Most Likely To ❓

Most Likely To is a simple game. To play, the leader poses a prompt, and the other participants respond by voting on which teammate is most likely to perform that action. Examples... Who is most likely to run away to join the circus? Who is most likely to wind up on the news? Who is most likely to help you move? Who is most likely to win the lottery? Who is most likely to have a movie made about their life? Who is most likely to forget a birthday? Who is most likely to visit Antarctica? Who is most likely to assume the role of leader in a zombie apocalypse? Who is most likely to believe that unicorns exist? Forms or Yammer can make the game a cinch, as you can prepare a poll template with all attendees’ names, and then cast, collect, and display votes instantly. The player who collects the most votes each round must perform a silly act like five jumping jacks! Encourage attendees to discuss the reasoning behind their choices to stir up some debate, especially if someone votes differently from the rest of the pack.

The Deserted Island Scenario 🌵

Join your virtual meeting and give everyone the bad news: they’ve been stranded on a deserted island. Good news? They get to choose three items from a handy list of survival tools (compass, knife, matches, rope, plastic tarp, an out-of-battery cell phone, canvas tarp, lighter fluid, candy bars, athletic shoes, etc.). Provide a list of tools for everyone to choose from. The longer the list, the more interesting the game will be. You also don’t have to design your list to be sound from a survivor’s standpoint; you simply want everyone to think creatively. Put your meeting on hold or pause while each person gets a few minutes to select their three items. Resume the meeting and have everyone share which items they picked and also explain why. Allow time for each speaker to answer questions about their selections. Now give everyone an additional five minutes to decide if they want to change any of their items based on what they just heard from their teammates. Ask anyone who changed their list to explain why.

Aliens have landed 👽 

A bit of imagination can make any creative problem solving activity more exciting! Divide the whole team into smaller groups of 3 to 4 members. The scenario is, aliens have finally landed on Earth -- but they don’t speak English! So, each team must pick five symbols or pictures to best describe the company! As the manager, check out the images and see if you realize any common themes or symbols. This helps you to understand what the remote employees feel about the company culture, while also improving effective communication and problem solving skills.

Picture sharing 📷

Set aside designated time, perhaps at the beginning of each meeting, for a team member to share one personal photo that is unrelated to work. This photo can contain pets, hobbies, gadgets, family members, etc. Then have the team member explain the photo such as what’s going on there and why they chose it. Remember, allowing team members to share part of their personal lives makes teamwork more fun and can bring a new element of camaraderie to the workplace.

Building a storyline 📗

Everyone loves a good story, right? Building a storyline is one of the oldest and most fun team building activities. Here’s how it goes, step by step... Get the entire group to virtually “form a circle” on a video call and start the process like this: the first person begins the story with one opening sentence and another incomplete one. For example: “On Mark’s first day at his awesome new job, his car broke down. At first, he felt helpless, but then he…” The next individual completes the previous line and adds another incomplete sentence. This way, each remote employee contributes until everyone has had a turn. Aim to develop a comprehensive story structure by the end of the game! Not only does building a storyline force teams to use their creative juices, it also helps them listen to each other and improve team cooperation. The best part? These collaborative and listening skills are the building blocks for clear and effective communication in a remote team!

Pancakes vs Waffles 🥞 

Pancakes vs Waffles is a fun game. The game mechanics are focused on friendly debate and unanimous decision making, which can be helpful for team building with remote workers. Here’s how this goes... Announce the great debate; either pancakes or waffles is going to disappear from existence and your team has to make the choice. When the team decides, anyone can nominate a new contender. For example, if pancakes survived the first round then someone may suggest cabbage. The nominations tend to scale up into existential questions quickly. Bunnies or love? Love or humanity? There is no definitive end point to the game, so you can play until your team is ready to move on. Pancakes vs Waffles is a great way to engage the introverts on your team, because everyone has an opinion about some of the more trivial subjects of debate. 

Two truths and a lie 🤥

Each team member presents 3 statements about themselves: 2 truths and 1 that is false. The team can then take turns to recognize what’s true and what the lie is. After everyone has guessed, the speaker reveals their lie. To make the game even more fun, add some healthy competition with a points system that’s recorded digitally or by the manager with a pen and paper. The person with the most correct guesses will grab the win!

