TEAM ICE BREAKERS

The Ultimate List of 130 Questions

and Infographic with 20 Best Ones

Ice Breaker Questions: 130 Ridiculously Useful Examples

Are you sure you know your team as well as yourself?

Do you want to make sure that all the members of your team understand each other
perfectly, especially considering virtual team challenges?

We spent hundreds of hours to present you the best ice breaker questions guide
you can nd on the Internet. Use it to build the warmest relationships in your team.

In any large team, you would nd different kinds of people. Someone is friendly,
someone is not really, but they all are still one single team. To achieve high
productivity in such a team, one needs to establish every possible contact and break

the ice in the working atmosphere. This can be done through ice breaker questions -
one of the most effective versions of ice breaker games.

And if you are not able to strike up a conversation because you do not know each
other well, then it's time to destroy this wall with the help of ice breaker games that

would help everyone know each other better.

In this way, you are helping the newcomer to quickly join the team and feel
himself/herself as an essential part of the team. In addition, this would avoid the
situation whereby he/she wishes the ground would swallow him/her up because of

awkward silence. Or you can talk with remote team members during a conference call
to improve team collaboration in a relaxed atmosphere. We can help you boost

collaboration among remote employees.

The ability to ask questions is a kind of art. Ice breaker questions can be a catalyst for

amazing and productive conversations with your team. They can help to know your
team better and break down barriers between members.
 However, not all questions work, and not everything is so simple. Each person has a
theme he can freely talk about. So, if a person isn't interested in a particular subject,
then it won't work.

Therefore, we've prepared for you a detailed guide with a list of 130 questions,
methods of their application, as well as this amazing infographic about the 20 most
interesting ice breaker questions.

Enjoy it and feel free to tweet it: 20 awesome get to know you questions for teams

Contents
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Why Is Breaking the Ice How to Set Up Ice Breaker 130 Ice Breaker Questions 10 Unusual Ice Breaker
So Important? Questions in Slack for Teamwork Games for Meetings

WHY IS BREAKING
THE ICE SO
IMPORTANT?

Ice breaker games can be useful if your team is scattered across the globe and the team

members have never met in person before. The games can help people form an of ce culture in
a team. Naturally, not only are icebreakers necessary for teambuilding, there are many criteria

for building a culture in a team.

Moreover, icebreakers help to build new communication channels and break the boundaries of

formalities. For example, you can upgrade your communication from of cial emails to social
networks. This would get you to know each other better. And of course, this channel often
develops over time because it is more convenient for a person.

With really good ice breakers, you can help new employees to easily integrate into the team and

feel truly comfortable. A conversation on an abstract topic would help calm a nervous beginner
when he meets the team for the rst time. No matter how open you think your team is, a new
team member would always nd it stressful in the team at rst.
Ice breaker questions are the most versatile version of all games, it can be used in any team,
and whenever you want:

Questions are the best ice breaker for meetings! Using them, each employee can speak at the

beginning of the meeting. Icebreaker makes it more likely that employees will be more active
during meeting.

It's very effective to use ice breaker questions for team building. They give you an idea of the
identity of your teammates, and this helps you to build an individual approach to each

employee. Each person has different personal interests, which also need to be taken into
account.

It promotes cohesion and enhances trust among employees. This is perhaps the most
important reason for using teambuilding ice breakers.

Indeed, it's an incredibly challenging task to work effectively with people you don't actually

know. So, all these ice breaking activities turn out to be all about trust. According to American
business magazine Inc., Google conducts a particular research codenamed "Aristotle Project".

The research is aimed at identifying the secrets to team effectiveness. And it turns out that trust

is the key to everything. Trust is like oil in the engine of any mechanism, which makes
everything work better, faster and smoothly.

Lack of trust in a team causes a chain of problems, which are described in detail in Patrick
Lencioni's book "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team".

Lack of trust
People are not ready to show their vulnerability to those they do not know very well. This means

they will not admit their mistakes or give feedback.

Fear of conflict
People who don't trust each other do not discuss essential ideas openly and do not say what

they really think because of the fear of appearing inexperienced or incompetent.

