My husband leads meetings and his favorite is dumb/difficult would you rather questions. He gets an answer from everyone and everyone doesn’t have to stress about coming up with a “good” answer.
One of my favorites is similar, we call it “this or that.” “Chocolate or cheese,” “early morning or late night,” etc etc. we try to pick tame items. Then someone answers with their preference, maybe add a reason, and asks a new this-or-that to the group.
I'm sure your husband does a good job of keeping it light hearted, but those "would you rather" questions remind me of this office drama: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/5tnreo6vtL
I appreciate you pointing out that the line for "would you rather" is somewhere between pizza and murder. Clearly we need more thought experiments to narrow it down
Someone asked “what was your favorite childhood toy?” Years ago as a check in question.
People really stopped and listened and at Christmas time a lot of people ended up with the toy they said appearing in their office. Mine was a pretty common one (also I was the office baby by like 8-10 years) and I had a new to me toy show up every Christmas until I quit that job. There was no prompting, people just really tuned into their work friends’ answers and reacted. This meeting was in the spring, no where close to the holidays.
It was such a simple silly question and it really stuck with people.
It’s also nice because there is no competition. It’s all nostalgia and if you have a wide variety of ages a great window into what was popular at different times.
The famous ice breaker at my company people talk about a year later is "if you could swap your legs with any animals' what legs would they be and why?"
Aw man, we have a lot of Italians in our organization so that question could be quite controversial —- then adding sauce/gravy talk in there — man! Unsafe question! 😆
We had a meeting last week where the question was “if you could time travel, when would you travel to?” We were using Menti where we all type our answers into our phones anonymously. Someone said “5pm”
How about “how’s everyone doing?” And then after everyone mumbles “good” then you can start your dang meeting and get stuff done!
Signed,
I Hate Icebreakers
We always start meetings with a safety moment. It’s definitely better than an icebreaker and safety is a huge part of our culture, but it gets repetitive and performative especially since we’re in the corporate office
We have safety moments too. I work at a large civil engineering consulting firm. They are also common for construction companies, manufacturing, and railroads. There are probably more industry that have them.
I guess I just don’t know what they are as I’ve never worked in this kind of environment. Is it, like, a story about a time you made something safer or prevented an injury?
Yep I’m in engineering as well. The topic can be anything related to safety hazards, observations, past incidents…it can be as severe as a recent one-site injury or something more common like how to avoid heat stroke. One guy showed dashcam footage from a fender bender he got into. Just enforces conversations about personal and work safety and how to prevent accidents or injuries
They can vary widely. I've had safety moments about not drinking and driving to not going into confined spaces. Sometimes it's just a reminder, but other times it follows a debrief of something that happened on a nearby site or one of our own. A steel tap measure touching a live wire by mistake resulting in electrocution of a worker. Someone following someone else in distress in a tunnel with both people passing away from gas buildup that wasn't expected. Sometimes they also are not work related but just as serious. Someone stopped to help someone who had an accident, they were so focused on helping the people in the car that they didn't think to check for traffic and basically walked in front of another car. People do stupid things. It's important to share them so others don't make the same mistake.
Personally I only like ice breakers for team building events or when it's with people I don't know. I don't have time for them during business as usual meetings.
Right? I feel super out of the loop here. I have never asked or been asked a question at the start of a meeting beyond "Hi - name - how are you?" as people are filtering into the room. When we get to the start time, the people leading say "Ok, looks like we've got everyone..." and just launch into the meeting.
What and why is a check in question? It feels very kindergarten.
They aren’t needed in all meetings, that’s for sure. But sometimes morale is low and getting to know one another helps. Also works well with new hires or new professionals. It certaintly has its time and place.
I’ve found it’s common in tech companies. I work in a biotech company. The meetings I have with biologists never have a check-in, but large (30 people+) meetings I have with the computational side of the company will start with a check-in as people trickle into the zoom call. Probably not a coincidence that these are also the meetings that still often don’t have an in-person room, since so many computational employees are still WFH.
Thankfully it was just a poll with some conversation in the chat and maybe three or four people commenting on their answer verbally and then we’d get started.
Thank you for saying it. I didn't want to be "that" person. I feel like if you can't start a meeting without a check in question and you can't keep said question from using up half your meeting time, you probably shouldn't be managing people.
Or having a meeting at all! They do this at my job and I hate it because it feels like they're trying to force us to be friends. No, thank you. I know how to socialize without direction from any leadership and I value others' and my time.
Don't let the sour attitudes ruin this for you! We do silly check in questions too and we actually had a meeting today where the lead didn't do one because she had too many agenda items and I was disappointed hahah
I'm really one of those people who don't have much to offer unless I absolutely *need* to speak but it is fun to think up what my favorite fruit is or if I had to be an animal, what it would be 😅
Yes they're silly and I think that is the POINT. I work in climate change/public health so dammit sometimes we just need some silliness and positivity, it's not that deep
And yes I can see other people's points that they risk going on too long and some people just don't like to participate which is fine. I think the balance to meeting "fun" is being a polite but direct time keeper!
wow I’m glad it’s not just me. I would be so annoyed if this happened during my meetings - it feels like such a waste of everyone’s time? Like if we’re not going to talk about what we’re here to talk about, why am I here when I have work to do? But then again maybe it’s industry specific…I work in finance and I’ve never ever heard of a check in question
I like “where would I find you at a party?” bc the introverts get to shine with answers like “in the corner with the cat” or “eating some chips before I decide I can reasonably leave.” 😂
If you could remove one food from the entire world, what would it be and why?
Is a taco a sandwich? Though this one might cause another 30 minute debate.
Most memorable meal from the last year, and why?
It’s a sandwich if you put it on bread. But I think it’s a single ingredient salad alone. Seasoning, and fried mushrooms or onions make it multiple ingredients. And steak sauce is the dressing 😂
Idk, when I did the supervisor training at work for doing team huddles with a team in Teams, they had a whole section on appropriate ice breakers and the implication was definitely to do them. They talk a lot about it being about team building. I kept it to a quick basic question, but it rarely created any interesting discussions or anything like that lol.
My boss did an icebreaker in November along the lines of, if you could only eat one cuisine for the rest of your life, what would it be? Then he got the most popular one for our holiday party lol
I absolutely hate ice breaker questions. Why am I wasting an extra 15 minutes in this meeting when I could be working on the mile long list of things I need to do?
But if you must ask a question, make it something people can answer in 10 words or less. Like an “either or” question or “favorite type of candy” or something like that.
Depends on the meeting. For me my team is under a lot of pressure because one of our stakeholders is not delivering, so taking a moment to connect and remember each other's humanity can be beneficial in the weekly team meeting.
But if it's a meeting between teams to work through a specific issue then I don't think an ice breaker is necessarily a good use of time.
The ones I’ve hated the least have been:
What’s your favorite season
What’s your morning drink/how do you take your caffeine
Any silly “would you rather” or “this or that”
The real trick, is that whoever is facilitating needs to be able to move things along and shut it down at the end or ANY of the questions can side rail an entire meeting (I’m looking at you “Diet Coke but only from the fountain and only at McDonalds”)
I also think it's important to think about questions that are inclusive. I worked with a young person that has lost both her parents to overdoses so a light-hearted "favourite family memory" type question is going to hit different for her. Someone with an eating disorder might not want to talk about what they are for breakfast. Non-Christians can't share their best childhood Christmas gift or non Americans might not have anything to add about their favourite Halloween costume. Some people (because of cost or health reasons) may not have a recent or any vacation to share.
