Use our guaranteed fun icebreakers to create a productive work environment regardless of if it’s a team away day or a company retreat you’re hosting.

It’s business time. The clock hands stand at business past business. But how can you be sure that everyone is working together as well as they can? If there’s even a hint of awkwardness you might end up with some tepid results, far from the bold creative stew you were aiming for. Any kind of collaborative work is based on a social situation. And no matter how you’ve finely tuned your workforce, if they can’t work together they can’t be very forceful. You need to start proceedings with some icebreakers, that is to say, fun icebreakers.

It’s a time-honoured business tactic that’s been proven again and again. By loosening up the team and breaking some boundaries, everyone is able to create better results. They are open, creative, and communication becomes easy. After a few fun icebreakers, people are able to co-operate well. It’s important they are enjoyable, as pushing your crew into dull and tedious situations will have the opposite effect.

But don’t sweat it: VenueScanner has got 10 tried and tested fun icebreakers that will energise and focus your team. Just pick a few and get down to it. We’ve selected a mix of activities that combine fun with networking potential and brain engagement. So, as well as being enjoyable, they’re designed to create the optimal working environment as soon as the fun stops.

Our Top 10 Favourite Icebreakers

As a result of our experience of running team building activities with our own team, we’ve collected the favourite icebreakers of ours that help to lighten up the mood and get those creative juices flowing.

1. Would I Lie to You?

We used this to kick off one of our much-appreciated company retreats. The hour was early, and we had two international teams that had never met before. But, in no time at all everyone was in stitches and we all felt much more at ease. This icebreaker combines skills of bluffing and critical thinking with a big dose of fun.

• First of all, you must try and get as many of the participants as possible to provide a strange or funny fact about them. It can be a short anecdote or an odd piece of personal trivia. The idea isn’t to invade privacy or get weird. Good examples would be: ‘The only time I’ve ever gambled I lost £500’, or ‘I was engaged two times before I was married’. It’s important these facts remain secret.
• Create a list of fake, but believable facts. Then, once everyone is together, distribute the facts so that approximately half the attendees are holding a truth about themselves, and the others have one of your false facts.
• Everyone goes round in a circle, reading their facts in turn.
• After each one is read, everyone votes on whether they think it was true or not. There will be some surprisingly good liars, and some interesting truths revealed.

2. Pitch Your Favourite App

This one is perfect for tech companies, although it’s great to get anyone in a sales and product-led mindset. And given how we’re all on our phone 24/7, everyone can be an expert in fun icebreakers like this. Simply get everyone to take turns pitching their absolute favourite app. This will make them re-think the digital tools they use every day, and consider what it is that makes a product appealing. Furthermore, you’ll get an insight into what makes people tick when you know they’re looking for technology.

3. Talent Show

Dead simple – everyone gets a chance to showcase their hidden talent! Most people have a cool little party trick they can pull out. This works best in small groups. The aim isn’t to intimidate or cause stage fright but to break down barriers. Plus, it’s always a bonus when everyone finds out that the statistical analyst can do a backflip on command.

4. Last Meal

This one’s a bit morbid, but also great to get to know the team a bit better. Everyone (who feels comfortable dwelling on such a topic) shares what their last meal would be. A stack of burgers? Exquisite wine? Or perhaps just a single olive? This activity is best left until just before lunch.

5. Exquisite Corpse

You may have played this as a child, but it has genuine artistic prestige. Invented by members of the Surrealist art movement in 1920s Paris, it’s a task that engages group creativity.

• Simply fold A4 paper into three or four equal parts. Give everyone a piece, where they will draw in the bottom section of a figure that relates to what fraction of the paper they are working on.
• Then everyone passes their paper to the left-hand side, before filling in the next part of the figure. The trick is that each participant must not the see previous part of the picture, except for a tiny bit over the fold so they may continue the picture logically.
• By the end, you’ll have a collection of surreal and bewildering images. It will make clear how different creative visions can create a final product way beyond the imagination of one person.

6. 10 Things in Common

Not only is this a fun icebreaker, but it also prompts inter-departmental camaraderie and breaks up any pre-set cliques or groups in a given space.

• Divide everyone into groups – perhaps by mixing different areas of the workforce or list everyone in order of birth month and split from there.
• In no more than 15 minutes, the groups must each find 10 things they all have in common.
• There needs to be a dedicated scribe in each group to record these faithfully.
• Afterwards, each group reads out their findings. This will generate a lot of laughter but also warmth as everyone becomes of aware of what binds them.

7. Three Shining Moments

Yet another feel-good activity. This began life as an exercise used by police forces, so you can be sure it’s a positive and productive way to reflect on past and future experiences. By the end, everyone will be energised and thinking about the next stages of their career.

• Simply ask everyone to reflect on three special moments in their career. This could include education for recent entrants to the working world.
• One “moment” per person at a time is then shared until everyone’s lists have been read. Ask the team to think about the underlying causes for each “moment”.
• By the end, everyone will be basking in the positive energy generated. Furthermore, it gives a valuable insight into what motivates each different person.

8. Biggest Thing in the Balloon

Both cerebral and silly this is a great task used by our CTO, Paul, to get everyone thinking. Simply hand everyone a balloon and give them five minutes to get the largest thing they possibly can into one. There’s often no winner, instead, you get valuable insights into the way people approach problems. Favourites from our experiences are: another inflated balloon, a clutch of mobile phones, and a post-it note simply inscribed with ‘my appetite’. This has to be one of our favourites of the fun icebreakers.

9. Human Bingo

Requiring just a bit of preparation on your part, this fun icebreaker gets everyone moving and collaborating very fast.

• Prepare bingo cards with attributes that you think will be found amongst the group, instead of numbers.
• Here you can suit the activity to the group – the attributes can be fairly vanilla, like ‘is left-handed’, ‘can roll their tongue’. They can be work-related such as ‘created a start-up’, ‘has 10 years experience in their field’. Ultimately make them however you see fit, as long as they are appropriate for all participants.
• Distribute the cards, and get all of the participants to go around ticking off each attribute by finding different people that match them. You can’t get them all from the same person, either!

10. Three Random Words

This one is a bit like the app pitching activity from early, with a surreal twist.

• Divide the team into groups of three or four.
• Then give each group three random words from a list you made earlier. You could make it fun with preset patterns of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. For example: “Banana finding car” or “Giant map lock”.
• Each group has to quickly define a product or app based on their randomly assembled phrase. They have 10-15 minutes to prepare a pitch of the app.
• Whoever has the strongest pitch wins the game! Extra points for taking it in a creative direction.

Putting Fun Icebreakers Into Practise

So you’ve got a list of fun icebreakers that will entertain, educate, and communicate. But, is there much point in priming your team or guests if they haven’t got the right environment to get their work done in? Fun icebreakers are great for many situations, but particularly conferences, meetings, and team away days. Check out our article on team building for away-day tips. For meetings and conferences, you need to have the right venue, otherwise, you could just be scuppering the whole exercise.

That’s not even to say you need the most expensive or biggest venue. What’s most important is suitability. Know your guests, know your team, and know what they are expecting. Consider size, facilities, access, catering. Each of these could make or break an event, and that’s just the main considerations. Fortunately, we’ve got a great starting point through our lists of best conference venues in all the UK’s main business hubs. Covering London, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff and more, they’re a great place to start looking. And from there you can research which might be best for you. Just fill in what you’re looking for and start talking with venues to strike a deal. In no time at all, you’ll have your team or delegates getting friendly and ready for accomplishment.

We hope you got some fun icebreaking ideas for your next meeting. With these tips your next business event will be enjoyable and productive.