Icebreaker games are team-building activities designed to loosen people up in social settings. These activities help to fast-track familiarity and ease the socialization process. Whether you love them or hate them, icebreakers allow teams to engage and get comfortable with one another in new settings.

We chatted with our event specialist, Danche, who recommended the following activities for your next team event!

1. Two truths, one lie

Two Truths, One Lie is a great activity for small group settings. For large groups, consider breaking off into smaller groups as it will help make communication easier.

Standing in a circle, each person will share two truths and one lie about themselves. The true and false statements can be about anything or you can restrict it to a specific theme, the choice is yours. One by one, the group will listen to each participant’s statements and decide which are the truths and which is the lie. This activity can be a lot of fun, especially when participants include something funny that has happened to them in the past.

2. My superpower

This activity is great for bigger groups as well as teams that don’t know each other very well. Each participant will state his/her name and then share what their “superpower” is. This can be a special skill, a curious fact about their lives, valuable knowledge they can share, etc. You can choose to make it more professional, or keep things more personal as a way of getting to know each other better.

To make it even more fun, use a ball to signify which person is speaking. The person will then toss the ball to another player at random, keeping things spontaneous as the game progresses.

3. My dream celebrity dinner guest(s)

This is the typical “Who’s my dream dinner guest?” game with a twist!

For smaller groups, players can use up to 3 dream celebrity guests, but for bigger groups, we recommend limiting players to one top choice. To add a twist to the game, have each participant explain why they’d like that particular celebrity to come for dinner.

If you want to make this game even more fun, use colorful yarn, to pass on to the next person as everyone takes their turn. Make sure each player holds on to their end of the yarn before passing and at the end of the game, you’ll have a beautiful (and complex!) pattern created out of the interaction.

4. What statement resonates with me more

This is a great game for large groups, and allows team members to get to know each other while also having a little fun!

To begin, one person leads the activity with a series of statements they’ll share with the group! These should be set before the game and will depend on the size of the group and its interests.

Some examples are:

I am a morning person, and I love getting things done during the early hours of the day.
I am a night owl and am most productive after dinner.
I am neither a morning or night person – my productivity depends on the amount of coffee I’ve had!

The group leader will read all three (or more!) options to the group. Then, according to which statements resonates with them the most, players will group together in designated areas of the room. For example: “All the morning people – go to the right corner of the room. The night owls – to the front, by the windows, etc.“ Once everyone is in their group, give them a few moments to casually chat before reading the next set of statements. This activity helps to group people according to personal/professional interests and gives them the opportunity to get to know each other better.

Some ideas for statements include:

Dream Holiday
Cat /Dog/ No animals person
Tea/ Coffee/ No beverage preference
Summer/ Winter/ Doesn’t matter as long as I’m on holidays

You can make it as formal or informal as you like, and use humor to make the statements even more dynamic!

5. Competition charades

This is a great activity both for small and large groups, and underlines the importance of good communication.

Divide participants into groups of 4 or more people. There can be up to 10 people per group. For smaller groups, it’s best to have everyone play together.

To begin the groups are set in a queue, each person with their back to the person behind them so that no one is face to face.

One player will lead this activity and don’t participate. The leader comes up with a phrase – it can be work-related, or something fun! Some examples are Marketing, Books, Annual Reports, etc.

The leader then whispers this phrase to the first person in the queue of each group, and with this, the charades start.

When the leader says ‘Go’, the first person in each queue taps the next person on the shoulder, and when they turn around, he/she tries to explain, without speaking, the phrase that the leader gave them.

After 30 seconds, the leader shouts ´Change´, and the second person turns around, taps the next person on the shoulder, and the activity repeats as they try to explain whatever they understood from the first person. Be sure that players are not speaking throughout the entire activity.

The game continues until the last person in each queue has participated. Each player has 30 seconds to try to understand the expression and 30 seconds to pass on the information.

Once the game is complete, the last person verbalizes in front of the whole group what they think the phrase is. The results are usually very funny.

For bigger groups, it can be set as a competition, and the group that is closest to the original expression wins.