Looking for fun activities for your next Zoom meeting? Get your conversations started with these Virtual Ice-breakers for large groups!
This list of best Zoom Icebreakers is all you need to hypercharge virtual team bonding!
With the work culture shifting from in-office to work from home globally, there has been a sudden decline in in-person meetings and not just professional in-person meetings, but movie nights, family and romantic dinners, outings and happy hours with friends.
Now, remote and hybrid teams, choose to conduct online conference calls on Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, WebEx or other video conferencing platforms. However, these meetings come with a growing problem of Zoom fatigue and so companies are looking for ways to make their meetings more interactive and have a social element to them.
The answer lies in conducting fun virtual water cooler and team building activities as Zoom meetings. Some great examples of social activities are Zoom meeting icebreakers, games and activities that make boring meetings fun.
Many companies prefer to start or end their meetings with icebreaker games or a quick game of trivia to break the ice. This makes everyone feel energised before the meeting and even end the meeting on a positive note.
Here are 20+ ideas for conducting Zoom happy hours at your next Zoom meeting.
1. Open-ended Icebreaker Questions
2. This or That (Would You Rather)
3. Netflix Series You're Currently Binging
4. I Spy
5. 2 Truths and a Lie
6. Story Building
7. Emoji check-in
8. Rose, Bud, Thorn
9. Virtual Room Tours
10. Virtual Movie Party
11. Zoom virtual backgrounds
12. Virtual Pictionary
13. Social Distancing Bingo
14. Trivia Time
15. Most Likely To
16. Never Have I Ever
17. First impressions
18. Meet the team
19. Lost on a Deserted Island
20. Introduction by drawing on a whiteboard
21. Five Things
22. Rock, Paper and Scissors
23. Virtual Scavenger Hunting Game
24. Sharing Childhood Photos
25. Online Coffee Breaks
26. Zoom Murder Mystery
27. Virtual Debates
28. The “ee” words game
29. Birthday Calendar on Camera
30. Zoom Charades
31. What’s the movie?
32. What lies ahead? Predicting company news headlines 5 years ahead
33. Prepare and share your bucket list
34. Its raining positivity
35. Game Closure Activity - Three Words
Here are some virtual ice breakers for Zoom that your team will love for team building as Zoom meeting starter games.
Icebreaker questions have got to be the top on the list. What does one do to get to know the other person? Ask questions!
You can take these up a notch by adding a timer or converting these into rapid fire rounds.
You can also keep it fresh by setting a theme for every meeting and asking questions of that particular theme or category. Like food & drink, funny, work-related or reflective icebreaker questions.
But what we struggle with at times is asking the right questions. A few examples of icebreaker questions are:
For more questions, refer to our list of 120+ icebreaker questions for team building.
Great for: Onboarding new members in small and large remote teams. For smaller groups, you can have a more interactive session with specific questions, whereas for larger groups, you can have everyone take turns answering the same question. These icebreakers for Zoom meetings can also be used to start or end a Zoom meeting for breaking the ice.
Would You Rather is a quick and effective icebreaker game for small and large teams. Simply make employees choose their favourite out of two options .
Short Would you rather questions:
Long Would you rather questions:
You can refer to our list of 1000+ Would you rather questions to make it super easy to play.
Great for: Remote teams looking for a quick games session on Zoom. It can help employees get to know each other better and understand each others preferences. It is a great tool to get coworkers talking to each other and ultimately bond.
We all have been binging over shows like The Queen’s Gambit, Bridgerton, Stranger Things, Twenty Five Twenty One, Money Heist and Rick & Morty. A fun and simple way to break the ice is to bond over which TV series everyone is watching.
You can bond over similar taste in TV shows, and it can be a great conversation starter. A great way to indulge everyone further would be to divide everyone into small or large groups and have Trivia quizzes on Zoom.
Who knows, you might get suggestions for your next TV show to watch!
Great for: Bonding over common interests and have easy light-hearted conversations on Zoom.