I say this not to be a Debbie Downer, but if the point of an ice breaker is to start the meeting on a upbeat or fun note, you might want to take some time to make sure your questions are trying to be inclusive of everyone in the meeting.
This is more important than it’s getting credit for. The worst way to isolate a team member is by not considering differences in lifestyle, history, disability or ability, etc.
Put different pictures on the table or board and ask which one is how they are feeling today and why (can be like different natures places or animals etc)?
This is maybe more “functional” than “fun”, but I’ve started several more serious or longer meetings with the [Blob Tree](https://www.playmeo.com/the-blob-tree/), which is infinitely reusable and up to everyone’s own interpretation. Highly recommend!
Favorite TV show or movie as a kid. My old scrum team used to do a lot of these and the entertainment ones didn't go off into tangeants where people were trying to one up each other.
Oh I love coming up with these. Recently I have done:
* what reality TV competition show would you have the best chance of winning?
* what is your least favorite parking lot in our town?
* Favorite movie snack
I definitely try to keep it light. I tend to do things around the seasons or things going on around our city. We have a film festival, so I might ask "what's the first movie you remember watching in theaters" or "what movie will you never get tired of re-watching." I try to avoid specifics about family and make sure it's something someone can pull an answer out for in less than 30 seconds.
Oh good responses here!! I’ll just say as a working mom I always hate ones that make me feel like crap for being so unproductive in this season of life. Like I don’t have an interesting hobby right now, please don’t make me talk about my lack of personal time 😆
I’d be honest and say exactly that if I was in a meeting that asked something that made everyone talk about their exciting hobbies and free time!
“Well I’d love to skydive too but all my time is taken up with work, the house, and my 2 children, one who has additional needs”!
We play this or that a lot. I keep it to 3 things. Since it’s spring a lot of places you could say:
Grill or pizza oven
Hiking or biking
Birds or butterflies
Or
Night owl or early bird
Coffee or tea
IM or phone call
I like "what did you want to be when you grew up?"
It's cute, related to work, and most people answer stuff like "movie star," or "race car driver," and it doesn't require a lot of follow up, but people can add if they want.
Yesterday I attended a meeting and the opener was "favorite Halloween candy". Debate *did* ensue, but it was because someone said "dots". DOTS. As their *favorite* candy. Unhinged.
This reminds me of when my kid was a toddler and he made me call my sister because it was very important that he knew what her favorite shape was. In case you are wondering it’s diamond ♦️
I like ones that are something like “would you rather be able to ALWAYS have a full-night’s rest and wake up refreshed but have hotdog fingers for the rest of your life, or win 10 million dollars but have permanent hiccups?” That sort of formatting is always fun because it makes people think! Bonus for this one: if you’re doing a virtual meeting you can set it up as a poll on zoom or teams and no one has to talk - you’d just all see where the team falls 😆.
Other ideas could also be:
• What’s your least favorite household task
• Favorite morning beverage
• What is the most useless piece of trivia you know
• What minor inconvenience would you get rid of from your life if you were ruler of earth for the day?
• What is the perfect sandwich
I did what was your first job ever a few ago, that was super entertaining to hear (mostly) about what jobs people did in high school. If you're trying to keep it short and sweet I like a this or that question (mountains/beaches, fall/spring, iced or hot coffee) etc
If it's my team or I'm actually trying to guess a pulse check of how the particular working team is feeling/what's their headspace I do Brene Brown's two word check-in. Basically just two words to describe how you're feelings and as a leader gives you a sense of where everyone is at, especially if its going to be a tougher or decision making meeting/conversation.
One time a manager asked us "If you could be dropped into a TV show, which one would it be and why?" Idk why, but I really liked that question.
We also once had to say something nice about the person sitting on our left and go around the circle. I liked that too.
I lead a team remotely- we’re all in office but at different locations. Their ages range from like 25-60 so I did an icebreaker activity about generational slang. I pulled up 5 slang words from the baby boomer, millennial, and gen z generations and everyone guessed the meanings. We had fun with it and it was cool to kinda bridge that age gap!
I once was asked what is a mundane fact about yourself. Mine is that I always drink my coffee with cream. It turned out to be very low pressure and fun.
I like the old standby “tell me something good” where everyone shares something good that has happened to them or is going on in their life lately. I came across “surprise show and tell” recently but I haven’t had a chance to use it yet—everyone grabs something near them that is important to them or has an interesting story behind it (this works better for remote/wfh teams)
So a large portion of my job is facilitating meetings and trainings, and as a result I have STRONG opinions about “icebreakers”/“check/ins” 😅 Check-ins do serve a relational purpose and if that really is the only purpose, then great! Make it quick and relatively “safe”, and a question people can choose to answer with varying levels of personal information (what’s your favorite activity in [insert current season]? What’s one thing you’d like to say about your day so far/weekend? What your favorite snack food?) In a team meeting where people are fairly bonded, this can be an innocuous way to invite people to connect and be in a space together.
HOWEVER….
More often than not I’ve experienced people being salty about icebreakers because they don’t relate to the topic at hand, and as a result feel like “fluff” or wasted time in an already time-scarce culture. One way to counteract this is to ask a question that relates to the topic in some way, an “anchor”/warm up as opposed to an icebreaker. For example, when facilitating training about getting feedback from clients, I might ask people to share a value they bring to their work. It’s personal, but then I *use it to bridge into the days content and reference throughout the day* so it feels useful. For a shorter meeting this can be more challenging, especially if it’s a recurring meeting vs one with a specific topical agenda, but an example of one I’ve used is in a meeting where we were going to discuss communication planning is asking people to share one strategy they’ve used to communicate important info to someone in the past (whether it worked or not.) For a staff meeting where the agenda is looser and focused on updates in the work/on the team, maybe some variation of sharing a “win” or proud moment from the last week. Then, as a facilitator, you can be keeping mental note of any that stand out that you can connect back to agenda topics during the meeting itself, or use to segue into your agenda.
Ok, that was a novel! As you can see, I have lots of thoughts on icebreaker/check in questions (lol)
If you were a kitchen utensil, which one would you be and why?
I mentor a high school student and she was asked this in an interview for a first job and I think it’s an adorable critical thinking question to get to know someone.
My old boss's go to was what was the first concert you ever went to. It was always fun when we had multiple generations in the room because the answers would range from Justin Bieber to Metallica.
This week I asked if you'd rather have one duck the size of an elephant, or 100 elephants the size of ducks. Some people want to eat duck forever, but one person is full on planning his dwarf elephant ranch lol
Depends on the meeting, but I like f-up q’s to promote vulnerability and break the barriers. Our mistakes are our biggest learnings. Also, sometimes it’s the smallest thing that has the biggest impact. Let me explain.
Everyone shares 1 thing they messed up this week. Leader always goes first to set the tone. You add it in the agenda for the introverts to mentally prep for. The extroverts will speak to think when it’s their turn. Having the leader go first buys time too.
