I know what you're thinking: "come on, we're all adults now. Do we really still need icebreakers to conduct a few meetings by video conference? The only icebreakers that I need are the ones that cruise through Arctic waters in the North-East to save trapped fishing boats... Am I right?"
Terrible jokes aside, it can be crucially important to establish a human connection while your team is spread all over the world, and a quick ice breaker at the start of the meeting can go a long way help people to get more comfortable with each other. Here are 3 video conference ice breakers that I like to use in a conference call setting.
Since we are already in a video conference, let's take advantage of what we have. One person picks a phrase or short sentence, mutes their audio, slowly says the phrase aloud. The other participants can't hear what the muted person is saying, so they have to read the person's lips to figure out what was said. Naturally, the first one to guess the correct answer is declared the winner, and gets to be the next person to pick a phrase and say it with their audio muted.
This game becomes way more fun (and competitive) when participants are divided into 2 teams, since each win can be counted in a points system.
During most, if not all video conferences, all you can see is a person's face -- This game takes full advantage of that limitation.
It is simple: The group takes turns guessing the colour of each other's pants. If pants are too easy (most people wear blue/black pants to a work setting) you can also use shoes, socks, chairs, or just about anything else that you can think of.
TIP: "No pants" is never the correct answer.
Standard trivia games like "Jeopardy" and "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" can be both hard to set up, and overly simplistic to play, so this ice breaker is trivia with a twist.
For this games, the group members need to be divided into pairs: A and B. The pairs would then be given questions like "For person A, what is person B's favourite food" or "For person B, what movie did person A last see". Group members will have to guess trivia facts about their partners. They will learn a lot about each other, and have fun in the process.
That's all the games for this week! Stay tuned next week for the next installment!
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