Library of teambuilding games & icebreakers

How to play Instant win games

Instant gratification is a powerful motivator for most people. If you want people to buy more of your product, try putting together a game where they can find out if they won or lost immediately. For example, having people scratch to win, spin a wheel, or pull a lever on a slot machine are all simple actions that could result in an exciting prize for your customers.

It can be as simple as a retail store putting together a wheel to spin that has various prizes or discounts attached, and asking each customer if they want to give it a whirl. If you put it near the front of your store, you may be surprised how many people stop in. Make sure to promote it (and the winners) on social media for even more traction.

Here’s a fast-paced improv game that encourages creative thinking and imbues energy into the room. It’s ideal for those Monday morning meetings when everyone’s feeling sluggish, or as a warm-up exercise on a team-building retreat!

What Are You Doing revolves around miming – i.e. using gestures, body movements, and facial expressions to act something out. That’s one reason it’s so fun! It’s light-hearted, silly, and gets people moving.

How to play What are you doing?

To play, you get everyone to stand in a circle, then ask one person to imagine a certain action and start miming it. The action itself can be anything they want! Washing the dishes, taking the kids to school, throwing a baseball, brushing their hair, cleaning their teeth…the world is their oyster.

After a short while, someone else steps forward and asks, “What are you doing?”

The twist is that whoever’s miming must say a completely different action to the one they’re doing! Instead of cleaning their teeth, for example, they could say they’re putting their shoes on or amputating someone’s leg. Whoever stepped forward to ask what they were doing must then perform that action.

This process continues until everyone has had a turn miming. Try to keep the game moving and encourage people to be creative with the actions/responses.

Oh, and feel free to add another element to the game, whereby you decide who goes next. Rather than going around the circle or jumping in whenever they want, you could point at the next mime – or make eye contact with them.

Heads up, this game is best for smaller groups if you don’t have much time to spare. You want everyone to have a go miming an action, which can take a while when you have dozens of people on the team!

That’s right, the classic race from your childhood is just as fun for adults! In fact, it’s probably even better. After decades of being bipedal, strapping your leg to someone else’s and having to move in unison is a significant (and hilarious) challenge – especially when you make it a race.

How to play Three-Legged Race

As you can probably remember, you don’t need much for a three-legged race. Some simple strips of fabric or lengths of rope will suffice. From there, you divide the group into pairs, stand each team side-by-side, and use the fabric/rope to tie Person A’s right leg to Person B’s left leg or vice versa.

Next, mark a start and finish line, get everyone to stand at the start, and blow a whistle for the race to commence. Expect chaos and laughter to ensue as they make their way as quickly as possible down the track!

Got lots of people coming to your Field Day? Try a three-legged relay race instead.

This time, you’ll need to create a longer track with four individual sections before splitting everyone into pairs like before. Assign four pairs to each team then set them around the track to run different sections of the relay. Each “starting pair” needs a baton, which they’ll pass to the next pair in their team, whenever they reach them. The first team to reach the finish line wins!

For this game, players guess words based on context clues. The pyramid is a collection of six words with three on the bottom, two in the center, and one at the top. To win the game, teams need to guess all of the words within the pyramid within the timeframe you set.

To play:

1. Break a large group into smaller teams.
2. Give one player on each team the pyramid.
3. The pyramid-holder should give hints to their teammates to describe each word without using the actual words of the item.
4. When a player guesses correctly, the pyramid-holder will move onto the next word. On the other hand, they can also say “pass” and return to the word later.
5. Every correct guess is worth a point.

Before you set the time limit, think about the difficulty of the words you chose. A good rule of thumb is 30 seconds per word (which is 3 minutes total), but you can add or take away time as necessary. This can be a fun group activity, too.

This simple card game is designed to get people talking. Building Blocks is a perfect icebreaker tool or exercise for growing teams.

