Good, non-cringey icebreaker type games?

[Catnary]

I’m involved in a work team “Away Day” soon. I’m not the organiser, but I was asked today for suggestions as to how we can get people into the right frame of mind to feel relaxed about contributing ideas to the various discussions.

The group is about 20 people, all levels from very junior to the Big Boss. Roughly even split male/female. Ages from mid twenties to mid fifties. Everyone does more or less the same job, just at different levels of experience/seniority.

It’s all in-person, no remote participants. A few people speak English as a second language but we all work in English.

The criteria are as follows:

Nothing that requires sharing of personal information or feelings.
No popular culture references (so no trivia based on TV, or things like making people guess the celebrity name on a post it on their head).
Possibly with scope to poke mild fun at our work (eg jokes about the bad canteen food or the IT system) but nothing that singles out individuals.
No singing or dancing.
No putting people on the spot (eg “do the next line of this funny story”).
Competition between teams is fine, but more in terms of pooling points than making people work together to do things like build structures or make up a story.

Does anyone have any bright ideas?

My only thoughts (partly after Googling) were:
Pictionary on a big white board, with clues being “things”, actions etc rather than films, songs etc
Everyone writes their name backwards and someone reads them out, team that correctly guesses the most wins.

Does anyone have any suggestions of things you have enjoyed? We really really don’t want to end up with a backlash against “enforced fun” but there needs to be something to make it more dynamic.

PS this is not “AIBU to want to do icebreaker games” inviting a hundred comments about how the whole idea of away days and team building is bollocks. It’s just a plea for ideas!

Same. It all sounds like grade A The Apprentice style bollocks.

I quite like ice breaker games and team building. I must be the only one

Good point about the poking fun at small things potentially setting a sarky tone, thank you. It’s finding that point mid way between dull and earnest and wacky cringe.

Everyone already knows each other, some of us have worked together for nearly 15 years; the newest person has been with us a year. It’s not about getting to know new people, but with WFH it’s the first time everyone will have been in the same room since before the pandemic.

This is brilliant!

We dome chair football once in a staff meeting

Was really fun

I would avoid anything 'silly' - it will always embarrass someone, even something as innocuous as 'tell us a joke'.

Games that are meaningless are just cringey - avoid anything that is trivial as people just feel it's an utter waste of their time.

Don't make people move about the room, go into corners to answer questions etc, it pains most people to even stand up.

My favourite that works brilliantly every time for friendly discussion, meaningful topics and giving people a starting point - is this:

Get a load of coloured lolly sticks and right out random questions on them. People take a stick, and in turn, answer the question. You can do a few, and then pick the next few after the coffee break, and the next few after lunch. It injects a bit of human through the day.

Questions can be:

1. Tell us about your most memorable job
2. Proudest work moment
3. Something unexpected that you learnt from
4. Tell us what you studied - and if you would have picked something different what would it have been?
5. What is the personal value that is most important to you?
6. What's the toughest interview you've ever had?
7. Tell us about a skill or talent you have
8. What's your all time favourite movie?
9. Can you recommend us a book?

10. What's your go to dish to cook?

No, it’s just a bunch of people who work together spending a day in the same place to talk about work and what the business is trying to achieve. In the normal scheme of things some people are always WFH and everyone is so busy doing the work that they can’t take a step back and talk about what is working well for them and what they’d like to change. It’s just a pause for thought really.

Rainbowpony I would hate this & feel very uncomfortable.

Or - one truth, two lies.

1. I used to be a full time scuba instructor
2. I dated an astronaut
3. I can speak fluent mandarin

Can be quite entertaining and most people can think of something mildly amusing or unexpected. It's a bit frivolous but it gives people 5 minutes to write something down and not too much pressure.

I like the idea of going around the room and each acknowledging something they are grateful for from others in the team. It's wonderful to lift others up. However it can get samey when people just say 'me too' or the 18th person thanks the PA for 'helping us all be organised'

If you want to get people confident to speak up you just need to get them doing that in a game I think. Some of these ideas are great but they’re more “get to know each other”. Something classic like charades or other call out like games (perhaps in 4 teams so it’s 5 each) would be good. Or could give each team a “buzzer” which makes a silly noise (bicycle bell, triangle, bird caller etc) and host a mini university challenge type quick fire quiz (about something work relevant but non serious).

Another vote here for Human Bingo.