Lack of obligations

In a situation where people are afraid of conflict, they are afraid to enter into a dialogue and

take on any responsibilities or take the initiative. But silence and inaction will not get far.

Disclaimer

In the absence of discussion, people don't have the opportunity to publicly express their views
and be sure that it's taken into account when making decisions. In such a situation, team

members rarely commit themselves internally to implementing the group's decisions, even if

they publicly support them.

Wrong goal setting

If employees avoid taking responsibility for their actions, they place their individual goals

(career development, salary, recognition, etc.) instead of the company's goals as a priority.

In his book, Patrick Lencioni offers some methods of dealing with problems that are quite

dif cult to apply in practice. To help the reader understand the complexity of creating a capable
team with fairly simple ideas, Patrick Lencioni builds the book not as a dry textbook, but as a

story.

Of course, it is worth adding that working in such an indifferent team, where no one takes an
 interest in each other is just boring. A team is a team, it's the same everywhere – at work,

school or university, and nobody wants to be "the weird silent freak", who didn't even get a
chance to reveal himself as a human being. Ice breaker questions are meant to serve this

purpose.

Ice breaker exercises are especially important for distributed teams. If you are working together

in an of ce, it's easy to meet and interact with colleagues. You can go to lunch together,

exchange jokes at nearby tables, chat about plans for the weekend, etc.

But if you work remotely, acquaintance might take a lot of time and effort. Moreover, not

everyone would do that themselves. Some people, even in small teams, have been working for

years without even knowing if a colleague has children or not.

Suddenly Johnny from Australia of the IT Department becomes Johnny from the IT

Department, who has three dogs, his favorite food is Vietnamese, and on weekends he likes
hiking in Australian mountains. These are the things you will never know about someone just by

talking about business.

But remember, even though ice breaker questions can be enjoyable and useful for work, they're

not suitable for every meeting. If it's a new or remote team, it can be a great way to warm up

and cheer up. But if it is a meeting with a client or partners, asking questions about pets or a

favorite dish might seem inappropriate.

And of course, ice breaker activities might not be needed sometimes even if your team is

distributed. Team members can view it as a waste of time because they can already make good
contact. Use this activity when there's really a need to get to know each other better, but don't

overdo it.

HOW TO SET UP
ICE BREAKER
QUESTIONS IN
SLACK

We will not reinvent the wheel and tell how to ask questions via Slack. But if you want to survey

a group of people and do that on schedule, here's the tip for you.

Using Standuply you can choose to ask questions from our list below and conduct a survey for

the whole team, or selectively for a group of people. If needed, it can be a recurring activity.

Here's the way to how to do that in 3 simple steps (once you've added Standuply to you Slack).
 1. Set up questions, choose people to ask and con gure schedule

In Standuply, click on Create report to schedule a survey with ice breaker question(s) - just

choose the ones you like from the list and add them in a questionary form.

Then choose people from your team and decide where and how you want the results to be

delivered.

2. Standuply bot collects teams answers via Slack

Then on schedule, Standuply reaches out to selected people and asks questions you previously

set up. Once team members provide their answers, the bot collects them and prepares an

aggregated report.

3. Results are shared with the team to get to know everyone better

Standuply serves the results the way you con gured: via Slack DM, in a channel or via email. If
it's a public Slack channel, it will probably lead to energised discussions.

If your team likes this little game you can con gure such survey to run on schedule before all

hands meetings or every month to make sure your team members know each one very well.

Easily break the ice on your team. Add Standuply to Slack today!

130 ICE BREAKER

QUESTIONS FOR
TEAMWORK

Here is a full list of the best ice breaker questions for meetings. There are also simple ones that

can be used not only in the working atmosphere but also just in any group of people. Save it in

bookmarks to not to lose!

Work experience

1. Tell us about your very rst job.

2. What is the most amusing thing you can remember at your workplace?

3. What are your special skills you would like to apply at the workplace?

4. What do you like most about your job?

5. Describe your team in one word.

6. What is the weirdest thing you've ever seen in your workspace?

7. Which of your skills do you feel are being underutilized at work?

8. Which skills would you like to acquire your ideal workflow?
9. Tell us about something you use to believe earlier in your career, but you now think about it

differently.