How to play:

The card game has six categories with questions aimed at “removing personal barriers and creating space for teamwork.” An example of a question in the deck is: What do you wish to spend more time on both in and outside the office”. If your team is remote, this can be played in person or over Zoom. The game is marketed for workshops, and meetings.

Materials you’ll need: Building Blocks card deck.

How many people: Small to mid-sized teams (8-16 people)

In virtual argument arena, two team members go head-to-head, debating a fun or totally ridiculous topic. One argues for, and the other argues against—whether it’s the superiority of pineapple on pizza or why dogs are better than cats. The rest of the team can sit back, watch, and vote for the winner.

This is a lighthearted way to get people talking, thinking on their feet, and maybe even learning how to argue without it getting personal!

How to play:

• Choose two participants and assign them opposing sides of a fun topic.
• They take turns debating while the rest of the team watches.
• The team votes on the most convincing argument to decide the winner.

Bingo blitz turns your workday into a game by creating Bingo cards filled with everyday office tasks or events—like “send an email,” “have a meeting,” or “drink a coffee.” As these things happen, players mark off their Bingo cards. First person to get a full row or column wins!

It’s a simple, fun way to make the office day a little more engaging and adds a bit of light competition to the regular routine.

How to play:

• Create Bingo cards with common office tasks or events.
• Players mark off tasks as they happen during the workday.
• The first person to get a full row or column shouts "Bingo!" and wins!

How to play Consequences

Kicking off our list of letter games is a fun crowd-pleaser called Consequences. This one works best with groups of more than 4 people, and no materials are needed! Each player in the group is going to add a consecutive line to the group’s story. Sitting in a group, the first person writes a sentence on paper, folds and hides the message, then passes it to the next person.

You’ll need to think of some cool lines beforehand, and the amount of lines depends on the number of people. Let’s create 5 lines for a team of 5 people:

1. A man’s name
2. The word “met”, then a female name
3. “He said…”
4. “She said…”
5. “And then…”

How to play Smartphone bingo

Some variation of bingo is helpful in nearly all scenarios, and this is no exception. Start by creating bingo cards with a random assortment of prompts based on your phone. For example, “has a to-do list”, “has Amazon as a bookmark”, “has more than 300 contacts”, or “has a photo of their dog”. Have a facilitator randomly pull these prompts and call them out, and attendees will fill in the square if it applies to them. This is a fun way to learn a bit more about your coworkers while also improving listening skills.

How to play “If I were”…

One of the easiest games to play, this activity allows players to describe themselves in different situations. Simply read the prompts out loud and give everyone a chance to respond. Some things you can suggest are:

• If I were a country, I’d be….
• If I were a song, I’d be…
• If I were a food, I’d be…
• If I were a brand, I’d be…
• If I were a cocktail, I’d be…
• If I were a wild animal, I’d be…
• If I were a mythical creature, I’d be…

Explanation:

Each team member describes themselves using traits from a famous movie or book character, without saying who they are. The rest of the team has to guess the character based on the clues.

This game is perfect for hybrid teams! Whether remote or in the office, everyone gets a chance to participate. Each person describes themselves using personality traits or quirks of a famous character via video call or chat, and everyone else guesses who they are. It’s an easy-going virtual icebreaker that gets people laughing, thinking creatively, and learning more about each other.

A quick brainteaser or trivia question is a simple way to engage your team at the start of the week. This is a particularly useful strategy for encouraging engagement in remote teams. You can create a dedicated channel in Slack for employees to discuss the answer.

Great for: Facilitating interaction

Duration: 5 minutes

Players: 6+

You’ll need: A thought-provoking riddle, trivia question or brainteaser

How to play Quiz Question of the Week

Setup: Establish a day of the week when you’ll pose a head-scratching question to your team. When the time comes to ask the question, you can display it in any way you see fit. Write it up on a whiteboard in the common area, drop it in an email, or—if you’re working remotely—put it in a dedicated Slack group.