Ask everyone to use Gallery View on Zoom to see each other’s window in one view. Next, start a game of I Spy by naming an object that you see in someone’s frame.
Everyone can take guesses and take a close look at each other’s backdrop.
This can be super fun and entertaining for your team and is a great way to end a meeting!
For example, when someone says “I spy blue painting with flowers.”, the first person to spot the item can point out the location of the item and name the person. The person who finds the item first goes next.
Great for: Remote teams looking for a quick bonding session. It can lead to interactions with new people and learn each other’s names.
This is a classic that everyone loves, but with a twist.
One person writes down 3 statements about themselves, with two statements being the truth and one being the lie.
You can do this over a shared whiteboard, where everyone takes a guess and states the lie by adding a dot or a symbol of your choice on the whiteboard.
You can also mark the statements A, B and C and ask your colleagues to vote for the lie. Simple and effective!
Use Slack at your workplace? Play 2 Truths and a Lie with Ricotta Trivia on Slack!
Great for: Small as well as large groups that are looking to get to know each other better.
Your team can create amazing stories together with this virtual activity.
One person has to set the theme of the story and starts with one line, the next person has to continue the story from there and add their own twist to the story.
This is a great way to get everyone involved in a creative exercise on Zoom.
To play a game of Story Building on Slack, install Ricotta Trivia and upvote the part of the story you like the best for making it more interactive.
Great for: All remote teams, especially creatives, content teams and people who enjoy creative exercises.
This is a great way to indulge in a conversation, especially at the start of a meeting.
Have everyone define their mood with the help of an emoji.
This will help everyone in the team understand how the other people are feeling.
You can make this fun by turning it into an emoji puzzle or emoji trivia for some added laughs.
Great for: Icebreaker at the start of the meeting or a quick game for laughs.
This is a great way to bring mindfulness using virtual team games.
Basically, in this game Roses are the positive experiences, Buds are potential ideas and Thorns are the hurdles or negatives that you’ve faced.
Sharing such personal emotions can help bond with your team in a very strong way. It can also help you reflect on your current work challenges in a very effective away.
Great for: Conducting mindful and reflective icebreaker exercises on Zoom.
Check out the list of teamwork games that you’ll love.
This one’s an extension of the show me your Work From Home setup activity.
Of course, not everyone would be comfortable giving a virtual tour of their personal space, so you can start by sharing something unique or memorable from your space and narrating a story.
Not only will this be fun, but will also give your colleagues a chance to get to know you better.
Great for: Small groups for more intimate and highly engaging virtual activities.
This one’s always a big win! Watching movies and documentaries can not only keep everyone engaged at the same time, but can also help become a conversation starter.
One great way to do so is using Hyperbeam, a tool we found on Product Hunt and absolutely love!
Great for: Both small and large teams for some virtual happy hour sessions.
The best way to have a laugh? Set funny and unique Zoom backgrounds while on a Zoom call.
This can help set a light mood and is a great icebreaker for long and monotonous Zoom meetings.
You can even use these to hide a messy room or a boring backdrop. Make it a contest by rewarding the person with the most unique and funny Zoom background.
We all love Pictionary, don’t we? It’s super exciting and brings a bit of healthy competition to the table.
To play Pictionary on Zoom, start by dividing your team into small groups. You can then use a random word generator to get a word that you have to draw.
Make use of the Zoom whiteboard feature and assign one person to draw the generated word while other members guess.
Of course, you can also time this to make it even more fun and interactive. In the end, reward the team with the most points.
Great for: Teamwork and new team introductions.
Fun and simple! No, you don’t need a traditional Bingo board. With so many Bingo templates being exchanged on social media, you can easily find a desired template on Pinterest or Instagram.
Set a theme to your Bingo challenge like a movie, TV show or season. Reward your team members with fun prizes like a free coffee or takeout.
Great for: Starting a meeting and encouraging everyone’s participation.
Everyone enjoys a game of Trivia and you can even turn this into a Zoom rapid fire Trivia with a timer.