10. What is the best career advice you've ever received?

11. If you could give some advice to beginners in your work area, what would it be?

12. Tell us about the last time you got angry with a co-worker. What was the cause?

13. Where do you want to see yourself in 10 years?

14. In one word, what is the greatest challenge you have faced this month?

15. Who would you be in a parallel universe?

Lifestyle

16. In three words, how would your family and friends describe you?

17. What's your most favorite place to travel to, and why?

18. What's your life's biggest dream?

19. Tell us when last you took a big risk?

20. What are your top 3 most hated foods?

21. Are you an owl or a lark?

22. Do you have any hidden talent? It could be positive or negative.

23. What is the hidden meaning behind your name? Why were you given the name?

24. Which best describes you? An introvert or an extrovert?

25. Tell us 3 random facts about yourself!

26. Pick something from your pocket/purse and tell us why that thing is inside there.

27. What is your best season of the year? Why?

28. What is your best breakfast at home?

29. Tell us ve things you always carry in your backpack!

30. Name the most intelligent person you know.

31. Your favorite lm genre is what?

32. Mention somebody you truly admire.

33. Mountain or beach, which one would you prefer for vacation?

34. What's your favorite way to spend a rainy weekend at home by yourself?

35. What's the most unusual food you've ever eaten?

36. What's the worst dish you have ever made?

37. What's the most dif cult thing you've ever done?

38. Mention a gift someone gave you that you can never forget?
39. Mention one thing you love about yourself.

40. Tell us the bravest thing you've done in your life?

41. Do you have any tattoo on your body and how does it look like?

42. How and where did you rst meet your best friend?

43. What's the most amazing thing you've seen in nature?

44. What piece of clothing best describes you? Why?

45. What's the oldest item in your wardrobe? How old is it?

46. Tell us your guilty pleasure!

47. Any brothers, sisters or cousins? Which one do you have?

48. Where do you prefer to live - city or countryside?

49. Have you ever stayed in a countryside for weeks or a year or two?

50. Can you manage livestock, such as goats, cows and chickens?

51. How do you relieve stress and anxiety?

52. What's your weirdest dream ever?

53. What are you doing next weekend?

54. Are you a planner or spontaneous?

55. Has anyone saved your life before? Have you ever saved someone else's?
What if…

56. What strange room/feature would you build in to your dream house?

57. How would you spend your money if you won the lottery?

58. If you had to be stuck at a particular age, what would that age be? Why?

59. If people are to make a lm about you, what would the genre be? A science ction, romantic

comedy, action movie or comedy?

60. What animal would you be, and why?

61. What would you do if you were invisible for 24 hours?

62. If you could have any superpower, what would you choose and why?

63. If your house was on re and you could only grab three things, what would they be?

64. What would you be found doing if the police unexpectedly breaks into your home in the

day?

65. If you could travel to anywhere in the galaxy (outside the earth), where would you go, and
why?

66. If you could see in the future, which period would you choose, and why?

67. If you could only meet one person from history, who would it be?.

68. If you had one opportunity to run a restaurant, what would you serve?

Hobbies

69. What's your favorite music band a decade ago? What of now?

70. Have you ever met someone famous in person?

71. If you can choose a famous person to hang out with, who would it be?

72. What book are you currently reading?

73. If you could master any skill instantly, what would it be?

74. What's your best sport or tness activity?

75. What animal is your favorite pet? And do you have any pet?

76. Have you seen any good movies recently you would recommend?
77. If you are to learn any new skill that is not related to work, what would it be?

78. What's your all time favorite TV series or show?

79. Do you have collections of things?

80. What is your preferred YouTube vlog channels?

81. You best time of the day is what? Morning, afternoon, evening or night?

82. What is that thing you have never done before which you want to do next year?

83. Tell us your best section in a library or bookstore.

84. What is your preferred music genre?

85. Have you seen your favorite musician in person?

86. What is your favorite summer activity?

87. Tell us a book or movie or video you've read or seen lately and which you would

recommend? Why?