To play: Once you’ve asked the question, allow some time for your employees to wrestle with potential answers/solutions. It’s up to you when you choose to reveal the answer, but the idea is to encourage your employees to engage with the question as a group. If you like, you can start a leaderboard with a prize at the end of the year for the person who answered the most questions correctly.

You may have played this party game as a child, but it also works brilliantly for breaking the ice at work-related team events. It’s particularly convenient because it doesn’t require any equipment, all you need is a group of people and an open area to move around in. Wink murder can be played with 10-30 people, any more and the game can take too long, any less and the game becomes too easy.

How to play Wink Murder

To prepare, arrange your group into a circle and ask them to close their eyes. At this moment, a moderator will move around the circle and select one player to be the ‘murderer’ by tapping them silently on their shoulder.

When the game starts, all the players start to walk around the room. It’s the task of the ‘murderer’ to catch eyes with a player and wink at them, eliminating them from the game. When a player gets winked at, they must ‘die’ as dramatically as they see fit and leave the game.

It’s the role of the players to identify who the ‘murderer’ is and to make an accusation. When a player wants to make a guess, they say “I accuse [name].” The accusation must be supported by at least one other player by saying “second”. The accused player must then respond with “yes” if they are the murderer or “no” if they are not.

If the accusation is wrong, the two players that made the guess must ‘die’ and leave the game.

How to play “Secret word” game

For this game, divide your group into two teams. Give each of them a different, “secret” word. The members of each team will try to incorporate the word into conversation as often as possible, without the other team guessing what their word is. For example, maybe one team is using the word “avocado”. Members would try to sneak in that word as often as possible, but organically, so it’s not easy to pick out. If someone orders a salad, a member might say “I love to put avocado in my salad.” Whichever team picks up on the other team’s secret word first, wins.Note: You obviously want to make sure the secret word is work appropriate!

This fun and interactive game helps employees to collaborate and polish their problem-solving skills. If you want to make it even more challenging, then you can set up obstacles or choose materials that will be tricky to pick up.

Here’s how to play the game:

1. Break a larger group into smaller teams of 3.
2. Hand each team a bucket of water filled with small objects (to represent radioactive waste). Grab things like tennis balls, blocks, clips, etc.
3. Put a smaller bucket on a table a few feet away from each team.
4. Participants need to use a rope with a square knot (or whatever other method they work out) to transfer the “waste” from the larger bucket into the smaller one.
5. The team that moves all of their waste first, wins. If everyone is moving at about the same pace, then the winner will be the group who moved the most in the amount of time you allocated.

How to play Moral dilemma

Similar to a “would you rather” game, this activity centers on ethical dilemmas. Players should try to flex their moral problem-solving muscles by tackling a social issue. For example, Scruples is a popular board game that can be played. Or, you can look online for versions of games like Dilemma or Quandary. This is a great way to learn more about your colleagues while getting a peek at the way they think.

5-minute energizers don’t get much better than this one. Got Your Finger is fun, fast-paced, suitable for groups of all sizes, and sure to lift the mood. Oh, and it requires no prior planning or preparation either.

Here’s how to play:

Ask the team to stand in a circle, close together, and face inward. Next, tell each participant to stick their right hand out with their palms facing the ceiling. They then have to put their left index finger on the open palm of whoever’s standing to their left.

Now the fun can start! When you shout “Go”, each participant must try to close their hand around their partner’s finger before they escape. It’s multi-tasking at its finest – trying to stop the colleague to your left from catching your finger, while simultaneously trying to grab whoever’s on the right.

Bring a little mystery into your next event with this game. This one can add some comedy, but also become a sort of brain-teaser. It's fun for teams who don’t know each other that well (yet) since you don’t need to really know anything about each other to play. Obviously, as the name suggests, gauge your audience before playing - a game with pretend murder in it might not appeal to all audiences.