To make it even more fun, you can set a fun theme like animals, cuisines, Brand logos or TV shows. Simple!
Remember to keep track of individual scores so that you can reward the top scores with something like an Amazon gift card, a free coffee or a lunch. This will make the team more engaged and would bring some healthy competition to the table.
Great for: Everyone to participate and indulge in healthy competition.
Check out our list of fun US Trivia, 90s Trivia, Movie Trivia, Food Trivia and Football Trivia.
Most Likely To, when played as a icebreaker game on Zoom can be a lot of fun, especially with a funny set of questions. The game is simple to play with a question answer format.
It is a question game in which a person asks a question and the others have to name a person ‘Who is most likely to’ be in that situation.
Great for: Fun icebreaker game for get virtual togethers on Zoom.
Check out Most Likely To Questions to kickstart your game
This one’s a virtual game favourite! It is traditionally a drinking game but can be played with workplace appropriate questions easily. Instead of drinking on each prompt, one can raise their hand and then narrate the stories one by one. This will make the game more interactive and fun.
Great for: Never Have I Ever is a classic Zoom icebreaker game that can help break the ice easily and ultimately lighten the mood.
Refer to our list of Never Have I Ever Questions to play this game
This is a great icebreaker exercise for introducing new people to the team. The aim of the game is to convince people of the importance of first impressions. However, this game only works with people who do not know one another very well so it advised to play this game with a set of new joinees in a group.
At the beginning of the game, ask everyone to pick a partner whom they do not know.
Ask them to write down their comments relating to the areas below, without showing them to anyone on the call. You can ask the following questions to yourself and write them down. The aim is to guess the answers, based on what you can see about the other person on the call.
Where did your partner grow up?
What are their favourite hobbies?
What sort of a car do they drive?
What sort of person are they?
Where do they live?
What do they do to relax?
You can give everyone five minutes to write their answers down.
You can then prompt everyone to read out their answers and tell the story of how they arrived at that conclusion.
It can be a really fun activity that can also teach the team about the importance of first impressions.
Great for: Onboarding new employees and learning new things about each other.
Meet the team is a creative icebreaker game that will enable team members to get to know each other better.
This is originally an in-person exercise that involves a blank white T-shirt and lots of coloured pens. Each person is then given some time to decorate the t-shirt with information about them.
Next, the t-shirts are hung up in a corner and everyone is made to guess which t-shirt belongs to whom. However, we will tweak this exercise to a virtual Zoom icebreaker.
Here is how you can play Meet the team with your team on Zoom:
Great for: This is designed to get people to know each other. It works particularly well with the larger group (15+) as people's knowledge of individuals is not so great.
Lost on a Deserted Island is a fun icebreaker game that can help people intermingle with each other better. Everyone on the call is given a scenario that they are lost in a deserted island. Each person is then asked a question ”What is the one object that you would you bring along and why?”
This is quick thinking game with no additional props or arrangements required and is ideal for medium-sized groups. Ask everyone to submit their entries in a document to the team leader.
The team leader can then form smaller groups and ask the team to work together to improve their chances of survival by combining the various objects that they chose. Prompt the small teams to work together on separate virtual calls and with a time duration of thirty minutes.
After thirty minutes, each team can present their idea in front of everyone. The team leader can then take a vote to reward the most creative group.
The results of this game can be really fun and engaging for everyone. It is a great team building exercise that can help teams bond better.
Great for: This type of game encourages quick and swift thinking. It also helps you assess your current scenario and design a way to come out of a problematic situation. It helps in overall team bonding and interaction
Want to have some creative fun for 10 minutes before your online meeting begins? Then here is something for you.
This game helps in introducing yourself to the team and letting them know from which corner of the world you come.
It helps you also in knowing and understanding the place that your colleagues belong to.
How to play this game? Just like the virtual Pictionary game, you need to use the Zoom whiteboard feature for drawing.
