Icebreakers for Online Meetings

You have a virtual room full of participants, and you want a quick activity that helps warm up the group and sets a tone of collaboration and fun. Here are three of my favorites…

True of Me. One person states something that is true of them (e.g. “I have ridden a motorcycle”) and everyone that this true of stays on screen, while everyone that this isn’t true of covers their webcam with their hand or a piece of paper. Repeat for as long as the group is having fun, each time calling on someone whose video was covered in the last round to say something true of them.

Scavenger Hunt. Give participants 30 seconds to jump up, find something, and bring it back to the computer. You can ask for something mundane (e.g. something made of wood) or meaningful (e.g. an object you think tells a story about you). Share the object with the entire group, or use breakout rooms if you have many participants. Bonus creativity exercise: once everyone has shared what their object is, have everyone quickly list 5 other things their object could be.

Zoom Whack-a-Mole. This is a ridiculous game that gets everyone moving around and laughing, and you can find the complete instructions for it HERE. The game works best with music playing in the background, so while running it play a song on your computer and use Zoom’s share audio feature (Share Screen->Advanced->Share audio).

Would you like to learn more exercises and skills to facilitate teams online? WIT@Work offers engaging and effective workshops, using applied improv principles and tools, to help teams foster constructive conversations. Send an email (john@witdc.org), and I’ll get you additional information. 
John Windmueller, PhD
Director, WIT@Work