To play:

1. Create a circle with room for people to move around, and have one person in the center of it.
2. Secretly, select one person who is part of the circle (not in the center of it). You can just pick someone at random or maybe draw names in advance. Regardless, remember this should be a secret.
3. Once the game is started, the selected person is the “killer”. They “kill” people by winking at them. When they make eye contact and wink at someone, that person is down and should fall over onto the ground. They can be as dramatic as they want, but obviously bigger reactions will get more laughs.
4. The person in the middle is going to try and figure out who the “killer” is by observing the behavior of the group. They can have three guesses on who the culprit is. If they guess correctly, then the previous murderer is up in the center role. If they guess incorrectly, then they stay in the center and play another round.

Companies can use milestone celebrations as a way to show gratitude to employees and recognize their contributions.

By hosting an event to honor a team member or a group project, here are some ideas companies can use to host a milestone celebration in their community to express gratitude:

• Anniversaries. Acknowledge employees' years of service with the company, typically done at the 5, 10, 15, or 20-year mark. Personalized gifts, extra time off, and even raises are great ways to honor someone's years of service.
• Employee of the Month. Recognize outstanding employees by designating them as the Employee of the Month or Quarter. Organize a small ceremony to present them with an award.
• Employee appreciation. Dedicate a day to celebrating your employees' hard work and dedication. Arrange activities, games, and treats.
• Company-wide recognition. Recognize milestone achievements by sending a thank you message through a newsletter or social media. Highlight the accomplishments and contributions of the employees and celebrate these successes by offering an incentive like professional development opportunities, flexible work options,
• Peer-to-Peer appreciation. Encourage employees to appreciate and recognize each other's contributions by letting them offer gifts, public acknowledgments, etc.

Recognition programs that celebrate milestones effectively ensure leadership expresses gratitude, letting employees know their hard work does not go unnoticed. Showing appreciation for your team's hard work will boost morale, increase job satisfaction, and foster a positive workplace environment.

Explanation:

‍Teams take creative photos that capture the spirit and quirks of the office, like the breakroom plant or that one messy desk. The goal is to create a fun photo journal that showcases the character of the workplace.

For this hybrid setup, in-office workers can snap photos of the office environment—those little things that make the space unique. Meanwhile, remote workers can take photos of their home office setups or capture quirky things around their workspace. All the photos are combined into a digital photo journal that showcases both the in-office and remote workspaces, reflecting everyone’s unique style and creativity. It’s a laid-back way to celebrate both environments and have fun seeing what makes each workspace special.

How to play Photo Scavenger Hunt

Instructions: Create a list of specific photos or scenes that teams need to capture using their smartphones or cameras. The team that captures all the items on the list in the shortest time wins.

Materials needed: List of photo items, smartphones or cameras.

The Photo Scavenger Hunt combines the fun of a scavenger hunt with creativity and photography. It encourages teamwork, problem-solving, and allows team members to explore the surrounding area while creating lasting memories.

How to play Sneak it in

Here’s a fun word game to get some chuckles around the virtual meeting room. Lifted from the movie Super Troopers, ‘Sneak It In’ involves giving someone the secret task of sneaking a random word into their sentences. In the movie, ‘meow’ is used by the trooper, who needs to say it in his sentences without giving the game away to the listener.

Create a private breakout room, then task someone with adding a word from a random noun generator online to their sentences. Watch the creative ways they can work it into their normal speech, until they’re caught out, then give the task to the next person.

How to play 10 things I do well

Another version of simply sharing information about yourself, ask people to come up with a list of ten things they do well. It’s a good idea to have a pen and paper at each place setting in advance so that people can brainstorm. Have everyone stand up and share their list with the group. This is actually a really powerful way to understand group dynamics and who is best for what, which is important for collaboration in the workplace. Plus, it’s a sort of forced reminder for individuals about what they are good at, which is a confidence builder.

How to Cup toppers

For this game you’ll need some cups or tumblers and some old compact discs. Place the cup a reasonable amount of space away from the player (such as a few feet, across a table). Have them take a stack of CDs and toss them, one by one, onto the cup. Their goal is to land as many as they can flat onto the top of the cup. Whoever strikes the most landings wins.