Fun group games to play at work

While Speed Networking may seem better suited for large group icebreakers, this activity can also be reworked as an intimate icebreaker activity. This exercise provides a fast and easy way for teams to get to know each other. To play Speed Networking, using a random team generator , pair your team into groups of two.

Then, give each pair icebreaker questions and five minutes to make their way through as many questions as possible. After five minutes are up, switch up the pairs. Since you are playing with a smaller group, you can cycle through the pairs more than once, so your colleagues can ask even more questions or simply chat about some information that came up in a previous question.

Need help thinking of ways to break the ice? Check out our list of icebreaker questions for some pointers. Hometown Map is an icebreaker game for work that is easy to set up.

To start, pin a large world map to a bare stretch of wall and place a marker, small Post-It notes, and box of push pins nearby. Then, notify your team to use the push pins and Post-Its to mark birth places or hometowns on the map over the next few days. When your team members walk past the map, the pins may prompt your colleagues to ask each other about experiences growing up in different places.

Psychology Masks is another icebreaker activity pulled from Psychology that is especially suited for artistically inclined teams. To get started, order blank white masks and paints. Then, ask your team to fill the outside of the masks with images signifying what others think of them, and illustrate the inside with drawings that symbolize their inner selves.

When the masks are complete, display the finished products in the office. Because of the dual nature of the masks, the display is sure to stimulate discussion among your team members and provide a low pressure icebreaker game for employees to share more about themselves,.

To participate in this icebreaker game for employees, ask all your coworkers to name an accomplishment achieved by age These accomplishments can range from academic to personal, and you can play as many rounds as you like. This exercise is a fun way to get to know each other, and breaks up the monotony of a slow workday.

One of the most prominent personality tests is the Myers-Briggs Test , which matches people with a personality type denoted by four letters that reveals what you are like in relationships, the workplace, and as a parent. Then, set a time where everyone gets together to discuss results. A Myers-Briggs Session is a fun activity to get people talking about themselves and how they work best with others. Jenga Questions is an icebreaker game for college students and other groups, where your team plays Jenga, while also answering questions.

Depending on whether you have a standard or giant Jenga set, either write numbers that correspond with questions or the actual questions on each brick. As each team member withdraws a brick, answer the question associated with it. Since an element of unpredictability exists with Jenga Questions, this exercise creates a spontaneous, easygoing way for employees to share information about themselves.

Here is a list of fun this or that questions you can use for the game. Large group games are undeniably effective at getting things rolling, and fun group activities are essential for getting a team engaged, but what if you need to go deeper? There are dedicated facilitation methods that work really effectively if you need certain conversations to happen in large groups.

The techniques below can be used as core group activities for planning and facilitating large group workshops. They tend to have only a few guiding principles and rules, which allows smaller groups to organize and manage themselves during a workshop.

Open Space Technology — developed by Harrison Owen — is a method perfectly suited for organizing and running large scale meetings, often multi-day events, where participants self-organize themselves to find solutions for a complex issue. There are only a few rules guiding the structure of the event, and the agenda is created by the people attending.

It is a great method for tacking important and complex problems where the solutions are not obvious. The technology can accommodate hundreds of people. Open space group activities can be incredibly productive, though remember that there is a degree of self-determination here, and the individual groups in the open space are only as good as their members and the set-up of the open space.

Open Space Technology idea generation liberating structures problem solving. When people must tackle a common complex challenge, you can release their inherent creativity and leadership as well as their capacity to self-organize. Open Space makes it possible to include everybody in constructing agendas and addressing issues that are important to them.

Having co-created the agenda and free to follow their passion, people will take responsibility very quickly for solving problems and moving into action. Letting go of central control i. You can use Open Space with groups as large as a couple of thousand people! Facilitators create a cafe-style space and provide simple guidelines for the groups of people to discuss different topics at different tables. The structure of this method enables meaningful conversations driven completely by participants and the topics that they find relevant and important.

World Cafe works great when slightly informal, with a relaxed cafe-style atmosphere. Group activities like this benefit from the setting of the right tone — make sure to get this right before you begin!

World Cafe hyperisland innovation issue analysis. Facilitators create a cafe-style space and provide simple guidelines. Participants then self-organize and explore a set of relevant topics or questions for conversation. So, here the group members do not switch tables, but participate in four rounds of conversation with taking different approaches to exchange opinions and discuss the same topic in depth. This more focused group activity format helps to build trust and connection between group members and therefore well-suited to handle controversial or difficult topics among diverse participants.

Again this method is very practical when dealing with large groups by setting up parallel discussion groups. The classic — and often ineffective — shout-out type of brainstorming session has a natural limitation when it comes to large groups. However, there are other methods that provide a structured way to get people into creative thinking and elicit innovative ideas from everyone in the room even if you have dozens of participants.