Chubby Bunny 🍬

To play Chubby Bunny, have each person put a marshmallow in their mouth and say the words “chubby bunny.” Then, each person adds an additional marshmallow until only one person can complete the challenge. Important: do not choke on the marshmallows, this is a fun challenge not a daredevil act!!!

Collaborative Craft Project 🎨

Select a collaborative craft project such as a mosaic of painted rocks or a paper quilt, and ask everyone to create one piece independently. When you can get together to assemble the larger project, you’ll be delighted to see how all the individual displays of creativity come together.

Scavenger Hunt 🔎

Since you won’t be able to plant items for people to physically find, your best bet is creating a list of subjective, goal-based items (examples: find the item that makes you feel the happiest, find an item attached to a powerful memory, find your favorite way to connect to others, etc.). Have teammates show their answers. Discuss and have fun!

Lightning Scavenger Hunt ⚡

Lightning Scavenger Hunts are designed to be fun and fast-paced. To play, invite your team to a virtual conference call and start firing off clues like “cuddle your pet”, “show a dictionary”, ''find 5 blue items'', find 3 square items'' or “get your favorite mug.” The first person to complete each clue gets a point. You can score by groups too.

A peek into each other’s homes 🏡

This virtual team building exercise requires team members to virtually open their homes to one another. This is a “hilarious” way to get to know your remote team members and their personalities. Each team member will take a short video showing off their home and some of their favorite things. This activity allows team members to get to know one another on a more personal basis, and can lead to cohesiveness and feelings of camaraderie. Another way this can be done is by allowing one team member to show off their home at the beginning of each week’s meeting. This way, you won’t have to spend an hour looking at multiple people’s houses at a stretch!

Bucket list 📃

A bucket list is a list of things you want to do or experience within your lifetime. Naturally, each person’s bucket list says a lot about them. So, what better way to get to know your team members than by sharing their own bucket lists? Each week, designate one person with the task of sharing his/her bucket list ideas. You can specify the lengths of these lists and whether items already completed should be included. Everyone listening can then spend a short amount of time discussing the bucket list -- whether it’s comparing similarities or simply asking fun questions! By sharing bucket lists with people, you stand to learn a lot about their personalities and realize how you’re very similar. Who knows, maybe a coworker could help you clear a few things from your own list!

The perfect vacation ✈ 

This is another short activity that’s great for developing your team’s listening skills. Participants are asked to grab a partner each. For the next step, each duo gets on a personal call and tells their partner about their perfect vacation – if they had unlimited time and money. After everyone is done, all the team members’ get together on a call and try to explain their partner’s dream vacation as accurately as possible! Since you’re describing your partner’s vacation, you’re forced to really listen and might even realize how both of you share similar interests.

Blackout truth or dare 😨

This activity is a virtual team building version of Truth or Dare. To play: all players start with their cameras on. The host states a truth or dare like, “show us the floor around your desk” or “how old are you really”? Players can choose to leave their cameras on to indicate they are willing to reply, or turn off the camera to opt out. The host then asks one or more players to complete the truth or dare. Typically, a successful player from the round leads the next prompt.

Praise Train 🚂

When it comes to praise at work, people tend to respond in one of 3 ways. 1/ Soak the praise up like golden rays of sun on a Bali beach. 2/ Accept the praise and “keep cool.” 3/ Aggressively deflect that praise on to literally anyone else. Each member of your team will likely fit into one of the above categories. However, one thing will secretly unify your people regardless of category: they love getting praise. Start a praise train where each person compliments each others work in succession and watch the employee engagement take off. For example, you could praise someone on their work ethic, and that person could praise a colleague on a successful client call, and that person could praise someone for writing a great blog article and so on.

Ever have I ever 🙄 

Most of us have probably played ''Never Have I Ever'' at school and know that it’s not a game meant for work! But don’t worry, this version of the game is slightly different! Here’s how this goes... Create a list of general topics like “Never have I ever stepped on Lego” or “Never have I ever eaten an entire pack of marshmallows.” Everyone starts with five or 10 points, and loses a point for each activity they’ve done. For a virtual team, these points can be represented by fingers! Start with an open palm, and fold a finger for each point you lose. This way, you get to learn some fun new insights about your coworkers – all while engaging in some healthy competition! The last person standing wins!

