Say the word “icebreaker” to a room of managers and you’ll see a few people wince. Most have been made to share a fun fact, or hold hands with strangers, at some point in their careers, and didn’t see the point.
Done well, though, an icebreaker is one of the most useful ten minutes in a workshop. It gets people talking before the real work starts, it shows them how the day will run, and it tells you a lot about the room. The trick is to choose one that fits the group, the time and the topic, and to make the point of it obvious.
Here’s how, as a set of questions and answers, with a finder to choose one, a game to play, and themed versions to link it to your topic.
What is an icebreaker?
A short activity at the start of a workshop or meeting that helps people start working together. Wikipedia describes it as a brief facilitation exercise intended to help members of a group begin the process of forming a team (Wikipedia).
They range from a quick round of names to a full team challenge. What they have in common is that everyone takes part early, and the room gets used to talking before the content begins.
Do you always need one?
No. Some workshops start with one, and some don’t need it. If the group already knows each other well, or the day is short and focused, a good opening question can do the same job in two minutes. The question to ask is what the group needs before it can do its best work: to know each other, to wake up, to get into the topic, or to start working as a team. If it needs none of those, skip it.
Why do icebreakers work?
They do a few jobs at once:
- They make the room comfortable. People who’ve spoken once are more likely to speak again.
- They build trust. Sharing something small, and having it received well, is how groups start to trust each other.
- They set the tone. The first activity tells people what kind of day it will be: lecture or conversation, formal or relaxed.
- They model how the day will work. If the workshop runs on small-group discussion, an icebreaker in small groups is practice for it. Wikipedia makes the same point: an icebreaker should let people experience the behaviours the group will need (Wikipedia).
Interestingly, people don’t have to enjoy them for them to work. Icebreakers are often disliked, but feeling a little awkward doesn’t stop them bringing people closer together. Most of the dislike comes from icebreakers that felt pointless, irrelevant or badly run (Wikipedia).
What makes a good one?
A few rules separate the icebreakers people remember fondly from the ones they dread:
- Link it to the topic. An icebreaker that leads into the day’s subject feels like part of the workshop, not a detour from it.
- Keep it safe. No forced personal revelations, and nothing that requires people to touch each other. Both can be stressful or culturally inappropriate at work.
- Don’t embarrass anyone. No one should be put on the spot, and anyone should be able to pass.
- Respect the hierarchy in the room. An activity that makes a junior person correct their boss in public helps nobody.
- Fit the time. Ten minutes in a half-day is plenty. Thirty minutes needs a good reason.
- Say what it was for. End with a sentence on why you did it and what it showed. That’s the difference between a game and a facilitation tool.
All but the fifth follow Wikipedia’s summary of good practice. The fifth comes from experience.
Which icebreaker should you use?
It depends on the size of the group, the time you have, whether you’re in a room or online, and what you need it to do. Set those, and the finder suggests the ones that fit, with how to run each.
Find an icebreaker
Group size
Time you have
Where
What the group needs
Can you play one now?
Two truths and a lie is probably the best-known icebreaker of all: each person makes three statements, and the group guesses which one is false. Here’s a version about workshops and offices. Every statement is checked against a source.
Two truths and a lie
The marshmallow challenge answer is worth dwelling on. In his TED talk, Tom Wujec explains why children do better than business school graduates: the graduates spend their time planning the one right answer and then run out of time, while the children build, test and rebuild (TED). That’s a lesson about prototyping that most teams need, and it’s why the debrief matters more than the tower.
How do you link an icebreaker to your topic?
Take a classic format and change the question. “Two truths and a lie about yourself” becomes “two truths and a lie about our market”. “Stand on the line” asks people where they stand on a statement about the day’s subject. The format stays familiar, and the content gets people thinking about the topic from the first minute. Pick a topic and see.
Themed icebreakers
What about the bigger activities?
Some popular workshop activities get called icebreakers but are really methods in their own right. They can open a day, but they need more time and a skilled facilitator:
- Lego Serious Play. Participants build models of their ideas from Lego bricks and tell stories about them. It was developed in the mid-1990s by two IMD professors, Johan Roos and Bart Victor, to help managers describe and challenge their views of their business.
- Design thinking. A structured process for solving problems: understand the user, define the problem, generate ideas, prototype and test. It can fill a whole day.
- Role play. Acting out a situation from the workshop topic, such as a difficult customer call. Powerful for practising skills, but it needs a safe room.
- Mind mapping. Groups build a visual map of ideas around a central topic. A good way to see how much the room already knows.
- Gamification. Turning part of the content into a game or competition. Good for energy, as long as the game serves the learning.
How do you break the ice online?
Online, it’s harder to read the room, and easier for people to hide behind a muted microphone, so an early activity matters even more. A few things help:
- Use the chat. A chat waterfall, where everyone types an answer and presses enter at the same moment, gets everyone involved in seconds.
- Use breakout rooms. People talk more in groups of three or four than in a call of twenty.
- Make video optional. Some people have good reasons to keep their camera off. Design the activity so it works either way.
- Keep it shorter. Attention online is thinner than in a room.
For more on choosing between the two formats, see how to plan a corporate workshop.
Should someone from outside run it?
An internal colleague can run an icebreaker perfectly well, and knows the culture. An external facilitator brings some things an insider can’t:
- Neutrality. No history with anyone in the room and no stake in the outcome, which matters when the topic is sensitive.
- Experience. They’ve run a lot of workshops and know what to do when an activity falls flat.
- Permission. An outsider can ask the awkward question, or move a senior person along, in a way a colleague may find hard.
I run workshops as an external facilitator, so take this with a pinch of salt. But for a contentious topic or a senior group, it’s worth considering. Whoever runs it, choose someone who understands your industry and has agreed the goals of the day with you beforehand.
Can AI help?
Yes, for ideas. Give an AI assistant your topic, group size, time and setting, and ask for five themed icebreakers. You’ll get a useful list in seconds, and some will be good.
Check every suggestion against the rules above, though: AI tends to suggest activities that need more personal sharing than a business setting can comfortably take. And run it yourself. Reading the room is still a human job.
For more ideas for the rest of the day, see ten ideas for corporate workshops.
Sources: Wikipedia, Icebreaker (facilitation); Wujec, T. (2010) Build a tower, build a team, TED; Trellis, on lessons from the marshmallow challenge; Wikipedia, Post-it note; Wikipedia, Microsoft PowerPoint; Wikipedia, Lego Serious Play; Wikipedia, Speed networking; Wikipedia, Human knot.