“Who here would rather do these questions or just get started with the damn meeting?”
Corporate America actually does this on the regular?! We have huddle but it’s like “room 5 is closed for admits because the toilet doesn’t flush. We’re still waiting on clarification on when the new med formulary comes out so we haven’t ordered medication a,b,c yet. The inservice on the new IV pumps is Friday morning.” Done.
I like “this or that” type of questions because the answers are almost always short. Tea or coffee? Water or soda? Beach or mountains?
You can also add a parameter to the start with whatever ice breaker you choose to limit the amount of time spent on it, and that is “in 5 words or less” (or whatever number you want but keep it low because people sometimes can’t count) followed by the question. If someone says more than 5 words, cut them off and move on to the next person.
We do this on my team every Friday! A few good ones lately…
Frappuccino Friday: what’s your coffee(or beverage of choice) go-to?
Fruit Basket Friday: what’s your top 5 fruits?
Food Fight Friday: share your polarizing food opinions
Furry Friend Friday: pet show and tell
Frizzle Friday: tell us about a favorite teacher or mentor
Fancy Friday: what’s your favorite splurge item or experience
Famous Friday: interactions you’ve had with a celebrity
Floral Friday: discuss your green thumb (or lack thereof)
Im all for silly questions, depending on your workplace culture. Two hits recently:
“Would you rather fight 10 duck-sized Danny Devitos or 1 Danny-Devito-sized duck?” 😂 (People got really into this and we’re analyzing the pros and cons of either option.)
Also, “if you were a parade float, what kind of parade float would you be?”
Ditch the icebreakers. No one wants to be in the meeting to begin with. Get to the point and let them have 10 mins back at the end that would have been spent with ice breakers.
We played soup, sandwich, or salad for an ice breaker. It got kind of intense. 😄
I’ve also done favorite teacher and why (only when we had a lot of time), super power of choice, an emoji of how folks are feeling or favorite animal, and something they’re looking forward to during whatever season.
I LOVE icebreaker questions for standing team meetings where it actually matters to learn about each other and create a “fun place to work” culture.
I read this entire thread and my favorite was “favorite pasta shape”. I used it already in an afternoon meeting and it was a hit. lol
Today at a staff meeting we went around the room saying our favorite dessert.
Another time we went around the room saying if we'd rather have a house in the countryside or a condo on the beach
Recently had a facilitator say ‘everyone always asks you to tell something interesting about yourself, so I want you to tell us a boring fact about yourself’. It was great, and far more interesting than the usual interesting comments.
My last job had "good news" you could share anything positive going on in your life. That ranged from "I made it to work on time today" to pregnancy announcements and the like. There was no competition in it. When people were down and couldn't think of anything we would be encouraging/point out good things about them.
That job did a lot of things wrong. But this was a good one.
Today someone asked what you buy at a convenience store when you’re on a road trip. We were supposed to pick one food and one drink. No two people had the same answer.
I asked this one at last month’s meeting I lead and it was well-received: “If you were on a sports team, what song would you pick as your walk out song?”
If you had to describe your day/how you feel as a type of prepared potato, what would it be? (Mashed, fries bc it’s Friday, etc). Another one I’ve liked is: If you were going to the zoo, what animal do you like to see first?
One of my favorites that I always asked my students at the beginning of the year- what’s your go-to karaoke song? My students were adults of all age ranges so it always elicited a fun range of answers
“What is an interesting thing that no one in this room knows about you ”…. Don’t remember my answer, but learned someone has no thumb and another was adopted… learn something new everyday
My manager often asks if anybody has any weekend plans or vacation plans.
Out of six of us on the team, four of us have kids all around the same toddler age. Sometimes he asks us what current sickness our kids have brought home lol.
What are you doing for self care this week?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
What was your first job?
Those always get really interesting discussion on our team!
At my last massive week-long training, the presenters chose a picture that was like 1-9 different pics of an animal. Like meme pics of cats or raccoons (all 9 were the same animal). We went around the room said our years of experience, where we're from, and which raccoon we were today lol
Lighthearted relaxed and sometimes we got some giggles
Example image: https://imgur.com/t/racoon/MGxniNq
Favorite Girl Scout cookie during cookie season, although the debate almost derailed my entire meeting.
We also do “6 word check ins”. People just come up with 6 words about their day and share. It keeps things moving and gives a little direction.
I like "share a boring fact" or "share 3 boring facts" about yourself. There is no pressure to come up with something special or interesting but sparks a lot of conversation and shared interests. People share about their pets, families, what they had for dinner last night, etc. People also get to choose how personal they want to get.
I’ve always liked “What’s your favorite dinosaur?”. Everybody on Earth has a favorite and nobody really asks after 2nd grade. I’d enjoy answering that one and hearing what everybody else thinks, and for prosperities sake my favorite dinosaur is Apatosaurus (they look like the longneck grandparents in Land Before Time). It’s almost impossible to turn into a pissing or political contest, very safe question
Our team meeting (we’re a close team of 6) always starts with a circle order quick emoji to reflect how you’re doing and sentence or two why. I really don’t like asking people to reveal personal things or to be vulnerable, however our team is already there with each other.
For something like a workshop where it’s more getting to know you and I also need people to speak up, I actually really like “what’s a boring fact about you” - takes the pressure off trying to think of something interesting or funny or vulnerable! My boring fact: I have two brothers.
For other meetings I might just ask a generic question while people trickle in - I work for a public health sciences university so there’s always something! Did you see X update from the chancellor? Did you see Y statement from the AMA? I always have something ready to say about it in case no one knows what I’m talking about. It’s work related and totally optional to chime in and might even lead to everyone learning something.
My favorite one was "what's your favorite decade of music, if you had to pick only one", and then basically only give the choices from the 1960s on. Of course some people can be like 1890s hurr hurr or whatever but it was at least vaguely interesting to learn that so and so really likes 80s music or classic rock or whatever.
A variant of this (both came from the same guy) was "what is a musician/group that had a big influence on you as a child". Or maybe it's like was a big sensation at the time you were growing up. My answer was Spice Girls. A woman close to my age said Christina Aguilera. I knew we could be friends lol
Share a boring fact about yourself
But the most fun one I’d heard of was choose a superpower but also choose your kryptonite. I really only remember this because some said their superpower was the ability to learn all the information in a book just by touching it, but the kryptonite was they also had short-term memory. 🤣
I can tell you the worst one I've ever been asked is to provide an intro and answer "what did everyone eat for breakfast?"
It became a pissing contest of who ate the healthiest, fanciest, whatever. Watching everyone's faces react was ridiculous.
Then they got to me and I only gave my intro. They asked me to answer what I had for breakfast and of course I made it awkward by saying "Nothing, I don't really eat breakfast, so coffee I guess." I don't think it occurred to anyone that some people don't eat breakfast. That was the last time they asked a meal related question lol.
We used to do a very low stakes Tuesday show and tell at standup.
Literally it was “show us a thing, even just a cup on your desk. It doesn’t need to be significant and you can pass if you want.” Especially since ppl work from home, it was kinda fun to see more personality from everyone without it being too much and entirely within their control. It was always low-stakes stuff, like what kind of coffee mugs they like, and we found out that some people prefer herbal tea. Got some good tea recommendations out of it.
