real-time.
Here is a list of would you rather questions to start with.
24. Healthy Lifestyle Challenge
A monthly Healthy Lifestyle Challenge is even more important during quarantine, while many employees must work from home. One month the challenge can be to drink a certain amount of water each day, and another month might be “activity of choice.” There are plenty of virtual challenge ideas.
You can track progress of your Healthy Lifestyle Challenge with this free tracking tool, which helps add an element of accountability.
Click image to view the healthy habit activity tracker
After 30 days, the person with the most “x” boxes marked on the spreadsheet wins. Really, everyone wins because everyone who participates gets a little healthier and has fun with the challenge.
Virtual team build ideas
25. Virtual Show & Tell
Show & Tell is one of the best virtual team building ideas that promotes public speaking skills and storytelling. Having each of your team members share something about their lives also builds meaningful connections.
To do Virtual Show & Tell, ask your coworkers to prepare a quick story in advance, or do a more spontaneous “grab something within arms reach” approach. We recommend the latter option, as it encourages quick and creative thinking.
Here are more fun improv games that work virtually for team building.
26. Forensic Sketch Artist
Forensic Sketch Artist is a fun and creative virtual team building game. Here is how to play:
- Split your coworkers into teams.
- Tell participants there was a series of robberies last night. Luckily, each team has a witness who saw the robber’s face before narrowly escaping the scene.
- Create a face with a random face generator.
- Show one person per team the face of the “robber.”
- Have the person who viewed the face describe it to their team. Other members must sketch the face based on the description.
- After ten minutes, collect the portraits.
The portrait closest to the original face wins!
27. Personality Tests
Personality tests are a common element of job applications and on-boarding. You can use personality tests for remote team building too.
Instructions:
- Send a personality test to your employees.
- Have everyone send you their results.
- Do a team call where you talk about the different personality types and how they fit in with team dynamics.
Here is a list of personality tests to try.
28. Virtual Escape Rooms
Virtual Escape Rooms are popular online team building activities during quarantine because they include social elements, problem- solving skills and teamwork. For example, your team may have to figure out how to pull off an art heist and escape or break out of a jail cell. The virtual activities are fun and interactive and feel good when you win.
Here is a list of virtual escape rooms with both free and paid options.
29. Virtual Murder Mystery
Murder mysteries are fun virtual team building games/activities. You can do a wide variety of game types, including historically accurate murder mysteries, or something entirely new like “Murder on Mars.”
Here is a list of virtual murder mystery games to try.
Virtual team building activities for large groups
30. Typing Speed Race (Competitive)
Your coworkers will love engaging in a Typing Speed Race. The race is a way to show off your lightning fingers and also a great way to develop one of the most important remote work skills: typing quickly and accurately.
Your team members can take the typing test and post scores on Slack, email, or other communication channels. You can also do a Typing Speed Relay, where you add up team totals.
Try the 1-Minute challenge on typingtest.com.
Here are more virtual minute-to-win-it activities.
31. Chubby Bunny
To play Chubby Bunny, have each person put a marshmallow in their mouth and say the words “chubby bunny.” Then, each person adds an additional marshmallow until only one person can complete the challenge.
Here is a guide on how to play chubby bunny by Icebreaker Ideas.
Important: Do not choke on the marshmallows, this is a fun challenge not a daredevil act.
This post has more fun workplace competitions for virtual teams.
32. Virtual Dance Party (High Energy)
One of the best ways to quickly build team morale is to throw spontaneous dance parties during video calls. We have a few recommendations for these virtual activities:
- Start your call with a dance so that people can participate as they join.
- Use dance breaks as a way to boost energy throughout the meeting.
- Dance breaks are good closing activities for virtual meetings too!
Here a few tunes for your playlist:
- Girls Just Want To Have Fun – Cyndi Lauper
- Yeah! – Usher
- Twist and Shout – The Beatles
- Shake it Off – Taylor Swift
- Footloose – Kenny Loggins
Here is a longer playlist from The Bash.
33. Guided Meditation
Ten quiet minutes during an otherwise busy day can be an effective way to bring your people together and build strong remote teams. You can achieve these results with a guided meditation session.
Here is how:
- Find a meditation exercise online or contact an expert to guide the group.
- Send a video call invitation to the team.
- Consider sending employees a care package with scented oils and candles beforehand.
- Perform mindfulness activities as instructed by the guide.
Here is a 10 minute guided meditation on YouTube.
More virtual team building ideas
In addition to doing activities on conference calls, there are occasions for hosting virtual team building games/activities or exercises. Example ideas include virtual birthday parties and online fundraisers.
34. Virtual Happy Hours
Virtual happy hours are video meetings dedicated to fun virtual team games and activities and may be part of the work day or at the end of it. For example, you might include a round of icebreaker questions and then do virtual team trivia. Most people include drinks as well.
Virtual happy hours are also good for fun Friday virtual activities.
Check out our list of virtual happy hour ideas for more inspiration.
35. Virtual Coffee Breaks
Virtual coffee breaks are usually one-on-one or small group sessions that last 15 to 30 minutes during the work day. They help build relationships and community among coworkers.
See our list of virtual coffee break ideas and topics.
36. Virtual Birthday Parties
The essentials for a successful virtual birthday party are:
- An element of surprise. Get everyone on a virtual call and tell the birthday person that the call starts five minutes later.
- Fun virtual activities. Do icebreakers, lightning scavenger hunts and similar.
- Heaps of praise. Use the opportunity to showcase the team member.
If you have a large team, then planning virtual birthday parties may become redundant. Instead, you can unite the April babies around the shared birthday month, and the same for the other 11 groups too.
Here is a list of ideas for virtual birthday parties.
37. Virtual Retirement Parties
Virtual retirement parties or “farewell parties” are online gatherings to send off a teammate. These parties generally occur during work hours and include fun virtual team building activities and games.
Learn more about virtual retirement parties.
38. Online Fundraiser
One way to build morale with employees is to choose a meaningful cause and raise funds or donations for it. For example, many offices are familiar with doing a food drive or a community sponsorship.
I recommend partnering with a donation platform to help facilitate the transactions and add credibility to the collections. For the cause, anything that resonates with your team can be a good fit.
Here is a list of virtual fundraising ideas.
39. Virtual Amazing Race
Virtual Amazing Race is an online team building activity that includes a series of fun challenges. For example, you can do photo scavenger hunts, rapid-fire trivia and negotiation games. Typically, you divide participants into smaller teams and then have them compete for points and prizes.
Learn more about doing a virtual amazing race.
Conclusion
Virtual team building activities are a great way to make virtual meetings fun, boost morale, and build community. These virtual activities include free and paid options and can take anywhere from 1 minute to several hours. I recommend following The 8% Rule, which states that you should spend about 8% of the time on any team call doing games and exercises together.
Next, check out our lists of virtual event ideas, virtual team challenges, virtual game night ideas, virtual team outings, and this one with virtual games to play on Zoom with coworkers.
We also have a list of free virtual team building ideas for work, a list of the best virtual team events, a list of Zoom team building games and a list of the best virtual team games for meetings.
For country-specific ideas, check out these virtual team building ideas in Australia and these virtual team building companies.
Sweatpants Dilemma and Virtual Campfire sound so fun and such a clever way to engage team members!
All of these sound amazing! If I could create one it would be office karaoke but instead of the singer picking the song, the rest of the team does. You thought you were going to sing “Don’t Stop Believing” Steve? Not today my friend, you’ll be doing “Call Me Maybe”!
I really like the idea of having an internal company blog. I read lots of blogs written by strangers, and I think having an internal blog brings that inner circle closer. It brings a stronger connection because you actually know who is writing it.
3:00 PM Yoga is a great idea! They say that sitting at your desk all day is just as bad for your health as smoking one whole pack of cigarettes per day. This is a great way to remind yourself to get up and stay active throughout the day, even if it only is for a few minutes.
Awesome ideas! Another virtual team building activity could be a Playlist Challenge. Select someone each week to share their favorite music playlist with their team along with reasons why they love the songs/artists. The playlists could be the music they listen to while working, exercising, hanging out or their favorite songs of all time!
This activity connects team members who may share similar music interests and gives others a chance to learn more about their colleagues.
Too fun! As a s’more-a-holic, I especially love the virtual campfire.
Another cool idea is to host a virtual happy hour. The team gets on a 30-1 hour video call. Instead of sipping drinks, everyone brings something to the call that makes them happy. Their derpy dog. An adult coloring book. Their home-brewed IPA. The rock collection from their hiking trip.
The team would get a sense of their co-workers’ interests, and might even spot some talents that can come in handy on the job.
What great ideas! Another suggestion I’d like to offer is Book Club! We did this at a workplace I was apart of, where we read engaging and interesting literature and came together weekly to discuss the pages/chapters we had read. Sometimes these books were related to our industry, sometimes they were just fun, but engaging reading. Learning more about how each of us related to the writing, helped us learn more about how we all approached topics at hand. It was great for improving our communication, because we better understood each others’ thought processes. I felt more connected to my fellow book club members than those that chose not to participate, these shared experiences within the pages of a book helped us build relationships and better understand each other.
Since this is all remote work, I think 3 pm yoga sounds like a good idea. We’re not getting any younger and neither are our backs.
What about “Bored (Board) Game Break”? See what I did there? I am hilarious.
Each week can be a different game from Cards Against Humanity to Jeopardy with the event host being Alex Trebec! Or even a Murder Mystery type event where each team member plays a different role and all have to work together to figure out who did the deed.
I think a meet your pet day would be a great one. So many people can connect while sharing about their pet. You could have a best costume or pet story contest. If you don’t have a pet maybe a significant other!
One Sentence Stories!
One word stories are out — they always end up with “the very big dog went to the market.”
With One Sentence Stories, you have the space to answer questions like “who is this dog?”, “why did he go to the market?”, and “why is he dressed in a perfectly tailored, navy blue suit?”.
Perfect for a virtual setting and lots of laughs! 🙂
How about hosting a backward’s meeting? We could develop the agenda and start with ‘closing remarks and action items’, move into questions, then reporting, next would be the presentation and finally opening remarks and introductions. The body of the meeting is where it would get fun because questions asked in the beginning couldn’t be addressed later. It’s mixes up a project status meeting that would normally be dreaded :).
Awesome ideas! A new idea — Virtual I’m a Picasso! ~* Who says you can’t be the next great artist with your epic team of co-workers?! Everyone get your best h’or doerves ready, because we’re watching eating some fancy food together right before we show our creative sides to the world! Everyone on the team gets a paint palette, canvas, and an image of someone else on the team. Now, you have 1 hour to paint a portrait of your co-worker! While painting, everyone on the team goes round robin with a game of two truths and a lie. Have fun trying to guess which is the truth and which is the lie while you paint a beautiful portrait of your co-workers face! Once the hour is up, everyone must show off their painting — and the rest of the team has to guess who they painted!
Beatbox harmony sounds like a fun and goofy way to connect with your coworkers!
An activity that can be done with online teams is an activity that goes in the following way.
It can be called Just Post It!
Often times people can have really creative ideas about how to deal with different issues in the work place. This activity is a fun way for colleagues to share ideas and finally get a chance to make their voice heard. Everyone gets a stack of post it notes and then a topic within the company can be brought up. Then a timer goes off for 20 seconds and everyone can adress the issue on the post it note but they can only read out what they wrote on the post it note. This leads to ideas being very succinct and refined because they have to be written in few words. Everyone can go around and share their ideas. This can be done in relation to work topics but it can start off with some fun questions in order to get people in a good mood and feeling comfortable sharing with each other.
I love Sweatpants Dilemma. I know of a few people who were doing virtual interviews who ended up losing out on the job because they were dressed in a suit from the waist up but were wearing shorts! Sweatpants Dilemma is a great way of making it a competition and throwing in some strategy to wearing jeans.
One game my office played which I loved was called Babyfaced. Everyone submitted a baby photo of themselves and then everyone had to write down their answers. The person who got the most right won a prize from the team! It was great because some you could really tell it was them but others you had no idea. And it was fun trying to dig up old photos of me with my parents, because that turned into an hour-long Zoom call sharing childhood stories! Just overall a really fun game I highly recommend.
Other idea:
“My Creature Vs. Yours” / “Creature Cage Match”
Pick two people during the team meeting to each build creatures of their own. The creatures would each have different characteristics of different animals, making them a super-animal. For example, one creature would have shark teeth, the wings of a bat, and the tentacles of an octopus. Then the two participants would share their creatures with the audience and a drawing of each. The participants would then have a debate on why their creature would kill the other during a cage match, and the audience would then vote on the creature that wins. The winner would then advance to the next round the following week, competing against a different challenger. The process would repeat until everyone in the team has played & a champion is crowned (round robin format). The recommended prize would be a package consisting of a sculpture of the winning creature, a framed painting of it, and a t-shirt with a drawing of it.
Virtual “potluck”! Have everyone make a short Bon Appetit-esque video of them cooking their signature disk and share around, then have everyone gather on a video chat to eat and converse about good food.
Poetry Prompt
When I was in creative writing, we did a fun activity that got our creative juices flowing before we officially started the day. My teacher would bring in a different poster that was either artistic or a location and we would all use this to brainstorm a batch of words we could pull from. Then, we would take a few moments to write a quick poem about the poster and share them with our classmates. I feel like this might be a good way to interact with colleagues, provide a little break for the mind and allow employees to express themselves in a different way. If someone didn’t like poetry, they could even draw or create a word chart – whatever made them feel best.
“If it’s any constellation to you…”
Everyone is given a constellation and must draw it to the best of their ability. The next step is if whoever is the closest and someone can guess the zodiac, is the star of the game. After that, there can be a treat of smores under the handmade stars.
Blindfolded typing test- you could have a team member blindfold themselves and have team members guide them through typing a sentence. Most of us have bits of a keyboard memorized, why not put it to the test?
Guess emoji board – Ask team members to name the emoji’s they use the most.
I love all of these activities! I think it would be a great idea to do a “Potluck BBQ” where everyone cooks something — like a virtual happy hour but with food. People get to share recipes, tell stories about any bad baking experiences (we’ve all had them lol), and bond over the love of food. Each person can have a different food category such as appetizers, entrees, desserts, etc.
Loving all of these ideas!
My suggestion is “Internet’s Got Talent.”
This would entail a talent show held on zoom in which employees would have a set amount of time to showcase their unique talent. It could be anything from singing to showing a painting that they’ve created! Not only would this allow for closer relationships between employees, but it would also be a nice creative release. The winner would be voted for anonymously by everyone in the zoom call, using an online survey.
I have done a virtual escape room experience before with my family. I had the story line and locks setup beforehand and texted random clues to my family members before the game started (for business, you can email it). Then during the story line, if a family member felt the clue they had would be helpful, they would show it on the screen and we would all work together to solve it! It was a lot of fun and allows for different themes!
