In this section, there are five icebreaker games for new teams in which members are just getting to know each other.
Once your team is ready to jump out of their comfort zone, we’ve provided step-by-step directions for 24 team-building exercises that are exciting, insightful, and fun.
Lastly, there are five thrilling virtual team building exercises that will make your remote team feel like the distance doesn’t even exist!
This list contains both outdoor and indoor team building activities that will boost employee engagement.
While some of these team building games may work best for a smaller team, most of these ideas are suitable for large groups and small groups.
About Group Size
Every game below includes a ‘group size.’
This does not refer to the total number of people participating in a team building session.
If you have a large group, you can break up that group into smaller ones. For example, if you have 20 people, you can break up this larger group into 5 smaller groups.
All these smaller groups can participate in a team building game simultaneously.
That’s how all corporate training programs are organized!
5 Icebreaker Games
Icebreakers are short games that help people get to know each other in an informal setting.
They build that initial rapport that’s essential to set the stage for a more involved team session.
Icebreakers are essential for both in-house and distributed teams.
Two Truths and a Lie
Time: 15–30 minutes
Group size: 4–6
Objective: Build affinity
In this game, team members get to act as human lie detectors!
Start off by letting each person tell two truths and one fabricated statement about themselves in a random sequence.
Then ask other team members to figure out which are the truths and what’s the lie. The speaker can then reveal which fact is indeed false.
What’s My Name
Time: 15–20 minutes
Group size: <20
Objective: Build rapport
Get your team to sit in a circle and take turns saying their names.
Next, throw a tennis ball at one person. They must toss the ball to another teammate while saying his or her name. 🎾
To ramp up the challenge, create a rule that members can’t throw the ball to the same person twice in a row.
Building a Storyline
Time: 30 minutes
Group size: Varies
Objective: Listening, collaboration, teamwork
For this icebreaker team building activity, arrange the participants in a circle.
One team member starts narrating a story but stops with an incomplete sentence such as, “John was excited. On his first day as a professional artist, he wanted to …” The next person finishes the sentence and adds another incomplete sentence.
For example, “Marshall experienced a spark of creativity and decided to …” This continues until the last member in the circle is reached, and an entirely coherent story has been formed.
This experience ensures that the entire group listens to one another and remains engaged in the activity, leading to better collaboration and improved listening skills.
You’ll quickly discover that listening is crucial to business growth!
For more challenge and extra creative thinking, throw in random words that people must include in the story.
Bonus: Best Buddy Movies for Teamwork
Form the Order
Time: 20 minutes
Group size: <20
Objective: Communication, collaboration
Instruct members to line themselves up based on specific criteria such as age, height, birthday, or shoe size.
The challenge?
All teamwork and communication needed to organize themselves must be conducted through non-verbal communication.
As people move around the room to complete the task, you will see the emergence of natural leaders and innovative communication means.
Show and Tell
Time: 30–60 minutes
Group size: 10–15
Objective: Build trust
This icebreaker works fantastically for remote workers.
Ask every team member to share something they love with the rest of the team.
It could be a hobby, an award, a pet, or something completely unexpected.
Give each team member one minute to show and talk about their special something and then allow others to ask questions.
Remember, the objective here is to build trust by sharing personal information.
24 Team Building Activities
Here are 24 team building games:
Life’s Best Moments
Time: 30–45 minutes
Group size: 15–20
Objective: Build rapport, trust
This team building activity requires participants to move out of their comfort zones.
- Instruct your team to spend a few minutes contemplating the best moments of their lives.
- Then ask them to decide which 30 seconds of their life they would relive again if they had the chance.
- Now, ask each team member to share their memory out loud.
If you are a senior team member running the activity, do share your own memory too.
Your participation goes a long way towards breaking down barriers between levels and creating more trust.
This activity is excellent for pulling members out of their comfort zones and creating meaningful working relationships.
Survivor
Time: 30 minutes
Group size: 4–6
Objective: Problem solving, collaboration, creativity
In this fun activity, give your team a fictional emergency scenario, such as being stranded on a desert island or in the middle of the Arctic.
Your employees will have to choose items that they’ll take with them to survive.
Here’s how to set it up:
- Give them an imaginary list of ten items, of which they can choose five. Include items such as a handful of seeds, a small pocket knife, a sword from the 1700s, 200 feet of cloth string or rope, a bedsheet, a two-liter bucket, one-liter of kerosene, a flint spark lighter, and so on.
- Divide the team into groups and have them collaborate on which items they will choose to survive.
- Then have them present their decisions to the entire group and have everyone decide on which team’s strategy is the best.
Game of Possibilities
Time: 10 minutes
Group size: 4–6
Objective: Problem-solving, communication, creativity
Give an object to each small group. Participants must take turns acting out a unique use of that object, and teammates have to guess what that use is.
For example, using chopsticks as knitting needles. 🥢
Let the innovation and creative thinking begin!
The Common Factor
Time: 5 minutes
Group size: 4–6
Objective: Build rapport, overcome bias
In this quick team building activity, instruct each group to find one thing they all have in common.
For example, one group discovers that they all love hiking.
Instruct the group of people to take on a hiker stereotype for the rest of the meeting.
Maybe throughout the meeting, those members will use terms like “natural,” “peaceful,” or “rad” to identify with the stereotype.
At the end of the meeting, discuss how stereotyping and passing judgment on a person’s qualities and preferences is ridiculous and blinding.
To take it a step further, have each person end with one quality about themselves that typically lies outside of the stereotype of the common quality.
Maybe one of the hikers loves designer handbags and shoes!
A Team-Made Puzzle
Time: 20 minutes
Group size: 8
Objective: Collaboration
Print out an image and then cut it into eight perfect squares.
Give each member of the group a square and a full-sized square sheet of paper. Instruct them to draw their pieces at scale.
In the end, all participants will put their puzzle pieces together to identify the picture.
This activity aims to demonstrate how each member contributes to the larger picture.
Psst… the pun was definitely intended.