88. What was the worst travel experience of your life?

89. Do you play any musical instrument, and which?

90. Do you watch Netflix shows? What's your best?

Childhood

91. What is your most memorable childhood story?

92. What was your best cartoon as a child?

93. Tell us what's your hero as a child. Why was he/she your hero?

94. What was your greatest childhood gift?

95. What's your best memory from childhood, and why?

96. Have you ever won a medal or trophy?

97. Mention some embarrassing memories from childhood.

98. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
99. How and where did you rst meet your best friend?

100. What were your favorite childhood TV shows and cartoons?

101. What was your favorite childhood video game you played?

102. What was your favorite book as a kid?

103. What was your favorite lm you watched as a child?

104. Have you ever been to summer camp growing up?

Christmas
105. Tell us the very rst thing you usually do on Christmas Day?

106. Where do you normally shop for Christmas?

107. What's your family's Christmas tradition?

108. Tell us about your best Christmas activity!

109. What is your favorite food to eat on Christmas?

110. What is your best Christmas gift ever?

111. When you were a child, what Christmas gift did you like most?
112. What is the best gift you've ever given?

113. What's the best gift someone has ever given you?

114. What is the meaning of Christmas to you?

115. Which Christmas candy is your favorite?

116. Which Christmas cookie is your favorite?

117. Do you have any Christmas holiday travel plans? Where to?
118. Tell us the Christmas lm you always watch every year!

119. What music do you normally relate to Christmas?

120. What outdoor activity do you love doing on Christmas day?

121. Do you like receiving or giving gifts more?

Halloween
122. What is the favorite Halloween costume you have ever seen?

123. What is the most awesome Halloween costume you've ever made?

124. What's your best fantasy story? Character in a book? Movie? Legend?

125. Are you a good or a bad witch/magician?

126. Have you personally witnessed how other countries celebrate Halloween?

127. As a child, did you trick-or-treat during Halloween? Can you remember the costume you

went out with?

128. Do you or do you not like watching horror lms, and why? If you like watching, what's your

most favorite?

129. Tell us your best scary creature/monster of the night ever?

130. As a tradition, ghost stories are told on Halloween. Tell us any one you know!
10 UNUSUAL ICE
BREAKER GAMES
FOR MEETINGS

You can actually come up with an in nite number of such games. You only need some

fantasy. But each game has its own goal, for example, to introduce new employees, or to

warm up the atmosphere in the team before a meeting. In order to determine which game

will be suitable for you, TinyPulse has developed an interesting quiz.

So we have decided to make for you a small list of unusual and at the same time simple
professional ice breakers that we are interested in. We have already tried some of them on

ourselves, and have taken some just as a note. We advise you to look at them!

1. Trading cards

Purpose: This is a get-to-know-you ice breaker card game. It is a perfect meeting starter. It

allows you to immediately get to know each other informally and learn about the person from

his side, as he represents himself. This icebreaker also helps to remove the fear of something
new. It's like someone who has never drawn before, and you give him a paper to draw.

Rules: Ask everyone to draw a self-portrait and write their names, briefly write something about

themselves and some random fact. In general, let them mention what they want - it can be

children's nicknames, and guilty pleasures, and the fact of having 10 cats - anything!

Next, you need to start changing cards - trade. People can "trade" as many times as they want,

but they have to read every card they get before they change the card further.

After a few minutes, ask everyone to announce the name on the card they have in their hands. If

the card is interesting, you can ask the cardholder some questions in more detail.

2. Common Things

Purpose: This is an ideal game for a team whose members do not know each other, and also for
remote employees. Regardless of the answers, it will create a bond, trigger some discussion

and laughter and get the group thinking creatively. This will create a dynamic atmosphere well
suited to brainstorming.

Rules: It can be easily held before the meeting or just at the beginning of a day. Divide the team
into small groups and ask them to make a list of 10 things they have in common. De ne remote

employees into a separate group and a separate common document to compile your list. Set
aside some time for brainstorming, and poll each team on the results. It's your decision

whether to set some limits on the subjects or not – it may be questions about previous areas of
work, and about the same color socks.

3. Pros and cons

Purpose: participants learn to think together about dif cult times and to understand that

negative experiences are also experience that should be left in the past, while learning valuable
lessons from it.

