10 Awesome Virtual Icebreaker Games

When we’re working online, it can be hard to get to know other team members well or even to start a conversation.

So, with that in mind we’ve got some amazing virtual icebreaker games you can play to get the conversation flowing. 


The Emoji Check In Exercise

You can run this icebreaker at any time of day, when you want to sense-check how people are feeling. 

Just give your team a few minutes to respond with a single emoji answer to “how are things going right now?”

You can also use a variation on this theme at a “lessons learned” meeting for a project and get people to rate how they feel about the end result in a single emoji. 


Wheel Decide

Wheel Decide Question Game

Wheel Decide is an online game which everyone on the team can visit online and then they click the wheel to get a question that they have to answer for the rest of the group.

You can use a set bank of questions or, for better effect, use your own bank of questions designed for your team.

Just don’t make them too personal or too boring. 


Embarrassing Photo Day

This is our favorite ice breaker activity in the office. It works best when someone new joins a team, we think but you can use it any time. 

Everyone in the team is simply tasked with finding an embarrassing photo of themselves (PG-rated or below, please) and sharing it with the rest of the group.

This is often very, very funny and it really helps break down barriers between people and get them bonding. 


Virtual Tour Guide 

We like to run this over a matter of weeks with a new team. You just get every member of the team to take 10 minute turns at being a virtual tour guide to their own desk area.

This is quite a lot of fun and it lets people start talking about some of the interesting aspects of home working. Like why that standing desk (we love standing desks see the list of the best standing desks for home working here)? 

Or how much did you pay for that laptop (under $1,000 laptops are great for home working)? Or why did you choose that awesome headset? 


Doing Online Personality Tests Together

You don’t need to spend a single cent on these kinds of tests, they’re fun and shouldn’t be taken too seriously (no joke – the Myers-Briggs may be popular, but it’s been completely debunked in terms of accuracy). 

16 Personalities

Try some of these or Google for more: 

Just get everyone to take a test beforehand and then give people 2 minutes each to share their results and feelings about them. 


Sketching 

This is always fun and requires nothing but a piece of paper and a pen for each player. 

Pick a question such as “if your team was an animal, what would it be?” and then get people to draw their answers.

This gets a lot of laughs and you can have a brief discussion about the outputs as part of the exercises. 


Three Things About Me But… One Is A Lie

It’s an oldie but goldie. Get everyone around the Skype-campfire to come up with three interesting things about themselves but one of them must be a lie.

Then it’s down to the rest of the group to decide which one is a lie. 

This is a huge amount of fun but it can help to brief people a day before the meeting so that they can prepare their three “facts”. 


Where In The World Would You Like To Be?

Call up Google Maps and ask everyone where they’d like to be in the world, if they could be there right now.

Google Earth

Then used the Saved Places feature to build a list of the team’s favorite places in the world. 


Picture Charades

This works like ordinary charades but the individual gets the title of the movie, song, book, etc. and then they must provide 5 picture clues (which must not contain the title or anyone from the movie or book) to the answer. 


What Have We Got In Common? 

We saved the best until last. 

If the team is struggling to feel bonded, then asking them to work together to come up with 10 things that each team member has in common with all the others can help them to see each other as on the same side. 

E.g. “We’re all wearing hats!” or “We all have a Windows PC”. Etc. 


Final Thoughts On Virtual Icebreaker Games

It’s no harder to break the ice in remote teams than in face-to-face ones, it just requires a slightly different set of skills.

These virtual icebreaker games ought to make it super easy to get talking and once you are talking? Then magic can happen.