Fascinating ideas. Mister Roger Calls is very cool and interesting. Another idea that might translate well is Back to Back Drawing. One person describes an image that the other team mates can not see. The other team mates then attempt to draw the image based on the description spoken to them. And everyone takes turns being the one describing an image. Its a fun way to highlight how we can better communicate ideas and understand one another.
These are so great. I think I would want to do tea vs coffee every week, just so I had the chance to try different drinks! I also think a great idea would be a combination of two well-known games – HORSE and scategories! How it can work would be one person starts out by doing a unique stance next to their computer or tablet – it could be a stretch or a yoga pose or even balancing something on your hand/ face. The point is for this pose to be a bit distracting. Then, a random letter, as well as categories, are generated. All players must do this pose and in 60 seconds, list an answer to each category where the word begins with the generated letter. All people who cannot hold the pose for 60 seconds get a letter (to spell HORSE) – you do not want a letter! Then, everyone goes through their answers. Any duplicated answers do not get points. You want points! Whoever spells HORSE first loses, and the rest of the players stop and count up their points. Each letter for HORSE they do not have adds an additional two points. (For example, Josh could do all of the poses, therefore he has no letters, he gets an additional 10 points in addition to his scategories points. Then, you have your winner after all points are calculated!
How about some sort of home scavenger hunt? Everyone has to find a requested object (e.g. paperclip) and hold it up onscreen to continue to the next round. The objects get more and more unique until the last person with all the requested objects wins. Example of the progression: Paperclip, bag of chips, baseball, ashtray, spork.)
What if we play “guessing what he said? 2 teams are made. Each team of 2 – 4 people. Team A: mutes their microphone from the platform they are using, sea zoom, equipment, etc. And they must think of a word that it is difficult to announce and demand to vocalize for team B having to guess what he said. A stopwatch with a time limit of 1 minute is placed. If he does not guess, switch roles. Team B must mute his microphone and do the same so that Team A guess what Team B said by lip reading on the screens.
A scavenger hunt where as a team you have to search for and share photos of certain items (a piece of street art, a unique looking car, statue, etc.) would be a fun project.
Awesome! My favorite would be 3 PM with Yoga Norman!!! I work from home, which can be isolating- so virtual team building is so important! I’m a writer in CO, my editor was in UT and her other writers were scattered throughout the US. To keep us connected, every Monday we’d start a virtual writer’s thread. Our editor would create the title and we’d each write a paragraph adding to the previous one. At the end of the week the work was so fun to read and share!
Sweatpants Dilemma, sounds like so much fun! Anything to make the workday easier is for me. I thought of another activity that might work as a remote team building exercise. Before the meeting starts, give a funny phrase that team members must remember without writing it down. Then throughout the meeting at random times, the leader of the meeting can ask random team members to repeat the unique word or phrase. This might help keep team members awake during the meeting and it also helps memory. One can even provide each team member with a unique word or phrase that they must blurt out at any requested time. This might make it even funnier. What do you guys think?
I love all of the ideas!
I’d think about doing something like a stand-up comic day where everyone takes 5 minutes to tell their favorite jokes while everyone has a great time laughing. This helps improve stage freight, being comfortable with your team members and having confidence in yourself.
-Victor
These are great ideas! I’d love to participate in a game where the entire team creates a poem or story together. I envision someone initiating with a random sentence or verse, then have the next person continue it, and so on until everyone has a turn. This would keep the team engaged and thinking on their toes, while also showing their creative and funny side. I think it’d be a great ice breaker!
Great ideas! I am applying for teambuilding.com, and my idea for a virtual team building exercise is building a dictionary together. Some fake words are made up and presented to the group. Everyone makes up a definition for it and votes for their favorite. Then they do the same with a synonym and a sentence using the word. This is repeated for all of the made up words. This builds team work and creativity while providing fun and friendly competition to boost moral.
I love how unique these ideas are! I’d also suggest a walking/running team building activity for the teams. Here’s how it would work:
1. A timeline would be set (probably between 4-6 weeks).
2. The team can be split into two larger teams, work as individuals, or work as one big team.
3. Choose a “starting” location anywhere in the world.
3. The idea would be for each person to keep track of how many steps he or she takes each day (this can be counted on many smart phones, watches or step counters). The objective would be to see how far across the world each individual or each team could walk within the designated timeline. For example, if roughly 10,000 steps is equal to 5 miles, how far could each team walk? From LA to New York? From New York to Madrid?
This activity would promote both exercise and fun, healthy competition for the team to bond over.
These are all wonderful and unique ideas!
A fun ice-breaker that I used to run for the kids in my program was called, “I like pancakes”. This game’s sole objective was to help the children learn the names of their peers. The indirect focus was to create a fun and light-hearted environment within the classroom. This activity can be used in any circumstance, physically or virtually, with all ages. (usually works if the adults don’t mind being a little goofy or silly)
This activity is best used when the participants are meeting for the first time. Basically, the facilitator will have all of the participants introduce themselves. After the introductions are complete, have a first/main participant close their eyes or turn around at their desk (typically this is the person who believes they know everyone’s names by heart). After that is done, depending on the type of meeting, choose a second participant within the group by either a raise of hands or through chat (Note: this selection portion has to be as silent as possible). Once you have the second participant ready, have them say, “I like pancakes” (or any phrase you choose) in the most unrecognizable way possible. So that means the second participant can use a deep-toned voice, high-pitched voice, or any possible vocal change to disguise their identity (the goofier the better). In the end, the first/main participant who has their eyes closed has to guess who they think the second participant is by just listening. You can give the guesser a limited number of tries before the revealing the identity of the second participant. At this point, you can adjust the game with as many participants in a single round as you want. I promise, it could be a game full of laughter and will definitely break the tension.
Typing speed race Increase your typing speed while racing against others Your typing speed will improve by at least 10 WPM if you play this free game at least once a week. Typing speed race is much more fun than just a free typing test. This will help you to enhance the basic typing skill and soon will be a big help when applying for a job.
What about Hosting a “Get to know your Co-worker” Hour? It could be a 60 minutes video call where each co-worker describes the fun and creative aspect of a project they recently succeeded at over the last 1 month.
For example, it could be someone teaching their dog potty training, writing a blog post that went viral, designing a great app, e.t.c. It’s all about showing talents and creativity.
I like the idea above about 3pm Yoga, but I also love the idea of a Zoom happy hour from the comments! 🙂
If I showed you how you could increase your memory by 3x in under 30 mins, would that interest you?
Let’s call this game the ‘Memory Power Play’.
Having a great memory is an important skill to have today.
So how it works is, first we give the team members a list of 50 random object names, like a chair, remote etc., and associate them with a specific number between 1-50.
The team would have 10 mins to memorize them. After 10 mins, we call out the number and they need to write down the object associated with it and vice versa.
Then test them for all 50 words/numbers, ask them to note down the score. An average person should get not more than 30% of the answers correct.
After the scores have been noted, we introduce the technique that will help them improve their previous score by almost 300% in under 30 minutes. (I kid you not!)
We then present them with a new list of random objects associated with numbers between 1-50.
Give them 10 minutes to memorize the same and then call out the numbers or objects as done earlier.
Have them note the scores.
Did they notice the difference? I’m sure they’ve seen their scores increase by a significant number.
I’ll be happy to further discuss the ‘Memory Power Play’. This should work for remote as well as non-remote teams.
All these games are awesome , but how about virtual “Family Feud” . Before hand you come up with questions to ask and what the answers would be and how much points they are worth. You break the group into teams and someone could also play Steve. Family Feud in general is a great game to play as a family so with your coworkers it could be even better. !
I love the virtual dance party and yoga ideas. There are so many options for different types of people and I think that is great!
What about a Virtual Happy Hour? People can gather together with drinks and food and just talk and get to know each other. Maybe have some prompts for suggested questions. And add themed trivia to that as well, ( the office themed, marvel, the 80’s, etc.)
I love the variety of virtual team building activities on this list! Virtual Time Capsule, 3PM Yoga, and Mister Roger Calls stuck out to me.
I have two suggestions for remote team building!
1) Friday Film Screenings
For Friday Film Screenings, a coworker is assigned every week to suggest a movie or documentary they love or are interested in. Then, time is set aside on Friday afternoons or evenings for the whole team to watch the movie or documentary together. The assigned coworker can then share why they chose the movie or documentary. To make things more interesting, the company can also suggest themes or topics for the week’s film.
2) Virtual Yearbook
This idea is based off of signing yearbooks. Every week, a new coworker is nominated, and the other team members write a short message about that coworker that mentions what they find unique about that person or shares a standout experience they’ve had with that person. At the end, all responses are collected and presented to that coworker. If the team has some shy members, you may also give the option to submit their message anonymously.
Anyways, great seeing all this creativity! The team building activities all look fun to try.
Teambuilding could be a place where no idea is bad and you don’t have to feel embarrassed by any ideas that you give out there.
There should be 1 phrase stories instead of 1 word so the stories can be more intricate/interesting.
Play a “dad joke” game. Every team member has to tell their best (or worst) dad jokes in order (i.e. the same person who tells the first joke is the same person who starts the second round of jokes). Rate each joke (not their own) from one to five, one being “gosh dad *eye roll*” and five being “LOL.” At the end of five jokes per person, total up every person’s tally. Who got the highest score? They’re the winner of Ultimate Dad Jokes.
The Alien Landing!
(My twist on 3 truths and 1 Lie)
An alien has landed on earth! (via team conference call)
-Each team member will have the chance to play the alien. You can choose your alien any which way you like (think of a number in your head, pick a color, anything!)
– The chosen “alien” will pick an individual to “abduct”
-The individual will then tell the aline 3 truths and 1 lie, if they alien figures out the lie he/she can stay in the game and will not be “abducted”.
-If the “alien” fails then that individual stays in and will avoid abduction!
I think this is a fun kinda game to get to know your team/co-workers while also having some fun!
Avoid the mid-day meltdown with activities such as meditation station and online comedy show resonate with me.
I thought about “meme o’clock”
What a team member finds funny on the web is a perfect way to understand their uniqueness. With a virtual staff, how about sharing favorite meme bringing comedy into the day. Staff can comment and add more memes to a platform. This is done in less than 30 minutes
A quick thought.
What about the Rapid Fire?
A person asks the question and the other team members answer it with the very first thing that comes in their mind.
OR
Share the work activity!
By the way, a great strategy to get traffic to your website and gets them engaging and also get new ideas out of people.
Studies show that groups who perform an action in unison have an easier time empathizing with each other and are more generous when working together. This is perfect for building a collaborative environment.
So rather than a spontaneous dance party, this would be a Synchronized Remote Dance. One instructor (or a YouTube instructional video) shows the steps, and the team sets a goal of everyone getting to a certain milestone by the end of the exercise (say, the first 10 steps). Do this once during the mid-afternoon energy slump to get everyone’s blood pumping again, and build a stronger sense of community within your remote team.
Virtual charades (who’s the Captain)
Everyone is on a virtual meeting, At random someone is chosen to be captain (which is unbeknownst), The captain now has the power to private message a contestant to act out in a charade. Whoever gets it right first within the 30 seconds becomes the new captain and the games begins again with a new captain and contestant every 30 seconds.
I love the virtual campfire idea! Such a fun, sweet way to get together with coworkers. Chocolate and graham crackers? I’m in!
Personally, I’m competitive. I’d like to add minute-to-win-it games! Similarly to sending a s’more kit, send a kit with an easy minute-to-win-it game such as “Pass the m&m”. Each person has five m&ms in their kit along with a straw. Everyone is split into teams and you move quickly to move the m&m from one side to the other before the next person can go!
I would love to do a virtual Pictionary competition with a future work team. A team could even use the computer itself rather than drawing with a pen on paper, they could try using the application Paint!
The company would break apart into teams and play against one another, swapping teams halfway through to ensure everyone gets to know each other a little better.
Pictionary would create an atmosphere that is fun and playful but also requires a lot of listening and clear communication.
These are so awesome and innovative! I really love the idea of an internal company blog.
I think it would be super fun to play a game with Zoom and their option to have fun backgrounds! In one version, there could be a contest to see who has the funniest background. Before anyone has their camera turned on for others to see, people can have their backgrounds set up. Then someone can instruct everyone to turn their cameras on at the same time to reveal everyone’s choice. This can be followed with a quick explanation by each person, if need be. But in the funniest cases, the backgrounds will speak for themselves!
This can also be adapted to work if you’re looking for a more vulnerable activity as well. People can select backgrounds that represent a “happy place” for them and choose to share a short explanation as to why this background feels special to them. It can really help humanize things when people may not always agree with their coworkers at face value.
One Has to Go. You show everyone a series of pictures for any topic (foods, tv shows, etc.) and everyone has to pick which one they would have to live the rest of their life without if they had to. I think you could have a lot of fun conversations about whether you’d give up Harry Potter of the Hunger Games.
I’ve always liked writing stories or songs together during teambuilding. My own twist on that would be to write a skit with teammates and then act it out together. Their could be a list of scenarios that are starting points, or objects that must be included or mentioned. Seeing how much everyone is able to come out of their shell and bridge the virtual gap by actively acting together would foster community and empathy.
A remote team building activity that could prove useful would be a scavenger hunt that deals with skills and competency of the team members. The team leader/Manager will develop a list of skills and competencies that relate to the different positions within the team. Each member will have to guess what position it is listed for and describe why they believe it so. I believe this would open up communications, develop trust and help your team get to know each other.
These are great ideas! Kudos to commenters as well – some of those ideas sound like things I want to do!
I think it could be cool to use the Breakout rooms feature of Zoom to create teams, and to have each team create a story, then narrate it using household items as props. The household items would have to come from a predetermined list of things that are allowable, and there could be limits on how many of any one item were allowed – so, only 6 toilet paper tubes total, only 1 square foot of foil total, etc. When done, each team would present their skit to the entire group, with the goal being to not only tell a story that is engaging and interesting, using the props to support the story – but also to try to use some of the idiosyncrasies of online meeting platforms as an element!
I think one team building activity we can do with remote teams can be online games where you have to split into teams, this will help each other build stronger relationships with each other since teamwork is needed to win. This will also help strengthen the bonds we have with each other to help us work together more efficiently as a team in the long run.
Putting a twist on the bake-off idea, require players to come up with their best dish but limit them to three to four ingredients. For example, each player can only use flour, eggs, butter, and sugar and has to come up with the most creative dish only using those ingredients. A fun way to get everyone to think outside of the box!
Virtual game of Family Feud or create a color wheel with objects found around your home or office!
I think a great exercise would be Odd Couples. The group each confidentially given one name out of a pair (ex. Pepper) that they cannot see. There are enough pairs to have everyone in the group find their matching couple (ex. Pepper and Salt). Then the group must ask each other yes or no questions to determine a) what they are and b) where their partner is. Once they’ve found their partner, they win!