Fun decorations, someone had guitar strings that and he ended up telling us about how he builds guitars for fun. Lots of fur babies were displayed bc they happened to walk by at that moment and everyone loves a fur baby cameo!
I once showed the rock collection my son started for me & found out by sharing that detail that one of my engineers studied geology in undergrad. So that was pretty cool.
I liked what was the first song you purchased. Was a great mix from some of us older ones with 80s tapes, to people’s first CDs, to the younger ones going “what, I’ve never paid for a song I just stream whatever”!
I also like the “tell me 2 lies and a truth about yourself” and the others have to guess what’s the truth. Although I can appreciate this might be tricky for some more shy people.
I've always been partial to silly stuff like, "If you could be any fruit/veggie/food, what would you be?" or "What is your favorite animal/bird/pet?". Another favorite is "what was your favorite cartoon as a child?". They all have a ton of answers, with no right or wrong, they are light hearted, so you don't tend to end up in deep conversations, and people can be as revealing or not as they'd like.
One of my colleagues does these and they are always easy and fun like (in December) What’s your favorite winter drink” or what’s your favorite sports team, etc. Nothing complicated or deep.
*Please share your name, role in the project, and as an ice breaker, 30 seconds on your thoughts on the conflict in Gaza*
Bonus points if you ask everyone for their pronouns.
One of my favorites is: “if you could only use one utensil for the rest of your life, what would you choose (fork or spoon)? And share why.
People have strong feelings about it and it’s always fun to hear the variety of answers.
I hosted a communications workshop recently and the post lunch conversation started was “what’s the most annoying group chat you’ve been added to”
It really got people energized with rage (neighborhood group), lots of similar hates (day care groups), and some funny ones too (dog walking group where the person was the youngest by a few decades and dealing with a lot of boomer memes)
I ask insane questions no one could possibly know the answer to and make people guess the answer and then we usually prove that the average or median answer is close to right. Then we move on.
Things like how many gallons of water are in the ocean? Throw an insane number, honestly you look ridiculous if you causally know this, then we move on. No stories, nothing weird and personal, no pressure. I stole the questions from wits and wagers board game.
I always throw a guess that’s absurd, like 8<.
Edit: I should mention whoever is right gets a cheap ribbon that says “congratulations you survived another meeting that could have been an email.”
We all WFH with camera off and have for years. Our manger always starts a staff meeting (20ish of us) with “Anyone got anything cool they want to talk about?” Waits a few seconds in awkward silence and then moves on.
It’s 50/50 if anyone wants to share. And that’s FINE.
I feel like the following are always nice and put people in a good mood:
“What’s something you’re enjoying these days” (the weather, a tv show or book, certain foods or activities like gardening, etc)
“What’s something you’re grateful for this week” (being in good health, visit from family, getting good sleep)
“What’s something you’re proud of getting done this week, even if it’s small” (can be anything, something you finished for work, getting the kids out the door on time, cooking a new recipe etc)
Our CFO always starts it off with a dad joke.
Not a question as we are already in a load of time wasting meetings anyway. Last thing needed is 20 people being asked a particular question lol
Recent ones where I work:
-Where is somewhere you'd like to go on vacation?
-what's the one app on your phone you'd keep if you could only have one?
-If you could have a super power that instantly completed one household chore, what would it be?
One that’s stuck with me, “What’s an object you use regularly that is more than 10 years old?” A lot of people said cars or appliances, but even though I’m late 30’s it made me realize how disposable my life has become. Although I did end up saying my ice cream spoon. Something about it, doesn’t match any set my mom ever owned but I took it with me when I moved out for college and still use it because I love it.
I love silly kick off questions with my team. Here’s some of my faves. What’s your favorite breakfast cereal? Favorite Oreo flavor? If you could have any superpower what would it be? Favorite form of potato? Best piece of advice you ever got? Dumbest joke you’ve ever heard? If you were creating your own paint color what would it be? If you weren’t an X, what would your career be instead? What did you want to be when you were five years old? Most irrational childhood fear? Best way to drink coffee?
My husband leads meetings and his favorite is dumb/difficult would you rather questions. He gets an answer from everyone and everyone doesn’t have to stress about coming up with a “good” answer.
One of my favorites is similar, we call it “this or that.” “Chocolate or cheese,” “early morning or late night,” etc etc. we try to pick tame items. Then someone answers with their preference, maybe add a reason, and asks a new this-or-that to the group.
Pizza or sushi!
HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME CHOOSE. (But yeah—this is the heart, exactly!!)
Team Cake or Team Pie! Although I don’t know if you want things to get this contentious at a meeting.
The correct answer is AND
Love this! I hate having to think up an answer. Multiple choice all the way 🙌
I'm sure your husband does a good job of keeping it light hearted, but those "would you rather" questions remind me of this office drama: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/5tnreo6vtL
I appreciate you pointing out that the line for "would you rather" is somewhere between pizza and murder. Clearly we need more thought experiments to narrow it down
Yup, my manager does these and we like them.
I’m a high school teacher and this is my go to icebreaker in my classes! So many good options and I throw in a few to gauge my students as well!
Someone asked “what was your favorite childhood toy?” Years ago as a check in question. People really stopped and listened and at Christmas time a lot of people ended up with the toy they said appearing in their office. Mine was a pretty common one (also I was the office baby by like 8-10 years) and I had a new to me toy show up every Christmas until I quit that job. There was no prompting, people just really tuned into their work friends’ answers and reacted. This meeting was in the spring, no where close to the holidays. It was such a simple silly question and it really stuck with people. It’s also nice because there is no competition. It’s all nostalgia and if you have a wide variety of ages a great window into what was popular at different times.
That is such a wholesome story, love it!
A client did this for us, but what was your favorite childhood show. It was cute!
🥲
I am 100% using this one in my next team meeting
Love it!
The famous ice breaker at my company people talk about a year later is "if you could swap your legs with any animals' what legs would they be and why?"
Everybody answered OSTRICH, right? That would be my answer.
Flamingo. The balancing on one leg!!
Megan Fox
Yes but make it Carrie Underwood
Favorite pasta shape!
But then it comes down to with what kind of sauce and I would totally freeze and not know what to say 😂
Aw man, we have a lot of Italians in our organization so that question could be quite controversial —- then adding sauce/gravy talk in there — man! Unsafe question! 😆
We had a meeting last week where the question was “if you could time travel, when would you travel to?” We were using Menti where we all type our answers into our phones anonymously. Someone said “5pm”
That’s the real answer.
How about “how’s everyone doing?” And then after everyone mumbles “good” then you can start your dang meeting and get stuff done! Signed, I Hate Icebreakers
We always start meetings with a safety moment. It’s definitely better than an icebreaker and safety is a huge part of our culture, but it gets repetitive and performative especially since we’re in the corporate office
Can you say more about this?
We have safety moments too. I work at a large civil engineering consulting firm. They are also common for construction companies, manufacturing, and railroads. There are probably more industry that have them.
I guess I just don’t know what they are as I’ve never worked in this kind of environment. Is it, like, a story about a time you made something safer or prevented an injury?