All you need to do here is, write your name and then draw anything that connects to the place you belong to. For instance, if you are coming from Paris, you can write your name and draw the Eiffel Tower.
The game can be made more interesting by allowing your team members to guess the place once you draw something related to it.
The person guessing the right answer gets to go next or you can decide the order of players before starting the game.
Great for: New members will get an opportunity to introduce themselves by showcasing their creative talent here. This will also help everyone to know their team members better. This game can be fun when played between 3 members to about 20 members.
This game tests your thinking abilities. One needs to think quickly here. This is a great game for connecting with your team on Zoom. The game may sound quite simple, but may not be for some.
How to play this game? Well, every player needs to select a particular topic and name a person from the team. The selected person needs to list out five things from the given topic within a time span of 15 seconds.
For instance, if the topic is comets, and the person is John, then John has to list out names of five comets which can be Halley, Hyakutake, Biela, Chiron, and Hale-Bopp. Once this player finishes naming five things from the given topic, then he needs to choose another topic and player.
If the topics are interesting, the game is more fun to play.
Great for: This game tests the general knowledge of individual team players and also enables each player to think and answer while keeping in mind the time limit. Players having a keen interest in general knowledge and exploring new areas of learning tend to enjoy this game.
Who is not acquainted with this game? We have all played this game during our free lectures in school and nothing could be more entertaining than this one.
The name “Rock, Paper, Scissor” immediately brings a smile to all our faces. If you all love this game, then why not play it on Zoom to help everyone become active and energised!
How to play this game on Zoom?
Great for: This game enables team members to bond well with each other and have fun at the same time. This is ideal for a small-sized team, maybe about 3-20 players but not for too many team members.
As kids, all of us must have played this game at a friend’s place or even a birthday party. However, you can even play this game over Zoom. A group leader or a moderator needs to prepare a list of things that all players need to fetch in a certain time. The time limit can be anything, say about 10 to 15 minutes. The person who fetches all the items first or the maximum number of items is the winner.
Your list of items can be anything as such:
The list could be endless. However, the moderator needs to list out a maximum of 10-12 items depending on the time frame decided. Sounds fun isn’t it?
You can find a printable Virtual Scavenger Hunt here
Great for: These kinds of games ensure active participation from all members. Ideal for a 3-15 member team.
Well, we understand that you would want to share your childhood photos with only those set of people with whom you are close and comfortable. But if you have been working together for a while, then this could be a great way to have lovely conversations.
Let us say, you are waiting for a few people to join your Zoom meeting.
In the meanwhile, you can strike up meaningful conversations with your other co-workers by requesting them to share their childhood pictures or any funny memory associated with their childhood.
These kinds of conversations help you in becoming more comfortable with your teammates.
Great for: This is a great game that encourages team bonding and free conversations in between work-related talks. However, new members may not be very comfortable sharing their pictures, hence avoid this game if you have any new joiners.
We all love and long for those coffee breaks while at work. However, how about having a virtual coffee break once or twice a week if not daily?
Not only do these breaks serve as stressbusters, but they also help you in having meaningful and useful conversations outside of work with your team members.
With the work from home culture, one may find it really boring and monotonous to work without the presence of friends and colleagues around. These kinds of coffee breaks will help in reviving those good old office days.
New members also stand a good chance here to introduce themselves and interact with other team members.
Great for: These virtual coffee breaks act as great icebreakers and also stress relievers.
When a murder mystery movie can be quite thrilling, so can a murder mystery game. And the good news is that now these kinds of games can be played online. Yes, you heard that right.
If you need any ideas for these kinds of games, you can check out Virtual Murder Mystery Zoom Parties which has been started by The Murder Mystery Co.
These games are ideal to be played between 8-10 players.
Participants will receive the game link on Zoom about a couple of hours before the game begins.
You need to dedicate at least 2 hours to this game.
Great for: Team bonding, having a lot of fun and a lively interaction
While actual live debates could be fun, online debates are no less.
These types of activities will encourage employees to prepare themselves for any public speaking events. It also helps in boosting individual self-confidence during any kind of communication.