Who da baby? 👶 

“Who da baby?” is a quick game you can play on MS Teams. All participants send you a baby photo. Photos from around 2-3 years old are best because you will see more distinct features and not just a 6 month bundle of joy. Post the images in a shared power-point. Each player makes a list guessing who the baby might be. Collect the answers, grade the scores, and announce the winners. you can do it live as well (even better!).

Useless Talent Show ⭐

Most folks have a useless talent or two, like wiggling ears or pull apart two pieces of flat lego without using teeth! However, they rarely get the chance to show these abilities off. A useless talent show puts these silly skills on display by having each participant share a pointless talent. No two participants can share the same skill, so repeats must think of a new silly ability to unveil. Even if these skills have no practical applications, the peer applause and laughter that follows can quickly boost morale! 

Personal facts guessing game 🎲

The personal facts guessing game is a great way to learn your team member’s interests outside of work. In the first step, the manager asks each team member to share some personal facts with them. These facts will then be compiled onto a document that is shared with each individual in the team. Next to each personal fact there’s an empty column where each employee will have to guess which team member the fact belongs to! Not only can this ice breaker game be hilarious, but it is a great way to develop successful team cohesion and camaraderie. Once all the guesses have been submitted, an answer key will be provided so that team members can see how well they guessed. This activity can also take place live on a group video chat. The facilitator will have the sheet open on a digital whiteboard on their computer and will share their screen while employees try to guess the answers. As each answer is guessed, the facilitator can follow along, putting answers into the empty column.

Guess the emoji board 🤔

Everyone loves texting with emojis, right? This is one of the shortest fun team building activities – making it great for quick breaks or post-meeting sessions. Here’s how it works... Distribute a list of all players to each player. Everyone has five minutes to guess the five most used emojis by each person on the list. Guess the Emoji Board is a quick game and therefore will entertain your team for a quick amount of time. However, if you are looking for ways to make a virtual meeting fun or engage a virtual team, then a quick round of emoji ranking can help. Reveal the answers and award points both for “having it in the top 5” as well as “having it in the right order.”

Birth Map 🎂 

The Birth Map is another fun activity that lets everyone on the team learn something new about each other. Share an image of a world map in your group chat. Then, invite everyone to place a sticker on or near their place of birth. Ask them to share a story or talk about their favorite thing from their birthplace while they’re at it. You can also use the map idea for other topics like: dream vacation, worst trip, or anything else you can think of.

Virtual Ambassadors 🗺 

Ambassadors is a virtual activity where each person acts as a country’s ambassador. During each round, a team member must describe their country without saying the country’s name. The other team members guess which country the person is describing to earn points. At the end of the game, the player with the most correct guesses wins! You can assign countries to team members using a random country generator.

Virtual pictionary drawing contest 🎨 

Hop on a video call. Tell your team to grab a pen and paper. Go around in alphabetical order. When it's a teammate's turn to draw, he/she should generate a word online and try to draw that prompt while pointing his/her webcam at the paper.

Dance party 🕺 

Tell everyone about the awesomeness that’s about to happen. Do a quick sound check to make sure everyone can hear the music. Start your jam. Dance and probably laugh.

Fun Fact Guessing Game 😁

Ask everyone on the team to submit a fun fact about themselves to you privately. Then, hold a meeting with the whole team and read out the facts one by one and let everyone else guess which fact matches with which team member.

Giants, Wizards, Elves ✂ NEW!

Break up your next long meeting with a quick round of this hilarious version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. 

Rules:

◾ Giants beat Wizards

◾ Wizards beat Elves

◾ Elves beat Giants

1 - Start by teaching your team the three actions:

◾ Giant: Arms up over your head - plus your best giant face and grunts (up to your interpretation).

◾ Wizard: One hand straight out, holding an imaginary wand, saying, “Shazam!”

◾ Elf: Lower yourself down in the camera, put both hands out in front of your face, and wiggle all your fingers.

2 - The activity leader calls on two people to play each other. Together, everyone says, “Giants, wizards, elves - go!” The 2 people playing each other do one of the 3 actions.

3) Whoever loses turns off their camera and the facilitator picks another two peopl

Who is Bob?! 🧽 NEW!