My favorite group bonding experience to do remotely is Wikipedia Deep Dive! You all start with a random article and try to make it back to a certain article, or you just spend time reading interesting fun facts to one another!
I love all the ideas in Teambuilding.com and as well as all the ideas on the comments. I personally like the Virtual Dance Party that should be fun and interesting in a conference call. You know another idea to get though our crazy day is a break video call with everyone and play the game UNO while drinking our virgin cocktails and eating some chips with guacamole or salsa sauce. Pretending we are all next to each other having a good time, de-stressing from a long day at work.
A great virtual team building activity is Lip Sync Battle Team Building edition. Split into two to three teams and battle it out but there is a twist. Each team don’t pick their songs, one of the other teams pick the song and watch your team work together to put on the performance of your life. At the end of each performance the other teams rate how moved they were. The team with the most points win!
Rap Battle Royale
This is a tournament based game to see who will becoming the next Rap Battle Champion!
1. Each person will be pair with someone who they will go against.
2. Everyone need to come up with a thirty second rap that will beat their opponent.
—The trick is that the host will give everyone a word that they all have to use in their raps.
3. Once everyone is finished writing their raps, they will go against the person they were paired up against.
4. The rest of the group will vote to see who’s rap is the best.
5. All steps will repeat until their is a Rap Battle Champoin!
Team Building Activity
Read my lips…..
1st Team Member (Team Leader) says a sentence with no voice (read my lips) and each team member one after the other have to read lips and pass on to the other until it gets back to 1st member. Which ever team members gets it correct becomes next Team Leader
Create a story where one person write a paragraph and the next person continues where the previous person left off but add their own unique twists to it, and it continues like that until everyone has added a paragraph.
I like the idea of debating with the news. I think it can help people to learn to think on their feet.
So many great ideas! I personally love Personality Tests because it really helps you understand people on a deeper level and really gets people talking. Also, Duolingo Dash, because it’s so fun and can be very competitive.
I like the idea of everyone choosing a character that’s relevant in current pop culture and team members have to guess who you are. It’s a fun way to be creative and also initiates discussion about what’s going on in the world. Some examples you could see today might be Joe Exotic from Tiger King, or Anthony Fauci. OR the idea could be a costume contest in which the group must decide on one character and everyone has to vote on “who wore it best.”
Additionally, you could have a game that is kind of a combination of telephone and pictionary. The group must create a list of each team member in which the game will go in order. The first player writes down a word or phrase and sends it directly to player 2. Player 2 then has to draw the word/phrase that was chosen and sends directly to player 3. Player 3 then has to guess what the picture is depicting and writes down in words what they think it is. This alternates down the line until the last player reveals the final result. This is a fun way to get people thinking creatively and understanding our thought processes.
Here’s a game that might be an interesting mix-up for a virtual happy hour. Each person comes to the happy hour with several quotes. They also have five different attributes for each of those quotes. With the goal of stumping their fellow team makes, each person takes a turn asking “Who Said That?” Players write down their answers on a piece of paper and hold them up to the screen to share. The players with the most right answers after two rounds receive a digital prize (for example a download from Audible).
Love all these ideas! My favorite is the Sweatpants Dilemma! It’s fun to get everyone involved and have a good laugh. It’s a great way to add humor and learn personalities throughout our teammates!
Love all of these! I think my favorite would be “One Word to Rule Them All.” I’m sure that has nothing to do with my love of the Lord of the Rings either.
Here’s another example of a team building activity you can do with remote teams:
“Phunny Phrases”:
1. Pick six words or short phrases that are uncommon or even downright ridiculous (e.g. “fuddy-duddy). These six words/phrases can be randomly generated by yourself online or given to you by someone else.
2. Pick six different conversation topics (camping, boxing, movies, etc.).
3. Have a partner you go up against via a conference call or the like (who has their own six words and/or phrases).
4. Pick one of the six conversation topics, and start a conversation between you and the person you are going against. You have 60 seconds to discuss this topic before the next one begins.
5. Try to slip in your crazy word or phrase casually without it being noticed by your partner!
You have 60 seconds to slip your word or phrase in on one topic: if you don’t succeed, then you lose your chance to use that word or phrase. In short, one word/phrase per conversation.
If you successfully slip your word/phrase past your partner, you get a point! If they catch you, they get a point. Whoever has the most points at the end of the six conversations is declared the victor!
Person Songs!
Everyone creates a playlist of music with each song either describing or being a symbol of someone on the team. Then come together as a group to share the music and try to guess which song correlates to each person.
Telephone – I used to play this game all the time as kid. It’s silly, and will improve communication skills. You start with a random phrase, I.E. “Billy Joe made sourdough bread on Sunday, he used whole lemons! Can you believe that?” And you have to whisper the phrase in your neighbor’s ear. Once they receive the message, they have to whisper it in their neighbors ear. One by one, everyone will hear the message. With each person passing it on, the phrase has a chance to be misinterpreted. The last person to receive the message will say what they heard out loud, then the person who started it will then say what the actual phrase is.
Sweet Treats – The kitchen is a happy place for many, and if nothing else can be a good laugh when we have to help those less skilled.
Creating something with your team is a great way to come together, and since we are all apart we can enjoy the same snack after the treats are done.
Packages with ingredients will be provided to each team member. It will be something simple yet fun.
Dundee Awards
Each week have a different member of the team praise another member and make him/her a Dundee award representing something special about the team member. Encourage team members to be creative in their praises and trophy making for one another.
Remember Me?
If you need your team introduced to each other, or you just want a fun way to connect your team, this exercise is for you. You’ll have a virtual zoom/webex meeting where you’ll have team breakouts into groups of two. The objective is to learn as much about the other person as you can within 5 minutes. You will talk to your partner non stop for the whole 5 minutes, telling them about yourself. The other person is not permitted to ask any questions nor take any notes (honor system). After the 5 minutes is up, you switch and repeat. Once 10 minutes has passed you all get back together and take turns telling the group as much as you remember about your partner, with the other person affirming if they remembered it right. Each thing they remember that is correct is a point, the team with the most points wins! This is a simple yet fun way for your team to connect with their peers on a personal level, and have them all learn a little more about each other.
Virtual Scavenger Hunt – Have team members search for objects that are either a ‘rainbow color theme’ or start with a certain letter ‘alphabet hunt’. The person with the funniest item wins!
Picture perfect add the team take a picture of something that means a lot to them. Then each team member will post that picture and have an opportunity to discuss wide support for that period it’s a great way of getting to know everybody.
Two truths one lie- this is not only a great way to have fun and you’ll also learn more about each other to know each other better. It’s a fun and interesting game to play that I would recommend playing to anyone even just for fun! It’ll help you get to know everyone better as well!
Guess that voice!
Each person records a snippet of them talking and then they play at random and each team member will guess which voice matches up to each person.
Guess the Sketch – One team member will draw anything they want and then provide describing details as to what or who it is. The person who guesses the most right wins, but the twist is that the winner must praise one coworker on one thing they’ve noticed or appreciated them for either during the game or relating to work. This does two things with the first obviously being that this activity allows them to be creative and provides a break from typing/working as well as providing an opportunity to praise our colleagues creating a better sense of reorganization and appreciation.
A great team building game would be “I’m going on a vacation”. In this game The first person starts by saying “I’m going on a vacation and the first thing I’m packing is an apple”. The second person goes on to say “I am going on a vacation and I am going to pack an apple and a bathing suit.” And then the third person add something with the next letter of the alphabet and so on. It’s a great memory exercise and also makes for some really funny moments once you get further into the alphabet and the list gets longer and longer!
Lip Sync Battle! Pick a song to lip sync to, props and costumes are encouraged. Everyone give a score for song choice, costume, and performance. The top scoring participants win fun prizes.
Sure, Alphabet Chain exists, but what about Alphabet Race?! This is a good one to get the brains working fast! Pick a random letter, and using singular nouns, and present tense verbs only, write down as many words as you can that start with that letter. For example, if the group picks A, everyone writes “A-words” for a specified amount of time ( a minute or so).
This game is also super fun because it’s so customizable, you’ll never get bored using the alphabet!
“If you were to write a book today, what would the title be?” Have everyone try to come up with a new title every day and write everyone’s answers down for a week. At the end, vote for the most funny title, best mystery book title, best romance title, etc. and give awards!
A great team building activity could be creating a virtual art show where team members paint or draw a copy of a chosen image. Team members could be chosen as “judges” and rank the artwork 1st, 2nd or third where prizes etc are won! In this virtual art show you can make it fun by doing a theme based on a decade and come dressed to impress! Judges could make props at home such as hats, mustache, backgrounds, a picket number sign to show score etc!
Week Night Cook-Off!
At the beginning of the week post a fun themed recipe with ingredients list (i.e. superhero cupcakes). Each member has the week to try to make the most creative treat. On Friday everyone must submit a picture of their work to be voted on. The winner gets a prize!
Some sort of variation of the alphabet game, where one person say a name/planet/word and the next person has to say another that starts with the last letter of the first word. or, maybe a improv style skit maker where everyone takes turn adding random pieces to create a skit/story/show/etc.
Ultimate Cook/Bake Off – Have team members split into small groups and choose a recipe that will really impress everyone else in the workplace. This can feature different themes or genres of food that would take place in a kitchen somewhere. You can set a time limit to bake and serve (emulating iron chef america). This builds team trust and communication. At the end of the race everyone gets to try each others creations and vote for the winner. Prizes can also be given out!
Virtual Bake off – Everyone is sent a recipe to create a one of a kind masterpiece that can be done in their own kitchen! This is similar to a “Cake Boss” format where there is a theme and common goal. Each team member would create their own cake or creation and present via zoom call. All team members can vote on who created the best creation! Prizes can be given out for fun accolades as well.
Draw something and let others guess.
The first guy that gets the answer right can be the next guy that does the drawing.
Spirit Week! As a team building exercise within a training you assign a spirit week theme to the call. Each person dresses up to reflect the theme and turns on video. Another variation is you call out a color and each person has 10 minutes to grab whatever they have at home that they can wear in that color group.
Themes of the Alphabet
Someone chooses a theme of any kind, such as animals, places, foods, movies, etc…. The one who chose the theme starts at the letter A, they chose an animal that starts with the letter A, then next person chooses an animal that starts with the letter B. And so on, until someone can not think of an animal for their letter. Each player gets 20 seconds of time to say their animal. Those who cannot think of the animal for the letter they fell on is OUT. The last one standing wins. Bonus round: In case their are multiple players who succeeded through the alphabet, the remaining players then choose a bonus round theme. In this round, the first player who can get the most answers to the theme going through the alphabet wins. For instance, animals is bonus round then each player must come up with animals starting from A and ending to Z. Of course Animals can not be played in the bonus round if that was the theme in the beginning. So new theme and come up with as many answers. Whoever has the answers further down the alphabet wins.
What is that?
Before the call find an object around you that you enjoy or that is very difficult to recognize.
Try to guess what the item your coworker is holding while your coworker vaguely describes it and is tapping it. What does the item feel like? Does it have a smell or taste?
Everyone is allowed limited guesses based on class size. If nobody guesses your item you receive 2 points and if you guess your coworker’s item you receive 1 point. The person with the most points wins. This game helps everyone communicate more by asking questions and describing an interesting object.
a fun team building game would be to guess the gibberish.
you would create a random sentence that when said together would sound and reveal a random word.
ex. i plus side her vin tigger
word = apple cider vinegar.
people would take turns saying the gibberish and the team would have to guess the word that is actually behind the riddle.
How good are you at following directions?
One person from the team would draw a piece of paper with an person, place, or thing on it. They would have to describe how to draw it without saying key words.
That person would have to give directions to all people on the team on their designated turn to add to the drawing. This demonstrates communication and instructional skill.
Similar to “What do you meme?”
Have team members take a screen shot of themselves during a zoom meeting with a chosen facial expression and send it in. Post the photos and allow them to choose from pre-made descriptions for each photo. Let them discuss and then vote on their favorite combinations.
Jumble Mumble
For this game, there has to be one or two moderators. They will come up with a bunch of words, assign these words to each participant, and send it to them privately. The purpose of the game is for the participant to jumble up the word, type it or say it, and hope that at least one person can decipher what word it is. For every revealed word, the jumbler gets 3 points. If no one is able to decipher the word, 2 points will be deducted. The person with the highest score wins.
Kind Words –
Each person will say one set of kind words about the next person based on their daily interaction with them. Giving them the ability to say things they may not have otherwise been able to say to them. It gives the team the ability to really have a moment of reflection and kindness that may have otherwise been missing/lacking from the other persons day.
One Word
At the beginning of the meeting ask everyone to pick one word to describe themselves. After they pick, they are referred to by that word throughout the meeting. It’s a silly way to start a meeting and helps everyone get to know each other a little better.
Travel Bug!
Who is not intrigued by travel? Studies have shown just planning or anticipating your trip can make you happier than actually taking it!
Have each team member pick a place they have traveled or would like to travel to, domestic or abroad. The team mate begins to describe his perfect day in that travel spot (what he might eat, what he might see, weather, etc) and first person to guess wins. Guesses might be via chat.
This will give team mates perspective of what kind of things appeal to their team mates. Music, food, culture, city, nature, etc. And they can covey their real life personality through their travel choices & descriptions.
Desert Island is a classic! In this version people are broken up into teams with a preset list of items/tools and deliberate until they choose only three to bring with them. They will then share with the other teams which items they chose and why. This game gives insight to their coworkers of how they think and tackle problems.
Team lip sync battles- list of songs will be provided as well as various props and costumes. Workers will split into small groups and perform in front of a small audience. The winning team will be decided based on a noise barometer from the crowd cheering. Workers will be out of their comfort zone together, so they will not only bond through that, but through the process of planning and executing the lip sync. Winning team will be awarded a prize!
Spontaneous Chain Narration, in this game, a player is picked at random to describe a situation from his/her daily life, and then the other players in clockwise/counter-clockwise order will use improvisation to continue the storytelling, it goes on until everyone runs out of response or there’s a response that makes more than half the participants respond in unison (laugh, surprise, etc), the one who makes that response wins, and the next game begins with another player being picked at random. I think the freeflow creativity involved here will attract those who are stuck with boredom and are in need of random unrestrained expression.
Push-up Challenge
For those of us who are stuck at home during the pandemic, and don’t have access to their gyms. A fun virtual team building event can be a ‘wall-squat challenge’. Members of the team can lean against a wall and bend their legs at a 90 degree angle (typical squat form). They need to hold that position for as long as they can. The one who can hold that position for the longest time is the winner. It’s a great way to strengthen your glutes and quads.
I would prefer to do the 100 push up challenge. Sounds fun and a great way to build your stamina and endurance.