You could also do some sort of team scavenger hunt with a pre-chosen list of things to find in 10 minutes. Or if, for example, the company name is ABC Plumbing can they bring back one item beginning with A, another with B etc.

The trick is to keep it shortish, get people on their feet and chatting to each other. If the objective is just to get people talking and relaxed don't try to do a big debrief or turn it into a big 'learning experience'.

Yep agree!

Find a partner that you find a) integuing and b) fun

No one will have a shit time

And that's why these days are awful: so far, the only suggestion that doesn't make me fill with horror or cringe is the build-y make-y tasks (bonus points to the suggestion it is done as an individual build instead of in teams). The thought of enforced organised fun sends a shiver down my spine. I am currently taking an online course to learn more about NDs, and despite the fact the organisers will know full well these things are often hereditary (we're all parents of ND DCs), they still insisted on awkward icebreakers. Cue some people who overshared their entire life story and others who were clearly painfully uncomfortable with having the spotlight shined on them (kudos to the woman whose camera and mic sadly went down at just the wrong time...)
This thread has been another reminder why I'm happiest self-employed and working alone 😂

Speed dating? 😀

We did actually have two who got married a while back. They both left.

Many people would find it daunting to have to act a charade, draw or answer questions in front of a group of 20 people. Much better to have an activity that gets people to mingle more informally.

Along the lines of the human bingo already mentioned, but avoiding personal facts, do you know the game 'Timeline'? Hand everyone a piece of paper with an invention/discovery on it, but not the date it happened, and the team objective is to get all 20 pieces arranged in the right chronological order.

Entirely up to you how easy or hard you make it. Could be on a wide range from "First pyramid built in Egypt", "Penicillin discovered", "Facebook launched", or you could have all the facts within one century, so much harder to work out. Depending on your industry you have the potential to include relevant inventions?

You could also ask them to decide as a group which three have had the most impact on humanity, or as individuals which one they would like to have invented themselves, and why?

But if you want people to talk about work, why not just do that and find work relevant questions? Why force them to share personal information first?

The very first criterion is Nothing that requires sharing of personal information or feelings.!

The aim of the icebreaker is like a warm-up, to get people in the frame of mind to speak up and interact with the group. A bit like actors doing vocal exercises or dancers doing stretches.

Glad to see you're not asking people to share personal information - I've done so many icebreakers that ask you to share 'something interesting about yourself' and it's always so cringey. Honestly I know you've said no building of structures but I would say the only icebreaker I've ever actually enjoyed was building a giraffe from newspaper! Oh and the 'tell two lies and one truth' where a very normal middle aged colleague revealed he was an extra in a porn film but not sure that works with the no personal info rule!

If you all know each other anyway, can't you just put out tea/coffee/biscuits and let people chat and mingle by themselves until the actual work related stuff starts?

I think everyone accepts that ice breakers are generally a bit tedious, away days are always viewed as a waste of time (usually because they take a whole day and everyone has too much work on to be ‘wasting’ a day doing what they feel is ‘nothing’) but I do see why they’re done. My best ones were some mentioned already, human bingo and the building ones, require very little thought in the first case and in the second place there will always be someone that steps up and takes the role of the leader who doesn’t really want anyone else’s participation anyway 😂

I don’t think it’s true that everyone thinks that way, about icebreakers or away days generally. (by the way, it’s more of an “offsite” than an “away day” as it’s not very far “away”, it’s just in a nice hotel round the corner from the office, so nobody is having to schlep to a country house hotel or anything.) I accept that some do see them as a waste of time but we have had (a) a lot of people saying they miss the social aspects of when everyone used to work in the office all the time and (b) a lot of fragmented feedback/suggestions/questions about various aspects of how we work that would be good to bring together and discuss openly. Management is fully involved/supportive so people should not feel that it is taking them away from work and making the rat if they’re weak harder due to catch up. Finally, we all work in a role that isn’t really one you can do in isolation.

“The rat if they’re weak”= the rest of their week.

OK so I used to hate icebreakers as they were all in the above style.
Then I experienced the best ever.

Stand in a circle. Organiser gets a large soft ball and throws it to someone close by and says their name as they do so. Reminds everyone they just need to remember who threw to them and who they threw to. And you can only catch throw/once.
Ball goes zig zagging across the circle til it's back to the organiser.
Then you do it faster and then again faster still.
It was silly but without anyone being made fun of, it made people smile. There was no pressure. There was no win. It was pointless apart from the fact it lifted the room.
I'd use it without hesitation.