In this funny game of virtual hide-and-seek, the team tries to figure out who on your team is Bob. (Don’t have a Bob on your team? Just pick another one syllable name.)

◾ 1 - Prior to the game, let people know that you will privately chat with one person and discreetly let them know they are “Bob.”

◾ 2 - To start the game, have everyone chant “Bob, Bob, who is Bob?”

◾ 3 - Ask for a volunteer to make the first guess. The volunteer now has to make their guess, picking a person on the call and saying, “Maria, Maria, are you Bob?” If Maria (or whoever the volunteer chose) is not Bob, she will say, “Bob, Bob, I am not Bob,” and then make her own guess: “Pooja, Pooja, are you Bob?”

◾ 4) Everyone goes around until someone answers by saying, “Bob, Bob, I am Bob!” After, have everyone close the round by chanting, “Bob, Bob, we found Bob!”

Once a few rounds have passed, see how fast you can find “Bob.” Try not to smile as people chant, and do cheer as they search.​​​​​​​

Critical thinking 🤔

Start your virtual meeting/coffee by posing a question such as: “If you were alone in a dark cabin, with only one match and a lamp, a fireplace, and a candle to choose from, which would you light first?”

Open mike 🎤 

Give everyone a heads up that they will have about a minute at the beginning of the meeting to take the virtual stage. Ask them to find a joke, read a poem, sing a song, play the mandolin -- anything they want! Start your meeting with these glorious performances and have fun!

Snapshots 📷 

Ask everyone to use their phones to take a picture of something (pets, kids, desk space even messy, refrigerator, outfit, closet, bathroom). Create a digital collage of everyone’s snapshot. At the meeting, share the answers and have your teammates try to pair the answers with the right person.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Tic Tac Toe ❌⭕❌ NEW!

◾ 1 - Have people in your meeting shift into “Gallery mode” on MS Teams, or the meeting platform of your choice. Ask everyone, except for nine people, to turn their cameras off. The result should be the remaining nine people in three rows of three. Essentially, it should look like a human Tic Tac Toe board.

◾ 2 -  Pick two off-camera players as the game players. These two will take turns asking one of the people on-camera to make either an X or an O with their arms. The player who gets a line of three first will win.

Here is the extra challenge -- not everyone sees the same people in the same order on their screen – so have them take a photo or screen shot to prove they actually won.

Lip-Sync Battle 👄 NEW!

Few things are guaranteed to get more laughs than watching your coworker mouthing the words to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” ​​​​​​​

◾ 1 - Let people know you will be hosting a lip-sync battle in the next meeting ahead of time.

◾ 2 - Everyone who wants to compete should show up to the next meeting with their song, props, and anything else they need to steal the show.

◾ 3 - Limit the time to 20–30 seconds per participant.

◾ 4 - Spotlight the contestant when they’re performing (video on, participant muted).

◾ 5 - Have the audience score people on accuracy, dramatics, and overall fun.

You can even do this as a organization-wide competition. Invite departments to form lip-sync groups and have them compete at a battle of the virtual bands.

Do you really know your team? 🤷‍♀️ 

Before your next team meeting or virtual coffee, ask all your teammates to answer 3 “about me” questions (for example: if you could eat one food for the rest of your life what would it be? What’s your favorite vacation spot? If you were an animal, what would you be? What’s your favorite movie? etc.). At the meeting, share the answers and have your teammates try to pair the answers with the right person. Once everyone has guessed, reveal who gave what answer. 

Name That Emoji Song Title 🎶 

Determine who goes first and put a timer on your phone for 3 minutes. The first person looks at his/her last played song and then “attempts” to use only emojis that give hints to the title of the song (example:🌊👀 – “Ocean Eyes” from Billie Eilish). Everyone else takes turns guessing the name of the song until the timer runs out. At the end of the 3 minutes, reveal the song if no one guessed correctly and share why that was your last played song. Can be done with movies as well.

Zoom In | Zoom Out 💺 NEW!

This guessing game is a whole lot of fun and very engaging too.

◾ 1 - Before your next meeting, take some “zoomed in” photos of common objects from around the house or office. It could be a close up shot of your pandemic footware (slippers), your cat’s right eye, or your keyboard.

◾ 2 - Start the game by showing the zoomed in photos and have people try and guess what they are.