The aliens have landed
This game can be useful for teams with language and cultural differences. Tell the group to imagine aliens have landed on Earth and want to learn about your company. But since they don’t speak English or understand what you do, it needs to be explained with five symbols or pictures.
Ask each participant to draw five simple images that best describe and communicate your company’s products and culture to a shared document/folder. Take a few minutes and look at all the images and talk through common themes.
As the pandemic is going on, we can organize Aerobic Classes which helps everyone to be physically fit and mentally relaxed. And in this way all team members come together for this class and the opportunity can be given to everyone to perform and lead as a coach doing Aerobics. In this way, self confidence of the individuals, team building and overall health will be improved.
As we are still at home during the pandemic, an interesting challenge would be to connect different people from all over the world and learn languages. There are a lot of people now struggling to learn languages from home. Imagine someone trying to learn Spanish, so they join the Spanish Language Club each weak and start discussing some topics to understand the language better. Internally, they can also have challenges such as “My first Spanish book” or “I practised 10 hours of Spanish this week!”. It’s easier to achieve your goals with a team, so it will be a great chance for a lot of people!
I would like to experience something like a singing or dancing challenge.
Both things are real stress relievers and it would be fun 😀
Co-worker madlibs! Great game to play with your team. Have everyone submit a crazy story involving people you work with, office jokes, or the normal day to day processing. After that take out some main nouns, verbs, etc, you know the drill. Then exchange with other co-workers and enjoy. Can do different themes around birthdays, the holidays, etc. 🙂
Two Truths and One Lie– a perfect way for teams to connect with each other. The personal quiz helps each player get to know their teammates better. The best part of the activity is that even though there is one winner and one loser, everyone will have gotten to know some real facts about one another!
What wonderful Ideas. I think that a great virtual game that could be played is called, “Destination”. This is where you split into different groups of people and your groups picks a place that they would like to visit. They then have 2 minutes to google as much information as they can about this place. They then meet up and quiz the other teams on their location. The team with the most correct answer wins the round.
Ice Breaker!
Fill up beach ball with air and write questions on each section i.e. where you are from, what you used to do for work, first car etc. etc. make everybody sit in a circle and bounce it to anybody and if they already went they bounce to somebody else until everybody answers!
Fun, fast, and easy!
Studies have proved having physical activity leads to a healthy mind. To boost the energy of the individuals sitting at home an idea situation would be to do a dance move trend before starting work. Every day a new move would be exciting and will really result in a better productivity. Drawback is significant enthusiasm is required so the one introducing it has to be energized in the first place.
I would choose “Go to Bed Early Challenge” and wake up at 4 or 5 am, it´s the best way to achieve all the goals.
What comes to your mind?
This is a game where you same a word, place, or thing and the next person says what comes to their mind relating that word. Kangaroo-Australia-great barrier reef- shark- chomping… etc What can start as just someone saying one thing and break away and have some very hilarious results! It’s a great way to get peoples minds working and break the tension of a meeting!
Wear your favorite T-Shirt
Everyone wears their favorite t-shirt for this team-building exercise. All the members go around and tell what their t-shirt is, where they got it and why it is their favorite t-shirt. Included in this time is connecting how this particular t-shirt best expresses your individuality, personality, your true identity 😉 and the type of person you are!
Da Vinci Code
this is a game that not only inspires thought, it takes a team to crack the riddle. sharp minds are drawn to a challenge, the tougher the better. This can be done either by teams or individuals. The works by sending out criptic riddles, codes, logic, moral, or impratical thinking problems. The idea is to get your team members talking to each other, sharing ideas, reseaching hints, This is a game you can play with your friends family coworkers, give deadlines and rewards yet,
Who’s
So the game is called Who’s. So there is no winner or loser in this game. The objective is to ask “Who’s” favorite food is chicken – “Who’s” into movies more than TV – and so on and so on and if you do relate to the other persons “Who’s” you raise your hand. You continue asking different “Who’s” (around the circle or from person to person) typically until there is a sense of commonality in the group and people feel comfortable with one another. The game will typically end on its own as peoples “Who’s” began to repeat and people at that point want to talk to each other about the commonalities they have noticed between each other because of their “Who’s”.
I hope you enjoy this concept as it was fun to come up with!
Virtual Spelling Bee
Team members take turns attempting to spell words obtained from a random word generator. Each correctly spelled word results in one points for the team member. The first person to get five points wins!
Virtual Spelling Bee is a fun way to test your teams spelling knowledge in a fun and judgement-free environment
Such great ideas to keep a team united and committed to working together!
Another fun idea that could be helpful especially when new teams are coming together, re-orgs or just to get to know each other better. Each team member would submit a series of pictures with no identifying images that describe who they are, what their personal and professional interests are, etc. The team will go through each profile and try to guess what profile goes with which person! Team members will submit their guesses and then everything will be exposed on a joint team call. The team will look at each profile, discuss their guesses and why and then when it’s revealed who it really is that person can explain why they chose those images and tell something interesting about themselves. Whoever get’s the most correct wins 🙂
Solving Problems
Team leader writes down multiple unanswered problems(whether it be an actual problem in the workplace or imaginary) on the back of multiple pieces of paper. Have the teams map out solutions to these problems, the best solution wins!
A great virtual game for team building is playing mad libs. This is an easy game to play virtually and will sure to have everyone laughing by the end. One person write out a story with blanks for their co workers to fill in by using nouns,verbs,adjectives, etc. Team members will have fun coming up with words to fill in the blanks and build as a team!
What’s in your office….
Have each person pick an item from their office. Draw names from a hat and assign each person a co-worker’s name. Each person must then use the object presented by the co-worker drawn and create a logo, marketing plan, slogan and whatever other product details thought of to promote the product. Each person must then give a 5-minute presentation on their new product and sell it to the rest of the group.
After each presentation have the group discuss the most successful presentations and the least successful presentations and why.
Silent Build
Break virtual team into groups of four. Three are selected as the teachers and one person is selected as the builder. The teachers then have 5 minutes to give the builder non-verbal steps and instructions on how to build the object from a piece of paper and tape. At the end of 5 minutes each team shows their final object and one is chosen as the winner.
The exercise forces teams to work together and really pay attention to non-verbal cues.
I will go with the “Go to Bed Early Challenge” because it has many benefits for a healthy brain, if you brain is healthy it means you have a power to think about your challenges a health brain can think about the solutions. If we go early to bed and get up early in the morning with a fresh brain so its a best time to work without any noise pollution as well.
Music Memories
Do you remember a specific time in your life when you hear a song from your past? This game has one team member picking a song from a selection of different genres and then asks other team members to share a memory that comes to mind! A fun way to learn about each team member while sharing your own experience. The past can be a blast!
Time Management Challenge
Create an agenda that will help you get all of the things you need to get done for the day completed. This will help you generate more down time so you can relax during these hard times.
One idea that I do a lot is drawing with my eyes closed. There’s no way of keeping score but the competitors will have a time limit to draw a specified object with their eyes closed and then everyone has to share their results!
Company commercials. Each team shoots a thirty second commercial for the company. Every team member gets a role or works as director. Must include one team building activity in some way. Winners commercial featured on the company website!
Virtual People BINGO!
It’s easy, fun and a great way to get to know your friends and/or co-workers!
You can easily make the BINGO cards online ahead of time and there are BINGO card generators online.
The object of the game is to individually call your friends or co-workers via video call and chat for approx 1 minute out who admits to a characteristic on the card. You cannot use the same person for multiple characteristics and you must call everyone on the team. The first person to complete a row across, down or diagonally and calls B-I-N-G-O in the group chat wins!
Some examples of characteristics for each square include:
-Rides a motorcycle
-Plays the guitar
-Speaks another language
-Is a vegetarian
-Favourite colour is Yellow
-Has children
– Doesn’t drink coffee
– Has lived abroad
– Is allergic to shrimp
-Has lived on a farm
It would be great to have prizes and maybe even play a few rounds to keep the energy going!
Have Fun!
I would suggest a “gratitude challenge”, where virtual team members write down one thing they’re grateful for on a piece of paper (bonus points for funny drawlings) and then show it to their team on a virtual call or as a photo, maybe their profile photo… however the team thinks it would work best.
Gratitude exercises wouldn’t be stressful for team member to do, and could promote both the individual and group’s mental well-being.
**Build your Empire**
Best for small to medium size group as remembering items or things is required.
Pick a category….such as places, things, animals…
Each person emails or instant messages their choice from the category chosen. Ex. If animals are the category, I would IM the game administrator my choice of “Monkey”
Once everyone has submitted their response the administrator will read everyones submissions out loud two times, while keeping who said what anonymous. Only read them twice and do not have players write them down.
Players then take turns, one guess per turn, trying to guess who chose which item/thing/animal.
If a player guesses another player correctly then those two player work together (over email or IM) to guess other players…..the more you guess correctly, the bigger your “Empire”. If someone who has built an empire gets guessed correctly than them and their whole empire work with the team that has got it correct.
The winner is the last person who has not been guessed and has all their coworkers in their Empire.
This game is great for teamwork, communication and memory.
Virtual Draw-Off!
In addition to joining a video chat, everyone needs a piece of paper and something to write/draw with. The host, whose artwork is hidden, will give directions for how to draw what they are drawing (put a small circle in the top right corner, etc.) and participants will follow along trying to draw the same picture. Everyone keeps their artwork hidden! At the end, or when the host is proud of their masterpiece, everyone will hold their picture up to their camera! This can be customized based on who is participating, the hosts’ sense of humor, ages, artistic abilities, etc.!
Virtual office jeopardy
You can have topics all related to the company and then include headings such who is this co-worker and include a fact that everyone knows about that particular person. Splitting the company into teams and mixing all the departments together will make things fun and competitive.
Bring Your Pet to Work
One of the nice things about working from home is being able to hang out with your pet(s), and what pet owner doesn’t like to show of his or her pet?
At the beginning of your next virtual meeting, let each participant show off their little darlings – by holding them up to the camera, or displaying a photo – and tell the team a few tidbits of information (adoption stories, how the got their names, favorite foods, toys, etc.).
Those who don’t have pets can use their imagination and show an image of what their pet would be… and why. For example, they could show a picture of a parrot, because in another life they were a pirate. Or a rabbit because they’re vegetarian. Or a dinosaur because, well you get the idea.
Scattegories is a great game that my friends and I have found during quarantine. Its easy you can use a game card or each person comes up with a line item and then you pick a random letter!
Another great team challenge could be a “cook off” of sorts. Everyone can cook the same or different recipes live. Each participant could have a 30-sec Food Network style bit to showcase their meal and why they should win. Points could be given for appearance, ease of recipe, and the elevator pitch, etc.
Mystery Box. Each team member is given another team members name.
Everyone has a chosen number of days to put together a goody box that represents his or her assigned team member.
This could include “goodies”, knickknacks, key words or just images. The team could set the rules.
Each team member would choose a box to open. They must then decide who that box was supposed to go to.
A great way get to know each other and to see how your team members “see” you.
Virtual Pictionary using only Gifs without words. You can use as many Gifs as it takes but cannot use any Gifs that contain words.
A great game is Continue the story: one person is the writer. One person starts the story with a sentence. The next person says a second sentence, and it keeps going until you have a full story. It’s a great way to to take a peek into each other’s heads and come up with an amazing Story to tell to others as an example for this as a team building exercise. I played this a lot.
Or “This or That”. Compose 2 list of similar but different brand names. Each person chooses an item and then discuss and determine which one is truly better. Not the normal things either. Things like “garlic or onion” or “being able to fly or the power of invisibility”.
Get to know your teammates by playing Never have I ever but not the explicit version;)
Basically, you create a list of potential statement and every person starts with for example 10 points and one point is taken away for every activity they have done! Last man standing wins!
The movie game –
This is great for movie buffs. The person starting the game names an actor or actress. The next person has to name a movie that actor or actress is in. The next person has to name another actor or actress from that movie and so on. Every time someone gets stumped, the person who stumped them gets a point, or the stumped individual is eliminated. There’s some rules though! If someone names a movie but can’t name another actor or actress from that movie, they don’t get the point or they are eliminated.
Last to First – This is so fun with large groups. Any category can be used. Movies is always a fun topic. The first person names any movie, the next person must name a movie that starts with the last letter of the previous movie, and so on. Here’s an example: Empire Strikes Back, K-Pax, X-Men, Night at the Roxbury… It usually goes pretty fast for a while, but then someone gets stumped. This game really brings out the competition in teams and you learn a lot about each individually based on their answers.
The One Thing Challenge.
The focus of this instead of trying to do multiple tasks that appear daunting for your personal development by focusing on one. Clarity and the “zone” as Olympic Athletes put it, comes from learning to zone in on that one thing and being intentional to all the nuances of how it’ll play out. You have 24 hours to complete it or you will have to do two singular tasks more on separate days of the choice. This should compound the longer you procrastinate. The reward is the sooner you knock out, the easier it actually is on yourself.
TikTok Dance Challenge
Teams will select a dance challenge currently trending on TikTok, and then have 24 hours to record their dance and present it to the team! At the end, the video is edited into one TikTok that the office gets to keep to save the memory and build on the team’s foundation.
Let’s face it, folks are probably having a cocktail these days as it is. It’s always a fun time to relax during happy hour with your colleagues and coworkers. Why not turn this into an opportunity to bond as well, and even learn more about one another?
How about having a not-so-classic “show and tell” during your next video chat!
Each person has to find something in their home to show the group and talk about, but, with a twist. It has to be something that you think NO ONE has in their home at all. If no one else has the same object as you, whatever your object is, you get a point! First person to ten points gets to say a toast for the group.
You get to learn more about people without even realizing it. And if you don’t want an adult beverage, tea or even ice cream sounds like a pretty good substitute!
Virtual flexibility challenge. Being at home, especially during these quarantine times leads to a lot of us not being as physically active as we normally would. The flexibility challenge provide a certain stretch to complete. It is not based off of how far you can touch your toes, or split, but the effort you put into attempting a particular yoga position/stretch.
I would go with “Go to Bed Early Challenge”: Too little sleep tends to leave people feeling short-tempered, irritable, and stressed. Which means that little things that might not normally be a big deal can cause you to fly off the handle. The result? More spats and misunderstandings with those around you.
Recipes are a great way to bring the conversation away from the office, but learn about each other and maybe even learn something new! Encourage team members to collaborate on a shared document to create a team recipe book. Each participant can simply submit their favorite recipe for teammates to try at home on their own.
Mile Marker Challenge
Hold a small contest to see which coworker can rack up the most steps/distance walked within a week or month period. A little incentive to help remind each other not to neglect their physical well being.
In order to reduce screen time, we can let the team members set a reminder or notifications to turn your screen off for 3 minutes with an interval of 1 hour. And we will ask to feed us with the total number of reminders that were honored and total that were not honored. Then the data will be compared and the top 3 performers will be awarded with a small gift.