Remember that workshop activities should not be limited to large group games. Tailor your agenda to your group and the purpose of the workshop or training session so that you have the right mix of group activities and group games.

This is an idea generation method that is really easy to scale into large groups, yet still allows every participant to actively take part in the process.

You split the audience into groups of four, share the challenge or question that people should focus on, then kick off the following sequence of activities in the parallel groups: at first, silent self-reflection by individuals, then generate ideas in pairs, and then share and develop further the ideas in the circle of four people.

At the end of the process, the best ideas from each group should be shared with the whole audience. Group activities that encourage deep participation from all of the participants are often those that are most effective. Work to include a mix of workshop activities to get the whole group involved and engaged. With this facilitation technique you can immediately include everyone regardless of how large the group is.

You can generate better ideas and more of them faster than ever before. You can tap the know-how and imagination that is distributed widely in places not known in advance.

Open, generative conversation unfolds. Ideas and solutions are sifted in rapid fashion. Most importantly, participants own the ideas, so follow-up and implementation is simplified.

No buy-in strategies needed! Simple and elegant! The following workshop activities will help you to prioritize the most promising ideas with a large group and select up with the best actions and goals to execute. Having fun in large group games is great for team building and has value in itself, but without decision making and follow-up actions, a workshop might not be as valuable as it could be. Include group games and group activities that help the group come to informed, inclusive decisions so that you spend your time most effectively.

Every participant receives a set of colourful sticky dots and they place them next to the ideas they find best — the ideas need to be written on post-its or on a board before the voting starts. There are different variations: you may give multiple dots to people and they can choose how many dots they assign to each option they like. This tools quickly helps a group to recognise — without spending time on discussions — which options are the most popular. Using group activities which are time efficient can help ensure you cover everything in your agenda.

One thing to watch out for is the group bias, though: The more voting dot an option collects during the process, the more appealing it may become to get further votes from the participants who still have to assign their dots.

For this reason, it is wise to use dot-voting not as a final instrument to select the best option, but as an indicator of which few options are the most popular. Dotmocracy action decision making group prioritization hyperisland remote-friendly. Dotmocracy is a simple method for group prioritization or decision-making. It is not an activity on its own, but a method to use in processes where prioritization or decision-making is the aim.

The method supports a group to quickly see which options are most popular or relevant. The options or ideas are written on post-its and stuck up on a wall for the whole group to see.

Each person votes for the options they think are the strongest, and that information is used to inform a decision. So you opened your workshop with large group games that were fun and inclusive, and then included group activities that got the group talking and make important decisions. How then, should you finish the day?

What group activities help a team reflect and come away from a workshop with a sense of accomplishment? The below facilitation techniques will help to effectively close a large group session. They are simple, time-bound and allow every group member to share their opinion and find the key takeaways after a workshop or event. Remember that you should close a session with the same attention and enthusiasm you started with.

Group activities such as those below help ensure the energy and success of the session are carried forward and followed up upon. Have you ever met this situation? Someone is asked to present back after a group session and it gets unfocused. This group activity helps to maintain attention and forces everyone to stay concise during a closing round with a natural limit: You are only allowed to share your opinion with just one breath — that is usually no longer for 30 seconds for most people.

In case you have a large group, it works most effectively if you split up the group to circles of participants, in order to keep the feedback round under five minutes. Remember that group activities that are timeboxed in this manner can help keep the energy up and ensure you cover everything you need to in time.

After a set time limit, the drawing time ends and both team members view the original picture and the drawing. Purpose: This is an exercise that focuses on communication and language. While the final drawing will seldom look like the picture, it is revealing to participants to see how different the interpretation of instructions can be even when they are supposedly talking about the same thing. Gather your team in a circle, and have them sit down. Each team member should then put on a provided blindfold.

Leave the circle. Instruct them to form a perfect square out of the rope without removing their blindfolds. You can introduce variations into this game. For example, you might, at random, instruct a team member to not speak. One by one, members of the group are muted, making communication more challenging. Or, let the team come up with a plan before putting on the blindfold, but once they cannot see, they also cannot talk. Purpose: This exercise deals with both communication and leadership styles.

There will inevitably be team members who want to take charge, and others who want to be given direction. The team will have to work together to create the square, and find a way to communicate without being able to see. On name tags or similar labels, write down the name of a famous person, or write down people types e. For a set amount of time, the entire group should mingle, and ask and answer questions. They should treat each other according to the stereotypical way based on what kind of person they have been labeled.

Each team member can use that treatment, as well as the answers to questions, to figure out what the label is. As each team member figures out who they are, they can exit the game and let the rest continue. Purpose: By confronting stereotypes in both how people treat us and in the questions and answers used, the team can get a better sense of how we mistakenly see people as well as how it feels to be so narrowly defined.