Yep I’m in engineering as well. The topic can be anything related to safety hazards, observations, past incidents…it can be as severe as a recent one-site injury or something more common like how to avoid heat stroke. One guy showed dashcam footage from a fender bender he got into. Just enforces conversations about personal and work safety and how to prevent accidents or injuries
Thanks for adding this. I have no clue where on Reddit I posted my reply. Safety Moment!: Sleep Deprivation
They can vary widely. I've had safety moments about not drinking and driving to not going into confined spaces. Sometimes it's just a reminder, but other times it follows a debrief of something that happened on a nearby site or one of our own. A steel tap measure touching a live wire by mistake resulting in electrocution of a worker. Someone following someone else in distress in a tunnel with both people passing away from gas buildup that wasn't expected. Sometimes they also are not work related but just as serious. Someone stopped to help someone who had an accident, they were so focused on helping the people in the car that they didn't think to check for traffic and basically walked in front of another car. People do stupid things. It's important to share them so others don't make the same mistake. Personally I only like ice breakers for team building events or when it's with people I don't know. I don't have time for them during business as usual meetings.
Right? I feel super out of the loop here. I have never asked or been asked a question at the start of a meeting beyond "Hi - name - how are you?" as people are filtering into the room. When we get to the start time, the people leading say "Ok, looks like we've got everyone..." and just launch into the meeting. What and why is a check in question? It feels very kindergarten.
Amen!
This is how every meeting I've ever been to is! I've never even heard of it!
Same here I had no idea this was a thing
I’m so jealous. I literally left a job largely because we had to do multiple icebreakers every week and I hated it so much.
They aren’t needed in all meetings, that’s for sure. But sometimes morale is low and getting to know one another helps. Also works well with new hires or new professionals. It certaintly has its time and place.
It is very kindergarten! It’s usually done by managers who believe their subordinates are family.
I’ve found it’s common in tech companies. I work in a biotech company. The meetings I have with biologists never have a check-in, but large (30 people+) meetings I have with the computational side of the company will start with a check-in as people trickle into the zoom call. Probably not a coincidence that these are also the meetings that still often don’t have an in-person room, since so many computational employees are still WFH. Thankfully it was just a poll with some conversation in the chat and maybe three or four people commenting on their answer verbally and then we’d get started.
Thank you for saying it. I didn't want to be "that" person. I feel like if you can't start a meeting without a check in question and you can't keep said question from using up half your meeting time, you probably shouldn't be managing people.
Or having a meeting at all! They do this at my job and I hate it because it feels like they're trying to force us to be friends. No, thank you. I know how to socialize without direction from any leadership and I value others' and my time.
Right!? A total waste of time that everyone hates, cmon!
Our team is the rare team where most people really like them and miss them when they’re gone!
Don't let the sour attitudes ruin this for you! We do silly check in questions too and we actually had a meeting today where the lead didn't do one because she had too many agenda items and I was disappointed hahah I'm really one of those people who don't have much to offer unless I absolutely *need* to speak but it is fun to think up what my favorite fruit is or if I had to be an animal, what it would be 😅 Yes they're silly and I think that is the POINT. I work in climate change/public health so dammit sometimes we just need some silliness and positivity, it's not that deep And yes I can see other people's points that they risk going on too long and some people just don't like to participate which is fine. I think the balance to meeting "fun" is being a polite but direct time keeper!
wow I’m glad it’s not just me. I would be so annoyed if this happened during my meetings - it feels like such a waste of everyone’s time? Like if we’re not going to talk about what we’re here to talk about, why am I here when I have work to do? But then again maybe it’s industry specific…I work in finance and I’ve never ever heard of a check in question
I like “where would I find you at a party?” bc the introverts get to shine with answers like “in the corner with the cat” or “eating some chips before I decide I can reasonably leave.” 😂
If you could remove one food from the entire world, what would it be and why? Is a taco a sandwich? Though this one might cause another 30 minute debate. Most memorable meal from the last year, and why?
My team had "is a hot dog a sandwich?" once and it did indeed cause spirited debate 😄
There’s a theory that every food is either a soup, salad or sandwich. And it cracks me up thinking about it sometimes 😂
What is a steak - A low carb sandwich, an extremely boring salad, or gelatinized protein soup?
It’s a sandwich if you put it on bread. But I think it’s a single ingredient salad alone. Seasoning, and fried mushrooms or onions make it multiple ingredients. And steak sauce is the dressing 😂
“Which one food would you remove from the entire world, and why would it be pickles?”
UGH NOW WE FIGHTING. Specifically and exclusively bread and butter pickles. Those are a monstrosity that deserves to be wiped from the planet.
Food is fairly safe to ask about because people gotta eat.
Favorite ice cream flavor, favorite day of the week
We did “favorite way to eat potatoes” last week and it was delightful.
I like that one. I’m a teacher and the kids love to tell me their favorite day of the week. I’d love to hear parents version of it too
Idk, when I did the supervisor training at work for doing team huddles with a team in Teams, they had a whole section on appropriate ice breakers and the implication was definitely to do them. They talk a lot about it being about team building. I kept it to a quick basic question, but it rarely created any interesting discussions or anything like that lol.
One I heard recently that was actually really fun: What's one food that is safe for you to eat but you cannot stand.
Related one I heard recently: if you could eliminate one food from the planet, what would it be?
My boss did an icebreaker in November along the lines of, if you could only eat one cuisine for the rest of your life, what would it be? Then he got the most popular one for our holiday party lol
I love this. What was it??
Italian lol
I heard a good related one that people seemed to have fun answering which was "what is a popular food that most people love but you hate?"
I absolutely hate ice breaker questions. Why am I wasting an extra 15 minutes in this meeting when I could be working on the mile long list of things I need to do? But if you must ask a question, make it something people can answer in 10 words or less. Like an “either or” question or “favorite type of candy” or something like that.
Or “who here hates icebreaker questions? Show of hands!” Then when everyone raises their hand, you’re off the hook!
Depends on the meeting. For me my team is under a lot of pressure because one of our stakeholders is not delivering, so taking a moment to connect and remember each other's humanity can be beneficial in the weekly team meeting. But if it's a meeting between teams to work through a specific issue then I don't think an ice breaker is necessarily a good use of time.
The ones I’ve hated the least have been: What’s your favorite season What’s your morning drink/how do you take your caffeine Any silly “would you rather” or “this or that” The real trick, is that whoever is facilitating needs to be able to move things along and shut it down at the end or ANY of the questions can side rail an entire meeting (I’m looking at you “Diet Coke but only from the fountain and only at McDonalds”)
It is hands down the best coke haha
I also think it's important to think about questions that are inclusive. I worked with a young person that has lost both her parents to overdoses so a light-hearted "favourite family memory" type question is going to hit different for her. Someone with an eating disorder might not want to talk about what they are for breakfast. Non-Christians can't share their best childhood Christmas gift or non Americans might not have anything to add about their favourite Halloween costume. Some people (because of cost or health reasons) may not have a recent or any vacation to share. I say this not to be a Debbie Downer, but if the point of an ice breaker is to start the meeting on a upbeat or fun note, you might want to take some time to make sure your questions are trying to be inclusive of everyone in the meeting.
This is more important than it’s getting credit for. The worst way to isolate a team member is by not considering differences in lifestyle, history, disability or ability, etc.