Working remotely can mean you’re stuck inside quite a lot. I would suggest a month-long Get Outside Challenge to encourage everyone to get some fresh air. Rain or shine, the bottom line of the challenge would be to go outside at least once a day. Whether it’s taking out the trash, letting your dog stretch his legs, or simply sitting on your front porch (people still do that, right?), it’s the effort that counts. Snapping a photo of yourself in the wild outdoors and then sharing with your team wins you a point.
I recently did a scavenger hunt with my team, and everyone loved it! One person was the moderator and provided a set amount of time to find the items on the provided list. Some of them were obvious (like a spoon) and some were more obscure (like a sock with a hole in it). It got us laughing, plus it gave us some exercise running around the house!
One good way to bring smiles and laughs to co-workers would be an interactive MTV Cribs Remote Work Edition. For happy hour each can do a skit presenting there work area in a funny/interesting way. It would be offer insight into a co-worker’s personality and could very well break the ice into different activities. Plus, who doesn’t want to show off that cool samurai blade no one gets to see… EVER.
Zoom has become the new hotspot for virtual meetings. One fun way to keep everyone involved is to start a silliest virtual background challenge. Prior to the start of the meeting, participants would upload a silly photo to use as a virtual background! From terrible prom pictures, kids with who took coloring to the next level or your dogs newest nap position – starting the meeting with a little laughter is a great way to release some endorphins and build a stronger connection with your team.
All of these sound like fun! For most of us these times could be stressfull. I think something relaxing, fun and competitive could be playing with playdough! Yes! I know it could sound childish, but being a child at times can release some stress. Have a competition of who could make the best art piece with playdough in half an hour or more. It is calming and relaxing to play with playdough, is like a stress ball! The team can vote for the winner and there could be a price or bonus. There could also be the Silly face challenge, Finding things around the house that start with a specific letter in 20 seconds… and things that keep people up and relaxed ready to work.
A great team building exercise that I would do would be to have each member of the team piggy back off of each other. I would start off the exercise by naming one way to make the company stronger and have each team member give an answer based off of what the previous team member said. This gives me an idea of what the team members are thinking and it also gives us ideas as to how we can help make the company successful
These all sound so fun! One of my favorite games to play out in the real world that would translate great to a virtual team building activity is “Celebrity”. Celebrity is sort of an amped up version of charades and is great because it is easily customizable to fit your group needs. This is a version of the game I have tweaked around a little bit making it perfect to use under the constraints of zoom.
Here’s how you play:
Before playing, have each player contributes three items to a charades list. These items are sent to the game facilitator who will be private messaging the items one at a time to the person who’s turn it is during gameplay. These can be anything, people places or things. Additionally, if you want to make the game more applicable to work, you could have each item added to the list be something work related such as a product you are selling. Next, divide the group up in to 2 teams Now the game is ready to be played over zoom. Each round, one person from a group will play charades with a 1 minute time limit. This alternates between people and groups until the list is completed.
Round 1: Normal Charades
On a group video chat each person gets a minute to get their team to guess as many items from the list as possible. When it is a persons turn, the game facilitator will message each item from the list one at a time in a random order to the person playing until the list is completed. This will alter back and forth between teams until the list is completed. This is done using traditional charade rules. Once the list is completed, the game facilitator will add up which team got the most guesses from the round and a winning team will be announced.
Round 2: Video Only
The second round is the same as the first only this time the person who’s turn it has to turn off their microphone and act out each item given by the game facilitator. This is done in alternating turns until the list is completed.
Round 3:
In the third round the person who’s turn it is must turn off their video and use only microphone. During their turn they are only allowed to say one word in order to get the team to guess. Again each item is private messaged to the person who’s turn it is by the game facilitator. (This round can be altered if it proves to be too difficult).
Once all three rounds are completed, the team who has one the most number of rounds is the winner of the game. This game is a great exercise the encourages employees to get out of their comfort zone and get a little silly.
As I was younger I used to enjoy a lot a game about 5 countries, types of food, names, and color starting with a random letter could we write in less than a minute. The first person to write all of them won. That would sound like a fun idea for a team building.
I think a good team building exercise would be having each team member write a short story about a superhero that saves the day. They have to title the story, name the superhero and give them their superpower. The twist is that their superhero is based on them and their superpower is something that they feel very confident they are good at. All of the stories are emailed to a manager (team leader) a few days before the exercise. The day of the exercise the team leader emails each team member one of the stories that is not their own along with a list of all of the story titles. Each team member gets to read the story they are given out loud in their best story telling voice. All other team members take notes about each story as they listen to them. After all stories are read, each team member decides who they think wrote each story by placing a name by each story on their story title list. When everyone has wrote down their decisions, the team manager will share who wrote each story and we see who got the most correct.
I’m on a remote team right now and I wish that we would play virtual games together!
My favorite game to play is like an innocent version of Cards Against Humanity. No profanity and easy to scale up for multiple teams.
Give each team a prompt like “Rainbow Poodle” and see who can find the absolute worst (best?) picture. Or ask teams to find the worst candy possible for sale online. In my opinion, that would be a tie between Gravy Candy and Clam-flavored candy canes.
Being silly with your team will always bring you closer together. Acting like kids for a few minutes never hurt anyone.
A group activity we did in the military was to playal a Cards Against Humanity type game, but we had to make our own cards. It helped relieve the stress of training and being in the field, made people think on their feet, and built moral with the troops when higher ups and officers joined in.
Looks amazing.
I have an example: Webcam photography. Everyone take your best photo with a webcam. Does not have to include people, perhaps something around your home office.
A fun team building exercise with a remote team would be wii bowling or an internet based trivia game.
Remember the game “Guess Who?” You can do it virtually! Encourage players to wear funny hats, glasses, fake mustaches, etc. Every round ask them to switch it up. One person is the leader and chooses which of the players is the “mark”. Everyone asks a yes/no question “is the person wearing something on their head?” You could split the players into two groups, and see which group guesses the “mark” with the fewest questions.
Team exercises are great, especially with being remote building teams are the same as building culture. With that in mind I think a great game for team building would be playing virtual UNO. The card game. And the person who loses has to sing a song to the team that the team picks. Virtual UNO karaoke. To add a learning aspect to it if the losing person can answer 5 questions based on product knowledge they can pick their song instead of the team.
How to play:
1. Divide team into pairs
2. Play one round of UNO
3. Losers then have to answer product knowledge questions if so they get to pick song for karaoke if they lose then team picks song.
4. SING!
Who Am I ? Prior to a Team meeting have each member send 2 pictures of anything other than a picture of themselves, for example-a picture of their dog or cat or dog and cat. Or a picture of their kitchen or garden or car. At the Team Meeting each picture will be put on the screen and other members will have to guess whose picture it is and then explain HOW they knew it was “Susie’s cat, or Jim’s Kitchen”. For real fun you could even coordinate this into a Friday virtual Happy Hour. Should be some simple and fun prizes for the winners, but it really helps people to get to know each other.
Loved your examples of team building but some are not cross generational. To become more inclusive communication is key. Teams with varying ages write slang words, songs, industry lingo, and ask each group to create a comic skit. This can create a safe space for “words” that have not crossed generations to be explained or explored.
Home Town Tour is amazing! What better way to get everyone to relax and share something about themselves that allows everyone to find the common bonds they share!
These are amazing examples and ideas for team building! With more and more companies moving towards remote positions, its never been so important to apply these programs within your workplace to help close the gaps of social and team interaction. I found another good team icebreaker that could be fun!
Critical Thinking Virtual Icebreaker
*This virtual icebreaker also pairs well with a virtual escape room, such as The Escape Game Remote Adventures.
Time: About 2 minutes per person
How-to:
Start your online meeting by posing this lateral thinking question from Udemy to the group: “If you were alone in a dark cabin, with only one match and a lamp, a fireplace, and a candle to choose from, which would you light first?”
Give everyone 30 seconds to choose.
Have everyone share their answer.
Spend about one minute discussing the differences in your answers and what you each learned from one another.
One fun team building idea for companies who are working from home right now would be to split the team into groups of 3-4, and then do a video scavenger hunt within your at-home workspace. For example, the organizer says “hairbrush” and the first team to have someone find a hairbrush in their house and show it in the video call wins that round. This would give folks the chance to get up from their desk and move around a bit, while also creating a fun and funny event that would lift their spirits for the day.
I think “Surviving An Apocalypse” would be a fantastic team game. What would be your skill? The world has changed no one cares if you were an Attorney, an Accountant or a Marketing Guru, it’s now about survival. Can you keep the group, fed, sheltered and safe. Where would you go? What type of shelter would you look for? Do you let strangers into your community? So many questions and scenarios to play with, only the strong, smart and self sufficient groups will survive.
I recently have discovered Scrabble GO. It’s a great way to challenge both co-workers, friends and family members to exercise their brain power and creates great competition. I would like to organize a bracket style tournament to claim bragging rights and have some great fun.
What creative ways to do virtual team building! They all are great ways to get everyone connected and showcase different skills.
Feed the King/Queen: The goal of the game is to come up with a dish that you would serve to the King/Queen (in this case the host). The team that comes up with the best dish, wins!
How to play: Split the group into teams with an equal number of members. There is a word generator that has been “filled” with common and uncommon food items. Each member takes their turn to pull from the generator and get their food item.
Once everyone has taken their turn, they go into their virtual teams and try to combine their food items into a dish to serve the King/Queen. Teams will have 10 minutes to collaborate and then must present their dish to the whole group. The dish has to be broken down by ingredient, and how it was incorporated.
Now it’s time for the King/Queen to judge!
I have a huge interest in motorsports. I think a great virtual activity would be racing car or motorcycle games. Competitive and fun!
I love the excitement of escape rooms! I think the idea of a virtual escape room would add another level of challenges. Can break off into small groups, or make it a battle of departments. Who can solve the clues to be the first team to escape??
Virtual Pet Show: Everyone who has a pet has a chance to show off its skills or personality and then each person on the call sends in their scoring of the pet to the host and the host collects the scores and announces the winner!
A fun virtual team exercise is thorn and peach, but charades edition. If my peach was making a sale, I may act out making it “rain money” or if my thorn was not hearing back from a client, I may act out a ghost (ghosting). Then my team will need to guess.
A lot of people enjoy games on their phones. For me, I enjoy Candy Crush and Words with Friends. Either one of these games, you can put together a personal team and compete with one another. It encourages competitiveness among the group and provides an enjoying way to get to know one another outside of work.
A great exercise for virtual teams is to create a story together. Each person says one sentence in the story and continues it on from the prior sentences. People are encouraged to be as creative as they want and create plot twists if they so wish. The person who goes last will end the story. Then when the story is completed the group will discuss their creation.
Craig
Awesome list of team-building exercises! My idea for an exercise is called “What’s the Verdict?”
How to play:
1. Divide the larger group into smaller teams.
2. Choose a popular sitcom with well-known characters.
3. Present questions to the teams, such as “Who is most likely to survive a zombie apocalypse?” or “Which character is most likely to adopt 38 cats?”
4. Using digital platforms (YouTube, Insta, Facebook, etc…) each team will have one hour to gather three pieces of evidence that answer each question and support their case. They can use video clips, audio clips, pictures-be creative. 5. Teams will reconvene to present their evidence.
6. The “jury” will choose a winner for each question.
The Emoji sing along come up with a song by using emojis and have everyone sing along who doesn’t love to sing! let alone using emojis these day’s. Or have each person make up a sentence using emojis and turn it into a song!!!
I spy looks interesting
A great virtual team exercise is to bond through questions and conversations.
1. One person takes a piece of paper and splits it in five.
2. They write different events on each paper and roll it up. Examples: most amazing experience, most embarrassing experience, an event that made you dance randomly.
3. The team take turns in pointing to one rolled paper on the hosts screen.
4. They take turns sharing their experiences with each other.
3
The Box-Virtual addition! One person would be the host and make up random questions and throw them in a box. All other players will get a pen and paper ready. The host reads a question out loud and everyone writes who they think the question is about. The host gives a countdown and all players show their answers on webcam/zoom/skype. The player who reaches 10 first wins! This will give the the employees a chance to get to know each other since they all have work from home jobs.
This was a great article and awesome ideas for team bonding and building along with virtual games we can all get into. Over the years we have all seen many games turned into a virtual version due to this wonderful or maybe not so wonderful increase in technology.
One game that I have played virtually and face to face as I have seen many people already mention is Cards Against Humanity. This game is pretty easy to make your own whether it’s made as a collection of everyone’s personal comments and words or just kept more professional and work related.
A another game I have always loved to play was 2 truths one lie. This has always been a good introduction type game in a large or medium size class but can easily be done as a team or group virtually as well. The basis of the game is pretty simple.
How To Play:
1. The first person says 3 statements. 1 false statement and 2 true statements about themselves.
2. Each person in the group votes which they think is the false statement based on what they know about each person.
My idea of a virtual team building exercise is a take on virtual whisper down the lane! It’s a communication exercise that highlights the importance of remote communication.
The first person comes up with a sentence, and sends it to the next person. The receiver of that message must paraphrase the sentence and send it to the next person in the group. By the end of the exercise, the original message and the current message will likely differ drastically. This highlights how important it is to communicate clearly with your team & how easy it is for miscommunication to happen if we’re not careful!
E-mail letter Jumble/crossword – Have everyone come with a fun unique detail about themselves that could be put into an email either as a jumble word phrase or as a crossword clue. The answer would be the employee’s name in the crossword or the last word in word jumble.
This would be a great way for co-employees to realize they might have a lot more in common outside of work. Ideally it should also teach employees to work with each other one on one or in small groups to figure out the answers to the crossword or letter jumble.
Since I love playing Trivial Pursuit I would enjoy organizing and executing a game of DIGITAL TRIVIA. I would divide my players into teams with relatively equal trivia strength. The teams would log into a video conferencing platform such as ZOOM. I would ask questions that would require players to search for the answer on the Internet. Each question would have a time limit and more than one team could be awarded a point for getting the right answer within the prescribed time limit. At the end of the 30 minute team building exercise, the winning team would be announced and rewarded with gift cards or other appropriate awards.
“What Would You Do?” is a game that I believe would help a team think outside of the box, explore new ideas, and challenge their ability to take quick action.
I have always loved Madlibs! They are a great way to break the ice and don’t require a huge amount of time. A fun way would be to take an office memo, page from an office handbook or email and delete words from it. Previous to the meeting, send out a list with numbered missing blanks and have them choose the words according to what is asked for and even select the topic to relate it to
An example would be :
1-verb
2-noun
3-adjective
Have each person read their responses to get everyone having a blast!
Ive read over the entire list of comments and the article to find one of the biggest ways i feel for an online community to connect. Online video games give a great way for team members to connect and work on communication, problem solving, and interaction. As an avid member of the online community, this has worked numerous times in helping to grow team building skills. Not only does it help with cognition with whats going on around the person, but also with typing, and keeping up to date information between each member of the team to make sure that the goal is reached.