Apart from that, activities like these also encourage employees to listen, which becomes very crucial in a workplace.
For holding virtual debates online, the moderator responsible for conducting the debate will choose a topic.
Then the moderator will select 2 persons from the team. One will speak for the topic while the other one will talk against it.
Members who are speaking for and against the topic can even prepare Powerpoint presentations to put forth their arguments.
The remaining team members act as audience members. At the end of the debate, it is up to the audience to decide the winner.
The topics can be anything as follows:
The list could be endless. The topics could also have a sense of humor like, “Would you drink tap water or bottled water?”, “Clowns are scary - Agree or Disagree?” and so on.
Great for: Debates improve communication and listening skills and they also boost your self-confidence to speak in front of an audience while keeping the fun element alive.
If you just want to have some fun before or after a meeting, then the “ee Words” game is perfect.
For this game, the host needs to prepare about 10-15 words from any category like movie names, songs, celebrities, etc.
Now here is the catch. All the vowels in each of these words are replaced by “ee” and then read out to the other team members who need to guess the correct words.
For instance, consider that the host reads out these words from the category “Celebrities”.
Any guesses on what are the right answers? Well, have a look below.
As you can see, all the vowels in each of these words have been replaced by “ee”.
To make it a little more challenging and to have some more fun, instead of “ëe”, you can choose to replace the vowels with other letters like “oo” or “ii”. It is up to the host to decide.
The member who guesses the maximum number of words within the given time frame is the winner.
Great for: This game can be played before a meeting commences so that all the team members are charged up and their concentration levels are high. Ideal for about 8-10 members.
This is another fun activity and interesting game which makes you recollect the birthday month of all your teammates. If there are about 20-30 members, the game can become more challenging.
The leader or the host will request all the group members to switch off their cameras on Zoom. Then they will call out all months like January, February, and so on till December.
Now, all those members whose birthday is in the month of January need to switch on their cameras when it is called out. During this time, the other members shall make a note of all the people who celebrate their birthdays in January.
This will go on till the host calls out all 12 months.
Once this is done, all the members need to make a note of the birthday months of their team members. The person answering most birthdays correctly wins the game.
This game is ideal for large groups making it more difficult to remember the birthday months of so many team members.
Great for: A great activity to improve your memory and concentration levels. You even get to know the birthday months of your colleagues.
Charades is something that all of you must have played with your family members and friends.
You can even have a Zoom Charades session after you are done with a meeting. How can you play this game? Well, if the team size is big, then the group leader can divide the team into two groups.
Pick a member from a particular group and give them a topic to enact.
The person enacting the word will be muted and the team members have to guess the word. The team that guesses maximum words correctly emerges as the winner.
If the team is small, then this game can be played without any group formation as well. A person enacts a word and the remaining team members need to guess. The first person guessing the word correctly wins the round.
Great for: Some fun activity after a meeting making new members feel comfortable in the team.
All movie buffs would love playing this game. The host needs to create a YouTube playlist comprising of scenes from various movies. Each scene has to be played one at a time.
The host needs to make sure that the movie's name is not revealed in any clip. After every scene, all the participants need to guess the name of the movie via the Zoom chat box feature.
The person coming up with the right movie name first after every clip is played becomes the winner of that particular round.
To make it more challenging, you can include scenes from not-so-famous movies and leave your team members thinking and racking their brains.
Great for: Some fun and lively interaction.
The group leader or manager can ask the other team members to think of where the company would stand in the next 5 years.
All the team members would be given a certain time limit for coming up with what they think the company would be making headlines for after 5 years.
Then, every member needs to read out what they have written and explain why.
Great for: Encourages creative and intellectual thinking. Suitable for small and medium-sized teams.
Another game that will help your team members get to know you through your bucket list.
The host asks all the team members to prepare a bucket list and give them some time.
Everyone reads out their respective bucket lists and let everyone know why the particular item is so important to them.