Rules: Players take turns sharing any unpleasant situations from their lives. This event may or

may not be relevant to the job, but it must be real. Then the second player reproduces the event
he heard, but in positive aspects. Next, the queue moves to the next participant until the circle
is closed.

4. The emblem of the team

Purpose: strengthening relationships in the team, developing a creative approach to problem

solving, revealing creative thinking and proving the importance of visualization in business

Rules: Create your team's coat of arms. To do this, rst visualize the goals and de ne them in
the center of the coat of arms. Then draw what you have achieved recently and what you are

aiming for.
Let it be informal (although if it works well - why not), but it will be the embodiment of what

your team has done with their own hands.

5. Latest News

Purpose: A universal game that will be useful both at corporate events to improve team work
skills, and at conferences to better remember important or new information.

Rules: First divide into teams of 4-5 participants, whose goal will be to create the front page of

a newspaper. The news may be dedicated to some recent event of the company, or it may be a
report about the last meeting, where it is necessary to highlight the outcome of the meeting. Or
maybe it's worth remembering what happened this month in the company's life?

The newly-made "editors" of the "newspaper" should come up with a name for the newspaper,

the name of the articles that will be on the main page, and colorful pictures and photos.

6. Take a picture of your workspace

Purpose: bringing together remote employees, creating a feeling of being in the same room.

Rules: this game has several versions, but all of them are aimed at the same goal described
above. Ask team members to take a picture of their desktop before the virtual meeting, and do

the same.

At the meeting, tell us about your workplace, why you are there, describe the objects that

surround you, tell any interesting story. Maybe today you are working from your veranda outside
the city? Or from a cafe? Or maybe you decided to stay home?

7. Social Media Icebreaker

Purpose: This game will help to create transparency in the team (especially if it is a new team)
and give introverts the chance to tell something about themselves.

Rules: Give your employees a few minutes to view posts on social networks. It could be a
picture from Instagram, or a Facebook post, or a funny tweet. It is important to tell the story of

why they chose this post, what that day or event meant for them, and to tell about how this
photo was taken.

8. Truth and Lie

Purpose: This is an excellent icebreaker for meeting and establishing some contacts in new

teams. This will help to avoid biased conclusions and form a true opinion of colleagues about
each other.
Rules: Ask participants to split into pairs. Let everyone make a list of 4 facts about themselves,

but one of them should not be true. The lie should be believable (for example, something like "I
have flown on a dragon" won't work). Then you need to voice the truths and lie in random order,

without mentioning which one is true and which is not. The other player will have to say which
ones are true and which ones are false in his opinion. Then the rst player should explain his
fact. After that, it will be the second player's turn to voice his own facts.

9. Classify This

Purpose: This game by Cake will help your team take a fresh look at things they see every day.
And in the future - to think outside the box in solving the company's problems.

Rules: Gather 20-25 different and unrelated objects in your of ce and put them such that all
the team members could see them. Collect everything: toys, hats, drag the remains of donuts

from the kitchen, and so on. And don't forget to give everyone a piece of paper and a pen.

Next, instruct everyone to classify the items into categories (you can choose them yourself or
you can give vent to the imagination to your employees). Let's take a fresh look at the objects,

and then the tennis ball will be like a donut because they are both round, regardless of the
purpose.

10. Blind drawing

Purpose: The game trains visual perception, teaches you to formulate thoughts precisely, and

liberates you in in terms of visualization. Sometimes you just look at the white sheet and don't
know where to start. So in this game you will know where to start, just do it. In addition, it is
always fun to watch the expectation and reality :)

Rules: divide the participants into groups of two and put them back to each other. Give the rst

participant any image or picture. Give the second person a blank sheet of paper and a pen. The
participant with the picture is to describe the image without using words that give it away, while

the second participant is to draw what is being described. After 15 minutes, ask everyone to
compare the drawings and the original pictures.

For some games, you can set the winners and some prizes, for example, your company's merch.
This will only add excitement, but will not trigger any signi cant competition, unlike if the prize

was to be, for example, a promotion at work or career advancement.

This is only a small part of the ice breaker games that can be effectively used for teambuilding.