One virtual team-building game that can be useful for the musicians and music-related teams is: Virtual Rock Lottery
1) Divide into groups with at least one person who can play guitar, piano
2) Assign each group a subject to write about. This can be silly like a particular cartoon (Spongebob, Simpsons, etc) or a work-related topic
3) Each group has 30 minutes to come up with a song of at least 30 seconds
3.5) Record the song in your chat room with the group
4) Perform your song in front of everyone else!
This game gets people out of their shell and promotes collaboration. Performing a song in front of your co-workers makes every other group speaking / project / presentation infinitely less scary.
Virtual Bowling is a fun and interactive way to keep employees engaged. That is an in-person teambuilding activity a lot of groups are missing out on these days. You can have each person in the office play against each other or in strategically placed teams in a virtual competition which would lead to fun prizes as things open up again. The teams can also work together to customize teams – such as a team name, matching outfits, team motto or theme which would all be entered into competitions as well for prizes. Also there would be prizes for individuals with the most strikes, highest team average and so forth.
I work remotely now and we’ve played “Scattergories” a couple of times, which is really fun:
The Scattergories game is the fast-thinking game of words and categories. Players roll the letter die, flip the sand timer, and race against the clock to come up with answers to each category on the category list. Score points for writing down answers that no one else did.
You have to think quickly because of the timer, but it also requires you to think outside of the box and get creative with your answers in hopes that no one else has the same answer!
I have found great value in using the digital scavenger hunt game with my employees, especially newer hires, because it helps them find new and creative ways to find answers using the tools we already have available to us. Making this competitive has also helped to build overall team rapport.
I am applying to Teambuilding and I love all of the creative and engaging ideas that are mentioned. An idea that I had was a “Morning Meditation”. Each week a team member could come up with a guiding thought to focus on: Gratitude, Energy, Positivity, etc. The team could then set aside a pre-determined morning time slot for everyone to take 10 minutes to focus and meditate on the weekly thought. I think it would help everyone to feel connected and grounded. You could even light some incense or a scented candle for better focus.
Love these ideas!
Multi Headed Expert is a great virtual team building activity. You could do multiple rounds if it is a larger group.
Pick a topic for the expert, which would be 2-4 people. Each participant can only say one word and then it passes to the next. First step is to introduce the “expert”, then ask basic questions to learn about the topic. If you have a large group you could use the chat functions to ask questions from the audience.
This is a great way to get everyone thinking on their feet and get creative. You don’t necessarily need to be sharing accurate details. Getting creative can engage the group and make a virtual event more fun!
What I have found, as a former college athlete, that some of the best team-building exercises are the least actual work-related. I shows that the “suits’ genuinely care about personal development of their employees outside of the work environment. Of course, all team-building should have at least an underlying work-related theme, but the more leisure involved in the exercise, the more fun it is for the participants.
It is for this reason I would choose something like The Amazing Online Race. It is involving technology and is least least work-related (depending on the type of work), yet still has the underlying theme of healthy competition in a team environment. This is important especially among members of a sales team, as it relates to work-related healthy competition within the team.
My idea for a team building game is Who Is This? One team member at a time starts by giving clues to the identity of a living person. Can be some one famous or even a team member. The person who guesses correctly chooses the next person to give clues about.
I love doing one of these two exercises to break the ice and get people relaxed enough to not only enjoy themselves but to think clearly and be creative in a comfortable, non-judging environment.
2 outrageous truths about you and 1 false, have people guess the false.
OR
If you could be any animal, what one would you choose? Then when everyone has decided and shared their animal, make them make the best noise of the animal they chose.
If the goal of the activity is to get the team engaged during a defined time period many of these activities would be great. However, Do it for the Gram stands out because it facilitates ongoing interaction and team building, as well as helps the company expand its social media footprint. In an era where social media gets more eyeballs than traditional media this could be a winning endeavor for a company to pursue its team building efforts and a no cost way to improve its marketing… (two birds with one stone). It may help you also discover untapped talents and interests amonst your team that can be nurtured.
This game is called “Who Shot It?”
Everyone takes 4 photos and creates a short story with a caption under each photo. Everyone has 10 minutes to complete to make it challenging. After you’re done the stories are shared anonymously and everyone has to guess who’s story is who’s.
I think laughter is not only the best medicine it also allows for real bonding. One thing that comes to mind is the game SpeakOut. I have played this a few times virtually via Zoom with my team and it has been a huge hit! This creates so much joy the bonding is almost immediate, especially when a teammate “gets you ” and can actually figure out what you are saying. Another great game that works well in a virtual format is Headsup! someone holds the phone to their forehead as someone else tries to help them guess the word on the phone, it is hilarious and it really ties in some creative teamwork!
I like to take it back to college with the circle of death. The facilitator has a list of numbers 1-10, and each number is a associated with an action or rule- 1= touch your nose, 2= type a particular word, and so on and so forth. The last person to do one of these actions has to answer a question about the company (What is one of the core values, what is the company motto, when were we founded).
Due to the quick reaction time required to not have the spotlight on yourself, it improves instincts and going with your first mind, which is helpful in high stress or unprecendented situations. You have to always be quick, and always be thinking.
These ideas are great! One of my favorite games to play in a group setting is easily adapted to the virtual environment – it’s called “Salad Bowl”. How to play:
1. Divide the team equally into two groups
2. Each player from each team comes up with 4 words or short phrases (keep it simple), like “Racecar”, “Duck-Duck-Goose”, or “Roasting Marshmallows”.
3. Each player then submits their responses to a designated “Game Master” who receives the submission and randomizes them in Excel (or Google Sheets) so that they can rearrange them and pick random words/phrases to assign to whoever’s turn it is.
4. The game master then holds a 1 minute timer and lets the two teams alternate turns until Rounds 1-3 are completed. Each round is completed when every single word or phrase has been won by a team. At the end of each round, the exact same words or phrases go back into the fresh list to be randomly assigned by the game master.
5. Round 1 is like the game “Taboo”, where basically you have 1 minute to get your team to say the word/phrase you are given as quickly as possible. Keep going until your time is up to see how many you can get. 1 point per word/phrase won. (Pay attention, these words come back in each round in a different way!)
6. Round 2 is like “Charades” via Zoom call (or other preferred video conferencing). During this round, you will act out each word/phrase without using any noises or words while your team mates try to guess.
7. Round 3 (Final Round) – ONE WORD. That’s all you get. You get one single word to say to your team to get them to guess what word/phrase you have. The good thing is that they’ve already heard it twice now (once in each previous round). The bad thing is, if you pick a word that your team can’t associate with the word/phrase, then you have to just wait and hope it clicks before time runs out!
One thing I always thought would be fun to do (I work remotely) is for everyone to post a baby pic and an up-to-date pic and have everyone try to match their baby pic to the current pic.
Prizes could be awarded for the first, 2nd and 3rd to finish, and then you could also vote on “cutest baby” and maybe even “ugliest baby” if your group can take that.
This could be a low key but fun initial team event.
I think a great teambuilding exercise would be Tai Chi push-hands, where the goal is not necessarily to forcefully push someone, but rather to get a feel for their energy and momentum and apply only a VERY slight push or pull that off-balances them like nobody’s business.
This forces someone to be very in-tune with what the other person’s doing, and can be great, not just at a team level to develop that cohesion (by having people get in touch with what their push hands partner is up to), but also at an individual level for sales staff to really apply more Tai Chi or Aikido principles to help make sales!
Er, my apologies. Not Tai Chi push hands, since that requires physically being somewhere, but rather a guided Tai Chi lesson with different people learning and leading!
The objective isn’t to win, it’s to make sure everyone can get on the same page when doing a Tai Chi form.
Fourth and Goal
The game is called Fourth and Goal. Each person comes up with four different things about themselves. Three of the statements are true and one is false. Coworkers must pick out the three truths and one false statement. If they guess wrong they’re out.
How to play
1. Sit online
2. Have players think up three truths and one lie about themselves.
3. Go around the circle and have each person say three truths and one lie about themselves.
4. The person across from them must pick out the three true statements and the one false statement.
5. Repeat process.
The game is an opportunity for coworkers to get to know more about each other while still having fun and building team camaraderie.
Tai Chi lessons where different people step up to lead the class in doing a Tai Chi form or exercise. The point isn’t to win at anything, it’s to get everyone on the same page.
That way, it builds that team cohesion, helps develop leadership skills, and gets everyone to relax and perform at their best!
An idea to build off of the scavenger hunt idea could be to do a social media or web based photo scavenger hunt. Have a list of various thing that each team needs to find online or on a given social media platform such as Instagram. Teams then have a set time limit to screen shot as many photos from the list as they can. This could also help teach teammembers web searching skills that could be useful in their jobs. Either assign point values for each item on the list based on difficulty or have them all equal one point and then add up and the winner is whoever finds the most items or scores the most points during the time period. If two teams find the same photo then neither team gets points for it.
Pictionary! Split the participants into two or more teams. Then, using screen sharing, a voice/videocall,, and MS Paint (or another sketch app), have one team draw at a time while the other(s) guess!
One game that I play with people to break the ice in to a conversation or its just meeting new people maybe even just feeling weird in a situation is movie trivia. Not like your typical movie trivia. It starts off as someone saying two actors and the movie they play in together then the next person has to name the second actor and another movie they play in. The main goal of the game is to finally loop around to the first actor played. You would split everyone up in two teams and go back and fourth until we reach the first actor mentioned.
For example
Team one – Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis in 12 Monkeys
Team two – Bruce Willis and Morgan freeman in Red
Team one – Morgan freeman and Brad Pitt in Seven
Team one would of won!
Mind and Body are key to success. I would love to see some sort of home fitness challenge you can with your office. A cool challenge would be to try and do 100 squats a day, 20 squats 5 times a day. This can help promote taking breaks to stay sharp while working, promote health and wellness while working from home and it is surprisingly challenging so bringing in that healthy competition is a great motivator.
A great teambuilding exercise would be “What’s in your pantry”. Each member of the team would locate one item that they have in their shelf that the team could use to bake or cook a meal. Divide into team by starter, entree and dessert for larger teams. Each person would have to take a picture of the item they have (such as “I have fresh basil” – does anyone have tomato and olive oil so we can make a caprese salad”). The team captain could also give them a theme meal (such as italian, mexican, asian, etc.). The team that can put together the items the quickest (a recipe card showing actual ingredients) would be one prize and possibly the team with the most unique item could be another.
I like the idea of a Dessert Island game, each team member will take a short video showing off their home and some of their favorite things. This activity allows team members to get to know one another on a more personal basis, and can lead to cohesiveness and feelings of camaraderie.
This fun game may be better suited for smaller teams, but it’s still a great team building exercise for any team looking to get the process started.
Another way this can be done is by allowing one team member to show off their home at the beginning of each week’s work meeting. This way, you won’t have to spend an hour looking at multiple people’s houses at a stretch!
One idea I have for a team building exercise is a twist on Name That Tune. A team member or members could find song that relate to other team members. Not only would the players have to name the song but also guess who that song relates to on their team.
I like the idea of having a Spirit Week as a Virtual Activity! You’d have a virtual meeting and show up in a fun way, just like you did as an elementary school kid! Crazy hair day, Pajama Day, or Disney Day would be some of my suggestions!
I believe a game everyone can enjoy is virtual bingo. Of course you would have to be on zoom so no one cheats. I believe it’ll be a good way for everyone to see each other and socialize.
Art and entertainment is a great way to express creativity, relax and have fun. I would love to make a 30 second commercial for the company with my team… everyone gets assigned a specific role; actors, director, music, editor, writer, graphics etc. The final product could be shown on the company blog or posted to social media pages.
Everyone starts off with giving their name and what they had for breakfast. than everyone takes turns giving complements to every one in the group.
Geography Trivia: I have played this game a few times and always get a great response. Each team member will send the Facilitator 3 descriptions of a place they have traveled using clues like: 1). It’s a UNESCO destination, close proximity to Sicily. 2). Famous movie starring Tom Hanks filmed here. 3). Known for it’s military history. (they also send the Facilitator a picture they took while there). Everyone guesses the destination and who traveled there. At the end when the answers are revealed, the Facilitator shows the team members travel photo. It’s a great way to learn about a culture and conversation piece for bonding.
Karaoke contest! Everyone chooses a song, sings alone or with group – choose best singer, best costume, most original, etc. Huge laughs and fun!
A fun team building exercise might be name that tune. Gives people a chance to test their musical knowledge while getting a chance to stump their coworkers
My idea for a team building exercise would be a geographical quiz based on guessing the city and country decided by one team, who provide the opposing team with clues (cultural art, architecture, culinary & sport) with a semblance of difficulty where the clues could identify more than one city and country.
This would promote good listening skills, and encourage creative thinking to deliver a customers specific needs.
I think it would be great to have the team all on video chat together and play improvise this scenario. I would let each member choose a random number from 1-20 and associate different scenarios to the numbers. The scenarios would be diverse from funny scenarios, to embarrassing scenarios, and even angry one’s all to gauge the response of the team members to one another and to the improvisation of scenarios by the members so they can get to know one another while working together playing out improvisational scenarios.
How about Clue Murder Mystery: Every one loves a good murder mystery and the best part is that you do not have to be in the same location to participate. Simply gather your remote team online and collaborate virtually to crack the case of a deadly crime in this virtual murder mystery team building activity. Certain clues and be given and you work together through a process of elimination until you solve the murder together as a team.
7 Continents and what makes it unique and choose a country and research about that country.
A fun team building exercise to do virtually. A team of 7 each will pick a continent out of the 7 continents of the world and research what makes that continent unique from the other continents of the world. Each person should choose a country from their continent that he or she will love to stay and research about the country and tell us things about this country that he or she loves In terms of the people, best food, choose a culture, choose a religion, choose a political party, choose a best resort place, choose best state to stay in, choose the best hotel to stay in that country, the best park to go to, choose a best settlement or county to stay in etc. incase he or she will like to spend summer holidays there. This will help them know about the continent that each person choose and where they may likely want to spend their holidays if given the opportunity to.
For a team building exercise we virtually dress our avatars. We have a virtual trunk full of all kinds of clothing and types accessories and we each take turns pulling out something to put one. As we take an item out of the trunk we have to say something about the item and why we are choosing it. After we are done dressing and accessorizing we each state 2 truths and one lie about ourselves and let the group guess which is the lie. I think that would be a lot of fun and a great way to learn about each other.
With the pandemic we have done an at home “tell us something we don’t know about you” scavenger hunt. We asked that each person find three things to show us things nobody would know about themselves.
In the past I have played a game with my employees called “What Would You Do?” I write down scenarios of customers complaints, questions and concerns. We then take turns acting as the customer and reading the scenario card. Everyone gets a turn to react to the customer in the way they think is the best way to solve the problem. It’s a leaning and teaching strategy that I have used for years.