In case you have not prepared a bucket list till now, maybe you can grab an opportunity by participating in this activity.
Great for: All team members can have a lively discussion regarding their individual bucket lists. This game is apt for about 5-10 members.
This is a very beautiful and positive game.
The group leader will switch over to the Zoom gallery view. They will instruct every member to speak something nice about the person who is to their right.
In this manner, everyone gets a chance to speak something good about their colleagues. The game ends when all members participated in the game.
Great for: This is a lovely game that can enhance and promote interpersonal and healthy relationships within a team. Ultimately, all of this would lead to an increase in productivity.
Well, after you have played a fun game on Zoom, how about a quick game closure?
All team members need to describe the activity or game that they participated in a while ago in just three words. At the end, each member needs to read out what they have written and give a very good reason for it.
Great for: A lovely and a thoughtful talk regarding the team building activity or the game.
All of us have partitipated in icebreaking sessions at some point of time in our lives, be it during school days, college days or maybe even at our workplace.
The purpose of an icebreaker session is to make all members feel comfortable with each other. Some of these sessions also involve creative thinking and speaking, concentration skills, presentation skills and brainstorming ideas to name a few.
Have you ever imagined about virtual icebreaking sessions?
Now, many organizations have adopted the work-from-home working model. During such times, interaction with your co-workers is only online. Then what is the necessity of these icebreakers?
The answer lies here. Virtual fun interactive sessions help you in understanding the nature of your colleagues.
A long Zoom meeting can become monotonous in the absence of lively interactions. And these icebreaking sessions exactly serve this purpose.
We have prepared a good list of Zoom icebreakers to spice up your meetings and make them more meaningful.
For more fun ways to keep your team engaged, refer to these resources:
Leadership Games for Team Building
These ice breakers for zoom meetings can be used for engaging your coworkers during virtual meetings. Such virtual activities and icebreaker games for Zoom can add some fun and help break the monotony of meetings.
Since many meetings tend to go on for hours, it is always a good idea to have a short game session so that the meeting does not end up stretching for too long. However, virtual team building activities are important for getting that much needed break and a standalone team building session with games and Zoom icebreakers can be very effective and a big hit with the employees.
The great thing about ice breakers for Zoom meetings is that everyone can play games together and control the duration as well as the type of game easily since these sessions tend to be informal.
Hope our list of icebreaker activities for Zoom helps you and your team!
Zoom icebreakers are virtual games and activities that are played via online Zoom meetings by remote and hybrid teams. All the team members join a Zoom meeting to indulge in Zoom games and activities. These activities can also be conducted at the beginning or the end of a work meeting to break the ice.
Zoom icebreaker sessions help in team building, adding a bit of fun to monotonous work and creating happier, engaged teams. This in turn improves overall productivity and motivation of employees thereby leading to better employee retention. An overall boost in work culture can be noticed over time with employees less likely to feel “burnt out” or “overworked”.
Yes, icebreaker games are free and are very simple to implement in your virtual team building routine. If your team uses Slack, you can play free icebreaker games like Would You Rather, Two Truths and a Lie, icebreaker questions and co-worker questions with Ricotta Trivia.
You can conduct good Zoom icebreaker sessions on Slack, Microsoft Teams, Webex Meetings, Discord or any other platform that you use for your daily collaboration.
There are many ways in which you can keep your team engaged and ensure that everyone joins the virtual Zoom team building session.
To pick out a fun icebreaker game for Zoom, you can follow these tips:
With fun quizzes, games and icebreakers, Ricotta helps teams to bond and have fun on Slack, Webex and Microsoft Teams.
Ricotta lets you play together as a team, no matter where you are in the world. The best part? It’s asynchronous, with a real-time leaderboard and an option to auto-schedule quizzes throughout the week.
Ricotta helps teams to:
1. Build an amazing team culture
2. Add a bit of fun to monotonous work
3. Bond and enhance team connections
4. Create happier, engaged teams
Watch how Ricotta Trivia works and then get started for free!
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