This is also a good ice-breaker activity if you have team members that do not know each other yet. Using masking tape, create a large polygonal shape on the floor. It should be about 12 feet long by 6 feet wide, at least. Mark the start and stopping points. Make the shape a bit convoluted, choosing a shape that is elongated with the idea that people must make their way from one end to the other.

Place a few squeaky dog toys inside the shape, and twice as many full sheets of paper with a large X on them inside the shape. The paper is the mines. At least two at a time, each person on your team must make their way from start to finish blindfolded.

They cannot step outside of the boundary, nor can they step on a mine. If they do, they are frozen. They can only be unfrozen if someone else inside the shape steps on a squeak toy. Their only guidance is the vocal commands of those outside the shape who are not blindfolded. Purpose: This game is about communication, and trusting each other. Players learn to be observant of multiple action as well as give clear and timely advice.

On a bulletin board or other surface which accepts thumbtacks, create a blank timeline. The timeline should start as far back as the oldest member on your team was born or when the company was founded, whichever came first.

Mark each year on the timeline. Then, using narrow strips of paper, write down important dates for the company e. Give your team members four slips of paper, and ask them to mark down four important moments in their life.

Let them pin them to the timeline. Purpose: This exercise helps show, in a visual way, the different generations and experiences of your team. It leads well into talking about cultural and generational differences and the effects that has on how people work and communicate. It is also an opportunity for team members to learn more about each other. Have each team member bring one item from their desk to the exercise.

Then, tell them that this item is going to be their new product, and that they must come up with a name, logo, slogan, and marketing plan for that object. Give them a set amount of time. This could be done individually, or in small groups if desired. Discuss, as a group, which products were successfully sold and why. Purpose: For marketing and design teams, this exercise presents the challenge of seeing old things in a new light.

When combined with groups working together to sell a common object, you introduce teamwork and crunch-time brainstorming. It promotes creativity and problem solving, too. Come up with several scenarios in which a person would be chosen to do something. For example, it might be a new job hire, marriage, leading an organization, or commanding an army. Have each team member write their question down. When all scenarios have been covered, discuss the questions as a group and see what each team member thinks would be the perfect question.

Purpose: Team members quickly learn how each other thinks differently. The perfect question that each comes up with will reflect their motives and what they think matters the most. This is an excellent way to lead into a discussion on how team members determine who is capable and who they will follow or trust. Collect a variety of objects and put them in the center of a table.

The broader the variety, the better e. The goal is to collect items that, at first glance, have no apparent connection. Break the team into groups, giving each group a sheet of paper and pen. Make sure they have a clear view of all the objects. Instruct them to classify the objects into four groups, writing down the groupings on their sheet of paper.

They should not let the team groups hear what they are doing. When the time is up, have a spokesperson for each group reveal how they classified the objects, and why. Reasons might vary, from the function of the object to how it looks, or the material it is made of.

Purpose: This exercise promotes teamwork and creative thinking, but it also encourages your team to rethink how they view everyday objects. They are forced to look for commonalities in otherwise unconnected objects.

This leads to a discussion on how to work outside the box for solutions to problems that seem wholly unrelated. Bring in four objects or multiple sets of four objects of the same type e.

Write up a conversational scenario for each set that outlines what the perfect item would be, in the order of preference. While none of the four objects is an exact match, each have qualities that reflect that perfect list. Read this scenario to your team, and instruct them to order the objects from best fit to worst fit.

When all object sets are done, have team members explain why they ordered the objects that way. Purpose: This exercise helps your team break down a scenario or problem and figure out which things are the best fit.

This dovetails directly into discussion on current projects or challenges facing the group, in which you can, as a group, write a scenario for an actual project you are working on and decide which solutions are the best fit. Bring the team into the room, and divide evenly into groups of at least two. Tell them they have thirty minutes to come up with a group problem-solving challenge that would make use of: teamwork, creativity, communication. When the thirty minutes is complete, the team will choose from one of the problem-solving challenges and actually do the activity.

A variation is to use all of the challenges over a period of time so that your team-building activities come directly from your team itself. Purpose: This team building exercise puts leadership responsibilities back on your team, showing them that they have the potential to come up with solutions, too.

It also gives your team a chance to challenge other team members in ways they might not otherwise find the opportunity to do so in regular workday activity. Bring your team in for what they think is just another staff meeting.

Have a long document filled with mind-numbing but coherent jargon-filled speech that talks vaguely about sales and marketing goals. Sprinkled in the document are sentences which say something else entirely. These sentences should contain instructions or information that they will be quizzed on after you are finished. Begin reading it to your team in monotone. The goal is to get them to tune you out. When you are finished, hand out paper to each team member.

Then, ask them to write down what they thought you talked about. If your real sentences contained random information, quiz them on that. Discuss who heard what, and see who was able to actively listen. It shows the importance of listening to verbal communication, but also non-verbal communication.

They can discuss why they tuned you out, and what you could have done to keep them tuned in.