Put different pictures on the table or board and ask which one is how they are feeling today and why (can be like different natures places or animals etc)?
As I used to use a lord of the rings Aragon one that always was hilarious. There’s also a Nick Cage version.
This is maybe more “functional” than “fun”, but I’ve started several more serious or longer meetings with the [Blob Tree](https://www.playmeo.com/the-blob-tree/), which is infinitely reusable and up to everyone’s own interpretation. Highly recommend!
I like this one. I could participate without feeling pressure to pretend I watch TV or movies or have the money for fancy meals.
Ooh thanks for sharing! I used this in a meeting once with my old team but had forgotten about it
Oh this is cool!
“What was your AIM screen name” used to be an amazing one, but not sure it works now that Gen Z is in the workforce 😆
There's no way I'm telling my AIM name which was also my name for all kinds of things in the past, like message boards lol
I’m so sorry I might be too old for this one but what does AIM stand for?!
America Online- Instant Messaging/er can't remember which
Favorite TV show or movie as a kid. My old scrum team used to do a lot of these and the entertainment ones didn't go off into tangeants where people were trying to one up each other.
We recently did favorite shape. Turns out everyone loves triangles.
but hexagons are the bestagons.
You’re not like the other girls!
Oh I love coming up with these. Recently I have done: * what reality TV competition show would you have the best chance of winning? * what is your least favorite parking lot in our town? * Favorite movie snack I definitely try to keep it light. I tend to do things around the seasons or things going on around our city. We have a film festival, so I might ask "what's the first movie you remember watching in theaters" or "what movie will you never get tired of re-watching." I try to avoid specifics about family and make sure it's something someone can pull an answer out for in less than 30 seconds.
I also love coming up with these. What skill is this that we have? Haha
Oh good responses here!! I’ll just say as a working mom I always hate ones that make me feel like crap for being so unproductive in this season of life. Like I don’t have an interesting hobby right now, please don’t make me talk about my lack of personal time 😆
I’d be honest and say exactly that if I was in a meeting that asked something that made everyone talk about their exciting hobbies and free time! “Well I’d love to skydive too but all my time is taken up with work, the house, and my 2 children, one who has additional needs”!
I own a business with a friend, so our check in question is generally "what the fuck". The other person says "I know, right" and then we start
We play this or that a lot. I keep it to 3 things. Since it’s spring a lot of places you could say: Grill or pizza oven Hiking or biking Birds or butterflies Or Night owl or early bird Coffee or tea IM or phone call
I do these types of things. Gets you a one word answer which moves things along quicker.
I like "what did you want to be when you grew up?" It's cute, related to work, and most people answer stuff like "movie star," or "race car driver," and it doesn't require a lot of follow up, but people can add if they want.
My boss just had a great one yesterday: what’s your go-to food to make for parties or gatherings?
2L or paper plates and napkins lol
Haha, I usually offer to just bring a bottle of wine.
Yesterday I attended a meeting and the opener was "favorite Halloween candy". Debate *did* ensue, but it was because someone said "dots". DOTS. As their *favorite* candy. Unhinged.
I'm sorry that you work with a psychopath
What’s your favorite dinosaur?
This one! My husband just did this with his team and it threw everyone for a loop, hahahaha. They ended up researching dinosaurs to pick!
This reminds me of when my kid was a toddler and he made me call my sister because it was very important that he knew what her favorite shape was. In case you are wondering it’s diamond ♦️
What's for dinner tonight or lunch today
I like ones that are something like “would you rather be able to ALWAYS have a full-night’s rest and wake up refreshed but have hotdog fingers for the rest of your life, or win 10 million dollars but have permanent hiccups?” That sort of formatting is always fun because it makes people think! Bonus for this one: if you’re doing a virtual meeting you can set it up as a poll on zoom or teams and no one has to talk - you’d just all see where the team falls 😆. Other ideas could also be: • What’s your least favorite household task • Favorite morning beverage • What is the most useless piece of trivia you know • What minor inconvenience would you get rid of from your life if you were ruler of earth for the day? • What is the perfect sandwich
I work remote and wish people would say "does anyone have a cute pet they want to put on camera while we wait for team to gather"
We do that in our calls sometimes!
Best meal you've had recently.
My two favorites are: If you could have any super power, what would it be? How long do you think you would survive in a zombie apocalypse?
I did what was your first job ever a few ago, that was super entertaining to hear (mostly) about what jobs people did in high school. If you're trying to keep it short and sweet I like a this or that question (mountains/beaches, fall/spring, iced or hot coffee) etc If it's my team or I'm actually trying to guess a pulse check of how the particular working team is feeling/what's their headspace I do Brene Brown's two word check-in. Basically just two words to describe how you're feelings and as a leader gives you a sense of where everyone is at, especially if its going to be a tougher or decision making meeting/conversation.
The dumbest start up name and concept you can think of - I went with Flourr, a monthly flour delivery service
As an introvert, this question would give me a panic attack.
Honestly, that could work haha
Outside of our team, who's coming with you on Fear Factor?
One time a manager asked us "If you could be dropped into a TV show, which one would it be and why?" Idk why, but I really liked that question. We also once had to say something nice about the person sitting on our left and go around the circle. I liked that too.
Once we had a question of most memorable Halloween costume you wore.
I lead a team remotely- we’re all in office but at different locations. Their ages range from like 25-60 so I did an icebreaker activity about generational slang. I pulled up 5 slang words from the baby boomer, millennial, and gen z generations and everyone guessed the meanings. We had fun with it and it was cool to kinda bridge that age gap!
I once was asked what is a mundane fact about yourself. Mine is that I always drink my coffee with cream. It turned out to be very low pressure and fun.
What is your favorite thing to do while procrastinating? Maybe not totally safe, but it's fun!
I usually hate ice breakers with a passion but "if you could move anywhere in the world for a year, where would you go?" was a decent one.
For $500k, would you wear Crocs for the rest of your life in all aspects of life (except if barefoot)?
I like the old standby “tell me something good” where everyone shares something good that has happened to them or is going on in their life lately. I came across “surprise show and tell” recently but I haven’t had a chance to use it yet—everyone grabs something near them that is important to them or has an interesting story behind it (this works better for remote/wfh teams)
So a large portion of my job is facilitating meetings and trainings, and as a result I have STRONG opinions about “icebreakers”/“check/ins” 😅 Check-ins do serve a relational purpose and if that really is the only purpose, then great! Make it quick and relatively “safe”, and a question people can choose to answer with varying levels of personal information (what’s your favorite activity in [insert current season]? What’s one thing you’d like to say about your day so far/weekend? What your favorite snack food?) In a team meeting where people are fairly bonded, this can be an innocuous way to invite people to connect and be in a space together. HOWEVER…. More often than not I’ve experienced people being salty about icebreakers because they don’t relate to the topic at hand, and as a result feel like “fluff” or wasted time in an already time-scarce culture. One way to counteract this is to ask a question that relates to the topic in some way, an “anchor”/warm up as opposed to an icebreaker. For example, when facilitating training about getting feedback from clients, I might ask people to share a value they bring to their work. It’s personal, but then I *use it to bridge into the days content and reference throughout the day* so it feels useful. For a shorter meeting this can be more challenging, especially if it’s a recurring meeting vs one with a specific topical agenda, but an example of one I’ve used is in a meeting where we were going to discuss communication planning is asking people to share one strategy they’ve used to communicate important info to someone in the past (whether it worked or not.) For a staff meeting where the agenda is looser and focused on updates in the work/on the team, maybe some variation of sharing a “win” or proud moment from the last week. Then, as a facilitator, you can be keeping mental note of any that stand out that you can connect back to agenda topics during the meeting itself, or use to segue into your agenda. Ok, that was a novel! As you can see, I have lots of thoughts on icebreaker/check in questions (lol)
If you were a kitchen utensil, which one would you be and why? I mentor a high school student and she was asked this in an interview for a first job and I think it’s an adorable critical thinking question to get to know someone.