◾ 3 - After people guess, show them the actual object or photo of the object.

After you introduce the idea in one meeting, have people come back to the next meeting with their own “zoomed in” photos. Do you have people in the office? Have someone go around and take photos of random objects, parts of signs, and have people guess what each object is and where it is in your physical office.

Voggle 👁‍🗨 NEW!

If you enjoy the board game Boggle - where players use a random selection of letters to form as many words as possible in under a minute - you will love Voggle (virtual Boggle).

Rules:

◾ People can only use each letter once per word.

◾ Each word must contain three letters or more.

How to play:

◾ 1 - Have everyone on your team, or maximum of 12 people, write one letter on a piece of paper.

◾ 2 - On the count of three have everyone hold the letters up to the camera. Give people 10 seconds to write down all the letters.

◾ 3 - Now give people one minute to create as many words as possible.

Not only will this get people thinking, but it will have them laughing as well. Bonus for work-related words!

After-works - Virtual Happy Hour 🥂

Going out for a drink after work is always a good time, but when you can’t meet up in person, going virtual is the next best thing. Possible themes (MS Teams backgrounds and/or costumes/accessories): 80s Party, Halloween Anytime, Black Tie, virtual snow holiday, seaside vacation, new year’s eve, international delight, etc.)

After-works - Tiny campfire 🔥

Before the event, your team assembles a s’more kit that includes graham crackers, mini marshmallows, chocolate, wood matches, and a tiny tealight campfire. Then, on “camp day” your team members login to a secure video conference room for 60 minutes of camp games, trivia and historic ghost stories. 

Retirements or Farewell Parties 👋

Virtual retirement parties or “farewell parties” are online gatherings for the purpose of sending off a teammate. These parties generally occur during work hours, and include video conference games and activities. Create online tributes (photo slideshow, eCard, etc.), Compile a post-work bucket list, etc. 

''Never In All My Years'' for Retirement Parties 👋​​​​​​​

Days away from retirement, your colleague can now spill secrets. You can tailor your game of ''Never Have I Ever'' as a fitting farewell to your work friend. Remember that to play ''Never Have I Ever'', every participant starts by holding up ten fingers. Players lower a finger for every applicable action. Check out the list below for thematic game prompts: never in all my years have I… worked in an office without a computer, asked someone to show me how to copy and paste, played hooky from work, worn shoulder pads to the office, reported to a younger manager, switched industries, shown coworkers pictures of grandkids, lost my glasses at work, said “I’ll never retire.”, told a colleague “when I was your age…”, eaten another colleague’s lunch, pranked a coworker, shopped online, thought a client was cute. At the end of the game, you can ask your honoree to share more wacky work stories.

Birthday Parties 🎈

The essentials for a successful virtual birthday party are: an element of surprise (get everyone on a virtual call and tell the birthday person that the call starts five minutes later), fun activities (do icebreakers, lightning scavenger hunts and similar), and heaps of praise (use the opportunity to showcase the team member). If you have a large team, then planning virtual birthday parties may become redundant. Instead, you can unite the April babies around the shared birthday month, and the same for the other 11 groups too. Online surprise party activities: cake delivery, birthday lip dub, karaoke, balloon bouquets, eCard (using groupgreeting.com), never in all my years (see below), etc.

''Never In All My Years'' for Birthday Parties 🎈

​​​​​​​Never In My Life is a birthday version of the popular icebreaker game ''Never Have I Ever''. All participants will start by holding up ten fingers or birthday candles. Players will take turns naming birthday-related actions. A player will lower one finger for each named act he or she has committed. Sample of prompts below: never in all my years have I… lied about my age, owned a fake ID, celebrated my birthday in another country, put birthday candles on a dessert besides cake, blown out all candles in one breath, blown out someone else’s birthday candles, ruined someone else’s birthday party, had a surprise birthday party, lied about my birthday to get a freebie or a discount, told the waiter it was a friend’s birthday to embarrass that friend, forgotten my significant other’s birthday, forgotten my child’s birthday, forgotten my parent’s birthday, thrown a birthday party for a pet, spent more than 300 euros on someone’s birthday present, hand-made a birthday present, called in sick on my birthday, etc. Feel free to pause the game as needed for amusing stories and explanations.