5 Ice Breaker Games for Large Team Building Activities

Picture this: you and your coworkers have set aside a day or two to escape the confines of the office, go on a road trip, and check in for your annual team building at a Batangas beach resort or other plush location. You’re looking forward to getting some much-needed fresh air, stretching your legs, eating great food, and resting on a soft and comfortable bed—but among all these, you’re anticipating getting to know the people of your company, as well as improving your work dynamic with them.

Team building is unique not only for the fact that you’ll see your officemates in beach wear, instead of the usual corporate uniform. It is also an important means of increasing morale, fostering camaraderie, and encouraging future productivity within the group in ways that can’t be achieved when you’re all just stuck in the office HQ. Your schedule of team building activities may include completing physical tasks (like relays) or having sit-down discussions; regardless, when you and your coworkers find yourselves in that in-between zone of total relaxation and total focus, there’s a lot that you can accomplish together.

But such events aren’t structured so that you can get straight to the good stuff. Usually, before the more exhaustive activities begin, the team building’s facilitators enact a quick ice breaker or two. These ice breakers help take down the barriers between unfamiliar individuals, office divisions, or departments. They also set a positive tone that the next activity can jump off from.

If you’re a facilitator and thinking about what to open your team building event with, here’s a list of both new and classic ice breakers to help you. These should help break the proverbial ice, get office acquaintances friendly with each other, and inspire some healthy competition or collaboration. 

1. Speed dating. The old speed dating activity is a familiar one at seminars and team buildings alike; it can be done indoors or outdoors, in a single room or in a larger open-spaced area. Divide the team building attendees into groups of two; one group will constitute the outer circle while the other group will be in the inner circle. Have the members of the inner circle and the outer circle come face to face and instruct everyone to hold a conversation with the person directly in front of them for one minute. Once the minute has elapsed, it is time for the people of one circle to move either to the left or to the right, then to start all over again with a new partner. Partners can talk about anything under the sun, as long as they do so in less than one minute!
   
   
2. Human bingo. Human bingo, alternately called the “scavenger hunt,” is best done in a wide space where everyone has the chance to run around. Beforehand, the facilitators can reproduce a piece of paper akin to a bingo card with a unique description of an individual on each square (for example, one square for the officemate whose star sign is Libra, one square for the officemate who is a huge PBA fan). Distribute these papers (along with a pen or pencil) to every attendee, and tell them to make the person who is referred to in each square sign their name there. The first person to complete all the signatures on their human bingo card is the winner; in the process, the team building participants will have the chance to learn interesting fun facts about each other.
   
   
3. The Perfect Square. This activity also requires the use of a wide space and additional implements like blindfolds and a long, sturdy piece of rope. Tell the participants to form a circle, tie their blindfolds on, hold the rope, and then set down the rope on the floor assuming that they have left it in a circular form. Instruct them to walk a short distance away (with their blindfolds still on), then to return to the rope circle with the intent of reshaping into a square. While blindfolded, the attendees will have to communicate their positions, their points of reference, and their opinion of when they feel the rope circle has finally become a square shape. It will be interesting to see which approaches can actually yield the perfect square.
   
   
4. The sorting game. The sorting game can be done in a closed space with ample legroom, or an open space where the participants have license to run around. The principle of this ice breaker is very simple, not unlike a parlor game at a birthday party: the participants can be sorted into four or five groups, consisting of five people or more, arranged one by one in a straight line. The facilitator will then give everyone the instruction to sort themselves as quickly as possible by a certain qualifier, e.g. “sort yourselves according to height,” “sort yourself according to the year you graduated from high school,” “sort yourselves according to the number of kids you have.” A point is awarded per round for the first group that can sort themselves. If you want to make this game more fun and more difficult, you can also give the instruction of “no talking allowed”!
   
   
5. Two truths and a lie. This activity can take place indoors while everyone is seated; it’s perfect for a cooling-down session or when the group is congregating for a drink or two. Have each participant take turns telling two truths and a lie about themselves—e.g. “I’m double-jointed,” “I failed math in high school,” “I’ve met James Reid in person”—and making the rest of the group guess which among the three statements is the lie. Suffice to say, a lot of fun, candid, and free-spirited conversation can come up after this activity!

Tailoring the ice-breakers to suit your office culture is the key. When enacting the ice breakers, as well as the major team building activities, make sure that all attendees are comfortable, in the mood to participate, and able to hear each instruction loud and clear. With that in mind, you’re just a few tasks away from achieving the ultimate office bonding experience!