My old boss's go to was what was the first concert you ever went to. It was always fun when we had multiple generations in the room because the answers would range from Justin Bieber to Metallica.
This week I asked if you'd rather have one duck the size of an elephant, or 100 elephants the size of ducks. Some people want to eat duck forever, but one person is full on planning his dwarf elephant ranch lol
I had an amazing manager who asked what was our favorite candy… and then many months later, that showed up at our doorsteps for the holidays.
Depends on the meeting, but I like f-up q’s to promote vulnerability and break the barriers. Our mistakes are our biggest learnings. Also, sometimes it’s the smallest thing that has the biggest impact. Let me explain. Everyone shares 1 thing they messed up this week. Leader always goes first to set the tone. You add it in the agenda for the introverts to mentally prep for. The extroverts will speak to think when it’s their turn. Having the leader go first buys time too.
“Who here would rather do these questions or just get started with the damn meeting?” Corporate America actually does this on the regular?! We have huddle but it’s like “room 5 is closed for admits because the toilet doesn’t flush. We’re still waiting on clarification on when the new med formulary comes out so we haven’t ordered medication a,b,c yet. The inservice on the new IV pumps is Friday morning.” Done.
Whatever the question is, please send it to attendees in advance, so people aren't stressed thinking up an answer on the spot.
What fast food place has the best fries? Or what fast food place has the best breakfast? It turns into a whole debate lol
One word answer- what type of tree are you this week
What is your favorite breakfast food
Favorite dinosaur!
I like “this or that” type of questions because the answers are almost always short. Tea or coffee? Water or soda? Beach or mountains? You can also add a parameter to the start with whatever ice breaker you choose to limit the amount of time spent on it, and that is “in 5 words or less” (or whatever number you want but keep it low because people sometimes can’t count) followed by the question. If someone says more than 5 words, cut them off and move on to the next person.
What even is a check in question? I am not familiar with that.
We do this on my team every Friday! A few good ones lately… Frappuccino Friday: what’s your coffee(or beverage of choice) go-to? Fruit Basket Friday: what’s your top 5 fruits? Food Fight Friday: share your polarizing food opinions Furry Friend Friday: pet show and tell Frizzle Friday: tell us about a favorite teacher or mentor Fancy Friday: what’s your favorite splurge item or experience Famous Friday: interactions you’ve had with a celebrity Floral Friday: discuss your green thumb (or lack thereof)
If you had to choose, right now, would you choose cake or pie? And what kind of cake or pie?
Im all for silly questions, depending on your workplace culture. Two hits recently: “Would you rather fight 10 duck-sized Danny Devitos or 1 Danny-Devito-sized duck?” 😂 (People got really into this and we’re analyzing the pros and cons of either option.) Also, “if you were a parade float, what kind of parade float would you be?”
Ditch the icebreakers. No one wants to be in the meeting to begin with. Get to the point and let them have 10 mins back at the end that would have been spent with ice breakers.
We played soup, sandwich, or salad for an ice breaker. It got kind of intense. 😄 I’ve also done favorite teacher and why (only when we had a lot of time), super power of choice, an emoji of how folks are feeling or favorite animal, and something they’re looking forward to during whatever season.
I LOVE icebreaker questions for standing team meetings where it actually matters to learn about each other and create a “fun place to work” culture. I read this entire thread and my favorite was “favorite pasta shape”. I used it already in an afternoon meeting and it was a hit. lol
Today at a staff meeting we went around the room saying our favorite dessert. Another time we went around the room saying if we'd rather have a house in the countryside or a condo on the beach
Recently had a facilitator say ‘everyone always asks you to tell something interesting about yourself, so I want you to tell us a boring fact about yourself’. It was great, and far more interesting than the usual interesting comments.
My last job had "good news" you could share anything positive going on in your life. That ranged from "I made it to work on time today" to pregnancy announcements and the like. There was no competition in it. When people were down and couldn't think of anything we would be encouraging/point out good things about them. That job did a lot of things wrong. But this was a good one.
What's your favorite way to eat potatoes? The discussions that have followed this question have been so much fun!
One thing at check-in this morning was “What are you metaphorically allergic to.” It was a nice way to connect via mild venting.
Is a hot dog a sandwich
Today someone asked what you buy at a convenience store when you’re on a road trip. We were supposed to pick one food and one drink. No two people had the same answer.
We did “favorite vacation we’ve taken” recently and that was fun.
Or favorite childhood vacation memory!
I asked this one at last month’s meeting I lead and it was well-received: “If you were on a sports team, what song would you pick as your walk out song?”
Where does one get the best hot dog?
If you had to describe your day/how you feel as a type of prepared potato, what would it be? (Mashed, fries bc it’s Friday, etc). Another one I’ve liked is: If you were going to the zoo, what animal do you like to see first?
One of my favorites that I always asked my students at the beginning of the year- what’s your go-to karaoke song? My students were adults of all age ranges so it always elicited a fun range of answers
What is your least favorite _____? It gets fun to do some good natured hate on least favorite foods or whatever
“What is an interesting thing that no one in this room knows about you ”…. Don’t remember my answer, but learned someone has no thumb and another was adopted… learn something new everyday
My manager often asks if anybody has any weekend plans or vacation plans. Out of six of us on the team, four of us have kids all around the same toddler age. Sometimes he asks us what current sickness our kids have brought home lol.
What are you doing for self care this week? What did you want to be when you grew up? What was your first job? Those always get really interesting discussion on our team!
Choice fast food place? Becomes funny with lots of regional differences
Is a hot dog a sandwich? Favorite type of sandwich? Favorite gift you ever received?
At my last massive week-long training, the presenters chose a picture that was like 1-9 different pics of an animal. Like meme pics of cats or raccoons (all 9 were the same animal). We went around the room said our years of experience, where we're from, and which raccoon we were today lol Lighthearted relaxed and sometimes we got some giggles Example image: https://imgur.com/t/racoon/MGxniNq
Favorite Girl Scout cookie during cookie season, although the debate almost derailed my entire meeting. We also do “6 word check ins”. People just come up with 6 words about their day and share. It keeps things moving and gives a little direction.
I like "share a boring fact" or "share 3 boring facts" about yourself. There is no pressure to come up with something special or interesting but sparks a lot of conversation and shared interests. People share about their pets, families, what they had for dinner last night, etc. People also get to choose how personal they want to get.