A fun virtual game for team members to get to know each other is a game I have created called, “Who am I?”
Set up:
– each team member is randomly assigned another team member – Fred gets Dan, Dan does not have to get Fred, Dan can have Tiffany etc etc as long as every one has someone.
– In the above example, Fred will email Dan 4 facts about himself that others may not know about Fred. Dan will do the same and email them to Tiffany, etc etc.
– During the call Dan will read the 4 facts about Fred and the others will have to guess who Dan is supposed to be.
– Once the guessing is over Fred is allowed to elaborate on any of the facts as he seems fit for other to get to know him better.
Outcome:
The point of the exercise is for everyone to get to know something interesting about their team members which will turn into future conversations about common likes thus growing team moral and cohesiveness. This also gives everyone an opportunity to be in the spot light and not hidden on the zoom call.
I think a great team building exercise would be to have everyone take turns being the “office” DJ! Each team member would make a public spotify playlist, and then every Friday afternoon it would be made available for the team to listen to while they work!
One of my favorite exercises is a game I call Pictionary meets Survivor (great for groups of 8-12 people)
Part I-Ask everyone in the group to draw any object by hand (actually mouse or stylus) in one minute. When time is up have everyone share their screen and show their picture and see who guesses what the object is first. You can give out meaningless points to the person who guesses correctly first.
Part II –Tell the group that unfortunately the team was in an imaginary plane crash! Luckily everyone survived and they are in a life raft in the ocean. Surprisingly they found an island where everyone is only allowed to bring one object with them to the island. Yes that is right! Only the object they drew. Plot twist! There isn’t enough room on the imaginary fake island for everyone -2 people will not be able to join the group! Everyone will have one minute to give a sales pitch to the group to explain why they and their object should be chosen to go to the island.
Part III-After everyone has had a chance to say their piece, have the group discuss and see who should be voted off the island. Finally, at the end of our little story after the vote you can tell the group that the two who don’t get to go to the island are floating in the middle of the ocean for a couple hours and are found by a helicopter and are able to go back home to their families months before the island is found. They are the real winners here.
These are all such wonderful ideas! I have a couple that I think would be amazing if they gained some more mainstream business traction.
Firstly, any of the Jackbox.tv games for Nintendo Switch are awesome for team-building and often have hilarious results! My personal favorites are Split the Room where players are given an adlib style scenario and have to create the most divisive and hilarious scenario, or Patently Stupid where the players come up with a problem and then everyone must draw a doodle and name the invention that will help solve this problem. There are 6 different Jackbox Party Packs and all of them, even when playing with people I have been friends with for over a decade, leave me both in stitches from laughter, and let me learn something new about the people I play with and how the approach different scenarios.
After Jackbox.tv games I believe something like a virtual coffee/tea tasting would be awesome! If the company mails out a care package with coffee or tea varities and instructs employees not to open until the virtual event and then have an expert come in and help everyone to properly prepare and then taste each variety.
Additionally I think something like a “virtual video crawl” utilizing something like Togethertube.com where everyone watches youtube videos together would be great, each member of the team would add a video up to 15 minutes in length and the rest of the team would watch the video together in real-time and provide any comments about the video.
Here’a an example of a movie-based game of speed between two or more players. After given a prompt, the players take turns answering with movie titles that fit the prompt.
For example—
The prompt is given: “Movies that take place in snow”
Player A: Cliffhanger
Player B: Cool Runnings
Player A: Snowpiercer
Player B: The Grey
Player A: Frozen
Player B: ???
Player A wins!
A really fun event would be to hold a musical chairs paint and sip event! Basically people would move one seat to their left after each step (the instructor would tell them when). They will start and finish the class at the same seat though so while everyone gets to work on everyone else’s canvas they always know which one is theirs. This helps it from becoming tedious and also forces perfectionists to let it go: whether that tree is perfect or not you have to move on.
Have you ever played resistance? Something like this game would be so fun for a virtual activity! You’d need at least 5 people to play.
How it works: (ex with 5 players)
1. Determine which side you’re on. Spy (2 of the players) or resistance (3 of the players)
Each player is dealt a card. An Ace and a 2. Only those who are spies are prompted on who’s on their team.
The resistance team must figure out who those 2 are.
2. Here’s where is gets interesting! Now that the last cards drawn have placed you on a team, you put those back in the deck.
The game begins and you have to choose two people to go on a “mission” with. BE CAREFUL! YOU DONT WANT A SPY TO RUIN YOUR MISSION! Here’s what you do..
Each player is dealt another 2 cards. A 2(completes mission safely and resistance team wins round) and a 3(ruins mission and spies win team wins round).
Play your card of choice.
3. Everyone has to approve this mission. If not approved, you move on to the next round and do rules 1 and 2 over again. If approved, the cards should Now be faced up.
If all 3 cards are 2’s, resistance team wins the round and are safe. If a 3 is played, the mission was ruined by a spy and therefore they win the round.
4. Winner is determined after 5 wins OR if you figure out who your spies are!
Good luck ?
I love an improvisational game called Emotion Switch. Put 2-3 people in a scene. Decide where they are, their relationship to each other, and what their conflict is. As they then improvise a scene, each of them has an offstage controller who periodically yells out an emotion they must exhibit as they are speaking. The more exaggerated the emotion, the funnier it is. Then switch the actors with the offstage controllers and repeat.
Team Orchestra
Together, the group will make a symphony of sounds. Individually, each person is only making a noise.
To play:
1. Choose one person to be the conductor.
2. Split the group into two, with each person either assigned as a one or two
3. Every person chooses 1 sound/beat to make or even a note to sing. Examples include: a simple knock on the desk, sliding a pencil down the spiral of a notebook, or making sounds from the mouth, even a bark or a meow! Individuals should be creative but the sound must not take too long to complete.
4. The conductor experiments and creates the symphony with the group by holding up a one or a two, the corresponding numbers play their sound. The conductor can speed up and slow down and even hold both numbers up at once.
Another variation of this team building exercise is to select two or three conductors (if three, the group needs to be split into three, where each conductor has their own single group to conduct). Each conductor controls the rate and speed which they conduct their own individual group. Here each conductor would need to work together to try to create a harmonious sound with the other conductors adjusting speed and rate.
I love all of these activities. Not only would they help a team bomb and feel like a part of something bigger than just themselves working at home, but they are helpful, useful, and relevant; they help you learn new skills. An idea for a new team-building activity would be to have healthy-living platform where you share meals and snack ideas that the team can embark on together and feel their best. We would all have the meal together on the same day, maybe over a zoom call! This would bond us and make us feel like a community, but would also get everybody in the habit of feeling and working at their best. It could even be led by one team member every time, with everybody cooking together on video.
I have had a lot of fun and success in the past using the Virtual Escape Room online to get a team to work together for the common goal. While being fun and exciting it really opens conversation and in general boosts the mood and morale of workers. I have heard of quite a few online based companies using Virtual Escape Rooms as team building exercises in small groups especially during this pandemic.
I think a good team building exercise would be to have one person come up with a type of food recipe (pizza, tacos, pie, casserole, etc.) that has to meet certain criteria (vegan, dairy-free, no red foods, nothing crunchy, etc.) and they start the group off with an ingredient. The next person has to come up with an ingredient that starts with the last letter of the first ingredient, and then the next person adds another ingredient with the last letter of the previous, and so on.
At the end of the exercise the person who started the “recipe” determines how well the listed ingredients would work together for the recipe. (and maybe even try to create it, if they’re feeling a little adventurous!)
Here’s another example of a fun game you could play with a remote team. I like to call it “Anecdotes”
How to Play: Before the team bonding night, the game moderator or bonding host would ask each participant to individually submit a funny experience that has happened to them. During the video call, the host would read one of the story submissions out loud to everyone. The participants would then guess who submitted that anecdote. If a participant correctly guesses who that anecdote belonged to, they would win a point. Then the host would read the next story and so forth until all the stories have been read. The person at the end with the most points wins the game. This would be a great game to get to know your co-workers better through some funny predicaments.
One idea for a virtual ice breaker that may be fun is called Time Machine.
I propose that before entering your zoom call you change your virtual background to hint to your colleagues where you would like to go if you had a time machine.
When people start to recognize familiar backgrounds they will start to break the ice with traditional questions such as:
What location did you chose?
Which time period? Why?
If there was a person you could go back in time and meet, who would it be, and why?
Would you just want to visit and come back, or would you stay?
Bringing a virtual background makes it easy for everyone to see where you would like to go and start the conversation to find out why you picked that particular place.
I have always loved gameshows and some of the most enjoyable team building exercises that I’ve had the opportunity to participate in myself were all oriented around fun and friendly competition. So, I think that a great team building event could be modeled after the classic Match Game. It would be even better if members of the team that hold positions of leadership would be able to play the part of the “celebrities.” One of the coolest parts about watching Match Game on TV is the sense of feeling like you get to know the celebrities better. So, in addition to being a wildly good time, it would foster stronger relationships with those leaders filling the “celebrity” role.
Everyone will tell 2 truths and 1 lie about themselves. Everyone must guess which one is the lie from all coworkers.
I recently participated in virtual “show and tell” team building activity from each person’s home and personal travels. For instance- I have lived and traveled all over the world- so I pulled together a couple fun items I’ve collected and told the story behind it. A rock from the Great Wall of China and a crystal set that I acquired while in Venice, Italy. Each person has 15-20 minutes to share about their item/story and why it means so much to them.
Since this is a virtual team building exercise, it could be fun to do a modern twist on the classic “telephone game.” This would be accomplished via chat, and could be a fun way of getting team members more connected with each other.
With the division going on the world today, Peas In A Pod would be a welcome break. You could use the game to virtually discover 10 differences and commonalities. Diversity is essential, but finding common ground is incredible. – Shauna Robinson
I love several of these team building ideas and can’t wait to try some of these!
One team building exercise that our sales team did during some of our monthly meetings was Virtual Charades. This worked great because all 100+ sales team members worked remotely. We had smaller teams of 15-20 that had monthly virtual team calls. We played this team building exercise the first meeting each month. It was a fun way to play charades.
1). One team member would draw a card with 5 random words (sometimes this would be related to our role or company, sometimes not). It is that team members job to act them out in the desired order.
2). Other team members have to guess
3). They have 3 minutes to guess all the words
4) For each correctly guessed word, the team gets one point
5). Game can be played for 3-5 rounds. The team that scores the most wins has bragging rights that month. We also would let the winning team have some type of small reward. It might be something simple like getting first choice of your 1×1 scheduled call with your manager, getting to leave work 2 hours early on a Friday (as long as you hit your sales numbers, etc). Awards that were of value to everyone on the team in some small way, but were not costly.
I’ll have to say that “Do It For The Gram” is the virtual exercise I will use because some people don’t understand how vital social media is to our everyday life and although it is a tool that you can use to inform you on current events, allow you to make money from home, it is also a tool that can destroy your reputation. So learning the best ways to use it for good by obtaining the comfortability for the tool can make a difference in your personal and professional life. We should not shy away from it but embrace it and have fun using it.
At the clinic that I manage, we have team building happy hours every month. We play common kids games that we frequently use as interventions. It provided with great ways to connect over current work but in a fun, child-like playful approach. While working from home we used, house party as a common app to connect us while playing games.
A game where everyone is told to close their eyes and write down their favorite word and find 3 people (still with eyes closed) for a total of 4 people and one person in the group will be able to see in order to help guide the 3 other people into matching with the other groups to create a mission statement with the words. Needs refining by the leadership team but yeah, here’s an idea 🙂
I’ve found that a tried and true way to build camaraderie between people from all backgrounds is through music. A fun musical exercise would be to have each person read lyrics of a lesser known song by their favorite artists and have the other members guess the titles and performers. This would be a great conversation starter, and may even make new best friends!
One way to use tools that are available through virtual technology would be based around storytelling. Depending on the size of your group you can split them up into teams. Each team is given a google word doc. They have 5-10 minutes to write a story…. the difficult part is that you can only write one sentence at a time with each member contributing in order. There can be no other forms of communications between the team members.
AnnMarie Sabatino
Blockbuster Fun ~ One team member picks a name of an actor and the next person has to name another actor that starts with the first initial of the last name of that actors name.. Each team can then do a count of what team named the most actors.. This game would get everyone thinking quickly ~ lots of fun and laughs together as a team!
One idea I had was a version of Simon Says but in different languages.
1. Get all employees together in a group chat, like a zoom call at a predetermined date and time.
2. Decide on the language and the first “Simon” ahead of time. (You can play different rounds with different languages and a different Simon) in one session, or split up and have a new session each week.
3. Simon provides an instruction in the chosen language while also doing it themselves. This way, those that have zero knowledge of the language have a visual, and can learn something new without feeling left out. No shame for copy cats in this game! Ideas could be instruction to google a dog meme and post it in the group, or do two jumping jacks etc.
4. The end can be determined by the number of “Simon Says” instructions, or a predetermined time limit, like 30 minutes. At the end, the Simon of the week, can send an email to all participants with the instructions given that day so that each can see how it’s written, and learn some new vocabulary.
One team exercise that I enjoyed doing in the past in pretty simple – Spin the wheel! Pick a name and ask them a question, could be work related or not, anything to bring up discussion and introspection among peers is one of the best ways for a team to quickly bond together towards a common goal.
Working on a creative virtual team now…this is so up my alley!
I had a thought that a “mad-libs” style exercise based on an inter-office email would be absolutely hilarious especially if the email is explaining a a mandatory upcoming personality and strengths assessment test for all employees.
The function would be to see what words were suggested to describe various departments in an organization by the departments themselves and compare them to words used by other departments.
You could do a virtual game called, “Oh Baby!”
Team members are asked to submit a photo of them as a baby (24 months and under).
The goal is to match the baby photo with your colleague. The person with the most “Correct” matches wins a gift basket to “Baby” themselves at home. A a gift basket with home spa items or a gift card to purchase items at at a retailer such as Bath & Bodyworks or Bliss.com.
Loved reading some of these nostalgic games some of us remember from our child hood. I think an interesting game would be to include diversity that inspires people to understand what discrimination and systemic oppression looks like outside of the media and the work place. Creating a digital game that would include some of the work of Jane Elliott would be a great game that all organizations need.
Treasure Chest
We all have some item in our home that is very near and dear to our hearts, something we treasure. It is something that is significant to us for one reason or another. Because those taking part in a virtual team building exercise may not have met the other members of a team in person, it may difficult to get to know them as they would if they saw one another in a traditional setting. By introducing one item in their home that they would not mind sharing with coworkers, and explaining why this item is special, participants can learn something about one another’s personalities and communications styles.
When am listening to music I find myself inserting other song lyrics. A “that line would have been perfect in this song”. Music is a melody that often times gets rewritten or covered and just as unique as the artist performing. With that being said…
How to play:
Question of the game: What does music mean to you?