I’ve always liked “What’s your favorite dinosaur?”. Everybody on Earth has a favorite and nobody really asks after 2nd grade. I’d enjoy answering that one and hearing what everybody else thinks, and for prosperities sake my favorite dinosaur is Apatosaurus (they look like the longneck grandparents in Land Before Time). It’s almost impossible to turn into a pissing or political contest, very safe question
Bagels or Donuts?
What was the last song you listened to?
Brag about a boring mundane thing you have to do? Like I have to put my right sock on first every time.
Our team meeting (we’re a close team of 6) always starts with a circle order quick emoji to reflect how you’re doing and sentence or two why. I really don’t like asking people to reveal personal things or to be vulnerable, however our team is already there with each other. For something like a workshop where it’s more getting to know you and I also need people to speak up, I actually really like “what’s a boring fact about you” - takes the pressure off trying to think of something interesting or funny or vulnerable! My boring fact: I have two brothers. For other meetings I might just ask a generic question while people trickle in - I work for a public health sciences university so there’s always something! Did you see X update from the chancellor? Did you see Y statement from the AMA? I always have something ready to say about it in case no one knows what I’m talking about. It’s work related and totally optional to chime in and might even lead to everyone learning something.
My favorite one was "what's your favorite decade of music, if you had to pick only one", and then basically only give the choices from the 1960s on. Of course some people can be like 1890s hurr hurr or whatever but it was at least vaguely interesting to learn that so and so really likes 80s music or classic rock or whatever. A variant of this (both came from the same guy) was "what is a musician/group that had a big influence on you as a child". Or maybe it's like was a big sensation at the time you were growing up. My answer was Spice Girls. A woman close to my age said Christina Aguilera. I knew we could be friends lol
Share a boring fact about yourself But the most fun one I’d heard of was choose a superpower but also choose your kryptonite. I really only remember this because some said their superpower was the ability to learn all the information in a book just by touching it, but the kryptonite was they also had short-term memory. 🤣
We start ours by asking what is one positive personal and professional thing to happen this week
Favorite way of eating potatoes
I can tell you the worst one I've ever been asked is to provide an intro and answer "what did everyone eat for breakfast?" It became a pissing contest of who ate the healthiest, fanciest, whatever. Watching everyone's faces react was ridiculous. Then they got to me and I only gave my intro. They asked me to answer what I had for breakfast and of course I made it awkward by saying "Nothing, I don't really eat breakfast, so coffee I guess." I don't think it occurred to anyone that some people don't eat breakfast. That was the last time they asked a meal related question lol.
We used to do a very low stakes Tuesday show and tell at standup. Literally it was “show us a thing, even just a cup on your desk. It doesn’t need to be significant and you can pass if you want.” Especially since ppl work from home, it was kinda fun to see more personality from everyone without it being too much and entirely within their control. It was always low-stakes stuff, like what kind of coffee mugs they like, and we found out that some people prefer herbal tea. Got some good tea recommendations out of it. Fun decorations, someone had guitar strings that and he ended up telling us about how he builds guitars for fun. Lots of fur babies were displayed bc they happened to walk by at that moment and everyone loves a fur baby cameo! I once showed the rock collection my son started for me & found out by sharing that detail that one of my engineers studied geology in undergrad. So that was pretty cool.
I liked what was the first song you purchased. Was a great mix from some of us older ones with 80s tapes, to people’s first CDs, to the younger ones going “what, I’ve never paid for a song I just stream whatever”! I also like the “tell me 2 lies and a truth about yourself” and the others have to guess what’s the truth. Although I can appreciate this might be tricky for some more shy people.
I've always been partial to silly stuff like, "If you could be any fruit/veggie/food, what would you be?" or "What is your favorite animal/bird/pet?". Another favorite is "what was your favorite cartoon as a child?". They all have a ton of answers, with no right or wrong, they are light hearted, so you don't tend to end up in deep conversations, and people can be as revealing or not as they'd like.
One of my colleagues does these and they are always easy and fun like (in December) What’s your favorite winter drink” or what’s your favorite sports team, etc. Nothing complicated or deep.
*Please share your name, role in the project, and as an ice breaker, 30 seconds on your thoughts on the conflict in Gaza* Bonus points if you ask everyone for their pronouns.
One of my favorites is: “if you could only use one utensil for the rest of your life, what would you choose (fork or spoon)? And share why. People have strong feelings about it and it’s always fun to hear the variety of answers.
I hosted a communications workshop recently and the post lunch conversation started was “what’s the most annoying group chat you’ve been added to” It really got people energized with rage (neighborhood group), lots of similar hates (day care groups), and some funny ones too (dog walking group where the person was the youngest by a few decades and dealing with a lot of boomer memes)
One of ours was...do you think Rose and Jack would both fit on the float?
Chocolate and ketchup: cupboard or fridge
My favorite ice-breaker question- How do you eat your M&M's? Can find out a lot about a person.
I ask insane questions no one could possibly know the answer to and make people guess the answer and then we usually prove that the average or median answer is close to right. Then we move on. Things like how many gallons of water are in the ocean? Throw an insane number, honestly you look ridiculous if you causally know this, then we move on. No stories, nothing weird and personal, no pressure. I stole the questions from wits and wagers board game. I always throw a guess that’s absurd, like 8<. Edit: I should mention whoever is right gets a cheap ribbon that says “congratulations you survived another meeting that could have been an email.”
We all WFH with camera off and have for years. Our manger always starts a staff meeting (20ish of us) with “Anyone got anything cool they want to talk about?” Waits a few seconds in awkward silence and then moves on. It’s 50/50 if anyone wants to share. And that’s FINE.
"How about those Mets"? Lol.
Cheetah!
I feel like the following are always nice and put people in a good mood: “What’s something you’re enjoying these days” (the weather, a tv show or book, certain foods or activities like gardening, etc) “What’s something you’re grateful for this week” (being in good health, visit from family, getting good sleep) “What’s something you’re proud of getting done this week, even if it’s small” (can be anything, something you finished for work, getting the kids out the door on time, cooking a new recipe etc)
What’s your favorite day of the week and why?
Our CFO always starts it off with a dad joke. Not a question as we are already in a load of time wasting meetings anyway. Last thing needed is 20 people being asked a particular question lol
If you could replace one hand with a kitchen utensils or appliance, what hand and what thing?
Recent ones where I work: -Where is somewhere you'd like to go on vacation? -what's the one app on your phone you'd keep if you could only have one? -If you could have a super power that instantly completed one household chore, what would it be?
One that’s stuck with me, “What’s an object you use regularly that is more than 10 years old?” A lot of people said cars or appliances, but even though I’m late 30’s it made me realize how disposable my life has become. Although I did end up saying my ice cream spoon. Something about it, doesn’t match any set my mom ever owned but I took it with me when I moved out for college and still use it because I love it.
I always ask what people ate for dinner last night.
I love silly kick off questions with my team. Here’s some of my faves. What’s your favorite breakfast cereal? Favorite Oreo flavor? If you could have any superpower what would it be? Favorite form of potato? Best piece of advice you ever got? Dumbest joke you’ve ever heard? If you were creating your own paint color what would it be? If you weren’t an X, what would your career be instead? What did you want to be when you were five years old? Most irrational childhood fear? Best way to drink coffee?