The team then selects up to 2 genres of music.
The Supervisor will select the first line of the song therefore setting the example the team should follow.
The individual of the team must then write down their favorite song lyric between those genres.
Everyone will say their selection and the objective is to then find a spot for your line
Now starts the freestyle:
The team must create a Team song by saying the lyrics EXACTLY how they are in their song of choice
How many times will it take for your team to record a hit??
The object of the game is to show that you can still be uniquely individual among many and YOU DO MATTER. It’s easy for employees to feel overlooked, unappreciated, and just a number. You make your work culture that much better.
One team-building or break the ice exercise would be the game “Who Am I?”
How to play:
1. Everyone writes down a name of someone famous (actor, character, musician, etc.)
2. Each person will then give hints on the name they wrote down (without saying the name).
3. The goal is to have the rest of the group guess the name written down.
4. The person who’s name was guessed in the fastest time wins.
When I think about Virtual team building – I think about simple ways to liven up day to day meetings!
1. Start with a dance party! Get the energy moving…. juices flowing = higher brain engagement!
2. Everyone has the simple resources of pen/marker and paper in front of them – make them useful! When the leader/supervisor is asking questions about goal setting or collaborative project ideas, give each team member a few minutes to collect their thoughts and write in big letters on a piece of paper the answer. Example for sales team: “How much revenue do you intend to bring in this month?” Each team member holds their sign/idea up at same time, then the leader can dive in individually.
3. Do a body poll! Use hands cues or silly movements (ex. thumbs up/down) to have the team answer general meeting questions instead of simply nodding, etc. For example .. The manager/supervisor would say … “On the count of 3 I want you to all tell me how you are feeling today – using your thumb! Thumbs up is great, thumbs down is not so great, and a neutral thumb is “meh!” — The sky is the limit here for creativity!
The more engaged your team members are, the more productive the meeting will be and the tighter your team, too. Thumbs UP to that!
In the times of CoVID-19, my game suggestion would be to have a virtual ‘happy hour’ specifically showcasing any special projects, deep cleaning, new animals, new children, books read, music created, lesson plans to keep children entertained, virtually ANYTHING completed during the times of lock-down.
I think this would reveal a lot of information about your co-workers, specifically their true interests and what they do in times of boredom to keep themselves occupied.
Happy hour would be more fun if we all had our own personal bar tender. Since that technology is still a few years away, here’s the next best thing. In this game, we think about our team members likes and strive to make each other smile.
Each person will take a turn as the bar tender and serve their co-workers, works best for groups of 3-5.
The drinks can be made up and each ingredient should represent part of their personality and skills. “For Emily we have the ‘Fidler on the Roof’ with ginger beer that’s as bubbly as she is after her second cup of coffee, bitters for that dark sense of humor, rum because she’s so sweet, topped with the worlds smallest violin, which we know you play behind our backs”.
Drinks must have a three ingredient minimum, to avoid anyone being a plain old water. This game tests creativity and encourages each teammate to high-light the strengths that make each other unique.
Bonus points could be awarded for those who present their drink with an image accompaniment.
One could even send each teammate a kit of food dye, tiny umbrellas, plastic martini glasses ect. to present each drink as an art piece.
I played a fun team-building game at my last job to get to know one of our co-workers better (I think we were celebrating her birthday)– it was a trivia test about them! Everyone got a paper test with 10 or so multiple-choice questions. Each answer included 3 facts about our co-worker, and one lie. Whoever guessed the lie for each question won! You could totally make this into a fun ice-breaker game by including every team member. Everyone could take turns playing “3 facts and a lie” about specific topics, like “hobbies”, “favorite foods”, or even more fun, specific office topics!
One thing we have done in the lab I work in, is virtual cooking classes. Where one person picks a recipe and teaches us how to prepare and about the background of this dish. It’s been really fun!
A good idea I had was doing a Trivia night with fun prizes and you can do it in person or virtually! It would be perfect for if you had different sale teams or different departments as they can try to win as a group!
(Work) Family Feud or virtual Jeopardy! All questions would be based off of relevant work knowledge sprinkled in with some fun facts about the company etc!
One of the most difficult adjustments for me, when I first started working from home, was getting used to not seeing and socializing with coworkers in person as often. When you’re working on a team I think it’s important to get to know the people you’re working with. One way to accomplish this virtually would be a simple daily photo match game.
The way it would work is each day you have a new subject, it can be anything: everyone sends in a picture of their lunch, their pets, their car, a project they’re working on, etc. Everyone tries to match the picture to the person who submitted it. It’s fun, simple and it helps everyone get to know each other better. Prizes could be involved, you can play for bragging rights, or winner chooses the next day’s topic.
One team-building or break the ice exercise would be the game “Guess Who?”
How to play:
1. Everyone sends in 3 things about themselves, like something they own, a place they’ve been, or something that they’ve done.
2. The game’s host will then give the item, activity, or skill, etc of someone from Team #1. Members from the other teams huddle together to guess who the item, skill, activity, etc belongs to from Team #1. Each team gets one guess and for every wrong answer, Team #1 gets a point.
3. The goal is to learn more about your coworkers.
4. The team that has the most points at the end wins.
I love the idea of Scavenger Hunts. My friends and I do script reading for fun at gatherings and stuff. I think if everyone agreed on a show or movie and picked a character, it could be fun. To read “The Office” at the office might be fun.
Skribbl.io is a very fun game where 1 person draws while everyone is on a race to guess what it is. For one it’s very fun, but it as well promotes cognitive skills while also helping to bond everyone involved.
Team-building exercise ideas
1. Predictive text one-word play. Each person involved uses their cell phone predictive text feature to create a play with their teammates using only 1 word per person per turn.
2. Workspace scavenger hunt, a contest to see who has the most unique items on their desk/purse/etc.
These are all great ideas! Here is another exercise virtual teams might enjoy called “Food Lovers Bracket Challenge!”
How to play:
1. Each member will write down their favorite restaurant (within the area)
2. Restaurants will then be placed in a tournament bracket
3. Each day members will vote on match ups until there are only two restaurants left
4. When the winning restaurant is chosen, your company will cater one meal to your workspace in celebration
I love the Ransom Note exercise. It’s like a Mad Lib but where the entire story is unwritten. Twitter handles can be pretty hilarious, and it would be a lot of fun and a great opportunity to use creativity. It might be fun if we combined it with the classic campfire game whre one person adds a phrase to create a story
One of my favorites is similar to the children’s game Telephone. I like to call it TeleDraw. It’s rather simple, but it helps foster team bonding, and creativity which is always good in the workplace. You need a minimum of 3 people, but it gets more and more fun with the more people that are playing! So one person starts with a simple sentence (like a caption). They hand it to the next person who will make a drawing based on the sentence. That person will cover up the sentence and give the drawing to the next person, who will then create a caption from the drawing. That goes on until everyone has had a turn. And you can have multiple going at a time. This can also be done virtually using the website scribble.io
The Where you’re from game.
Basically, because everyone is remote, it is hard to know where a person is from or where they have traveled.
How to play:
Usually the supervisor will send out 20 questions to every team member and wait for the responses.
These questions will ask about where you are located but in fun ways.
Once all the questions are gathered, we send out 4 peoples responses out and see if anyone can guess.
Then after all guesses have been made from all teammates, then we find out who had the most correct guesses and give them a reward. So there is 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.
You can continue to do this with different location of vacation and so forth.
An idea for a team-building activity would be a “Who would you be” game.
How to play:
1. Everyone breaks into small groups
2. Each group is given a position at their company and told to come up with a character/animal/hero that represents this position’s most ideal strengths/weaknesses
3. Each group shares their character with everyone else without sharing which position it relates to
4. Individually, each person decides and shares “Who they would be” if they could choose any of the characters
5. Then, each group reveals the position their character was inspired by and why they choose that character/how it relates to the position in their company
These are all a lot of fun!
I think something that would be fun and engaging would be
“Make your own netflix original jigsaw”
Netflix is always coming up with originals. I believe it would be fun to split into teams and get all netflix shows and deconstruct them and rework them to see who can make the best Netflix Original. I think it definitely challenges the team to work together and be creative to come up with something original.
I have always enjoyed pictionary or charades. One person could be the judge in each round and at the beginning everyone turns in their suggestions of what could be drawn or acted out. You could do each round as a certain category or just do them randomly. Depending on how many teams you could be on teams of 2-5. The judge each round will keep score of how many each team guessed correctly and you can play first team to reach 20 wins.
Table Topics – this is a game that can be used in person or virtually. There is a glass jar with wooden tabs similar to those in Scrabble. Each tab has a topic to discuss to learn more about each other. The facilitator of the game calls on people around the room and you draw out a tab to see what the topic is. Questions vary from pets, children, goals, dream vacation destinations, most exciting thing you have ever done, who would you like to have dinner with living or dead and why, etc.
Each time I have used this game, it has really allowed those in the group to learn some fun facts about others in the group. The questions of course can be altered to be more specific to a particular group of people.
Building Trust
1. Give everyone a piece a paper with 5 fun personal questions.
2. Have each member of the team write down their answers to the questions.
3. Have the monitor randomly read the answers to each question and have the group guess who they thought answered it.
4. They can also say why they guessed the person.
What if, as a team trust-builder, you did a Mask/Off activity. Hear me out:
You take a piece of regular paper to your Zoom (or whatever) meeting, folding it in half like a greeting card, lengthwise.
On the outside, you put a mask that represents you. This outer mask is things you put out to the world. A teacher, for example, might put “good with kids”, “educator” or “good listener” on their mask. You also draw, not just use words, so there’s symbolism in play.
On the inside, you simply write words, no drawing. These are the things you keep hidden from the world. Examples could be “Am I enough?”, “What’s my future like?”, etc. These are anxieties and shortcomings and other parts of you that you conceal.
Then, you share the outer masks by wearing them. After that, there’s an opportunity to share the inner mask with the team, leaving space for omission or not sharing for those not (yet) comfortable revealing, going mask-off. By sharing the inner and outer masks, there’s an inherent opportunity for quick trust and relationship building.
One super easy and fun way to get to know your co workers is “whats your favorite questions”. One of my personal go to questions is favorite breakfast ? its great to hear each persons point of view and find out what they like best. This even inspires you to explore their choice for your own. there are tons of subject to ask and this can be part of a weekly plan.
One team building exercise that fosters good communication and listening skills would be a virtual game of telephone. Everyone breaks into groups of five or six. One team member hears a short presentation, protocol or practice customer call. That member then tries to relay what they heard to the next team member and so on. The final team member then presents the information in the final round. Not only does this strengthen listening and communication skills, it serves to as a way to teach new processes in an engaging way.
A great team building game would be Convince Me:
An odd numbered panel of judges is chosen.
A topic is chosen to debate.
Participants are split into teams at random, and given a side they must defend (even if they may not currently agree with that side).
This will encourage the participants to learn about a topic they may not know about, and to gain a new perspective.
I think virtual beer pong would be a lot of fun! Everyone could set up cups to be shot at in their own homes, and employees would get partnered up to face eachother via Zoom. When one employee sinks a shot the other one needs to “drink”, but drinking could be replaced very easily with a verbal excercise like “say one thing nobody here knows about you.”
I bet it would be a blast!
This is fun! I have my team turn their cameras on but their mics off, or they are to wear something that completely hides who they are. Then we ask questions that relate to experiences and situations that may come up during a call with a client. Then, depending on the answers that everyone posts, we have to try and guess who is who? The person who guesses the most co-workers correctly wins!
I like to play “cards against customers.” I play this game by preparing before our meetings with common phrases we hear our customers begin with. Each team member then writes down the finishing phrase. These phrases are typically common pieces they hear, phrases they’ve wondered about but haven’t asked about, and just random situations veteran employees don’t forget and like to share. Once everyone has “submitted” their complimenting phrase to the original. We go round and laugh about some of the responses and how to best handle or deal with the situation. It gives our veterans a chance to reminisce and laugh as well as share some wisdom, as well as our newbies a shot to learn about encounters they may have and how to handle them. It’s always a fun time and our team loves it.
I haven’t had to complete any virtual team-building exercises, but I believe this would improve morale and create a bond between coworkers. However, a game that I recommend Virtual Pictionary to be completed with Whiteboard in Microsoft Teams. Of course, the subject matter and detail regarding topics to be drawn would have to be streamlined to adhere to HR policies. Still, I believe it would be a great way to combat stress, inspire collaboration, and afford teams the ability to work closely with individuals they may not have had the opportunity to meet formally.
In the Army our leadership would have us play Dodgy Jeep or Land Rover. Essentially it is an exercise to simulate a real life situation of getting an abandoned vehicle working to escape enemy fire. It could be a very easy fix or a difficult fix. It was random every time. To incorporate this into a team building exercise for remote teams, leaders could simulate computer malfunctions or phone issues. Another suggestion would be doing a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire style game working on two teams against each other.
I’ve always liked to go around and have someone tell me what their favorite pastime was as a kid. From vacations, things they would do around the neighborhood with their friends, or pranks they would play. I find that this shows your colleagues what types of activities interest you, as well as your sense of humor, which can really connect people.
A cool team-building game would be sort of like Tetris.
-Everyone creates or is assigned a shape, (square, L-shape, rectangle, line, etc.)
-Then we take turns placing our shapes in a square to fit our shapes together to complete a line. Explaining how each shape could be used effectively to clear a line, some more than others, some not at all, but each important to complete the task of clearing a line. Each line would then require different shapes to be added.
This shows how things can be completed if everyone pitches in. You can achieve your goal (clear the line) no matter what your shape (strongest skill) may be if you have a help from other shapes.
Having worked from home for the past 6 years, getting in enough movement was sometimes challenging. I think a fun team-building exercise would be to hold a virtual walking challenge. Have teammates use their movement tracking devices to see how long it takes to virtually walk to each of your teammates locations and back again. It’d be a great way to increase steps and movement over a long period of time, but it would also help new team members learn where in the world their new co-workers are located.
Sizzlin’ n Gigglin’
A grocery list can be sent to each participant for a recipe that the group all agrees on. A partnership with Instacart could be made to have the groceries delivered to each person’s residence.
A cooking teacher can lead the group through the step-by-step process of preparing the dish from start to finish and give cooking tips and answer questions along the way. In the end, each participant can reveal how their dish turned out after following along. Some will be gram-worthy and some will get… participation trophies. But, everyone will learn something and have a great time!
Appreciate having a site like this. Gave me some good ideas. First time running virtual programming due to covid-19 and I am working with 13 and 14 year olds.
Thank you for sharing the ideas! In this current situation, we need human connection and kindness more than ever right now. Loved the ice breaking sessions!
very interesting read . As a girl guide leader i am always looking for ways to entertain them. this has helped thank you