Ten great ideas for virtual meeting icebreakers

Holding meetings virtually or doing video conference calls can be daunting for the uninitiated. To help participants relax and feel comfortable, and in place of the milling around and getting a coffee before the start of a ‘real world’ meeting, we strongly recommend kicking off with one of these meeting icebreakers.

It’s also a great way to get to know colleagues better and keep up those all-important personal connections when people may be feeling isolated by working from home for long periods. That said, it’s vital that no-one feels forced to take part; it must be an enjoyable experience and for some people it will be too far outside their comfort zone (which is absolutely fine).

1. What’s the best book or film you’ve enjoyed in the last month and why?
2. Tell us your best joke
3. What’s the most annoying thing you hear from your partner when home working? (Mine is, “Can you JUST…?”)
4. Ask one person to share their top leadership learning
5. What’s your leadership superpower and how does it come to life?
6. If you could have a T-shirt with a printed message, what would it say?
7. If you won a prize and could either have five singing lessons or five dancing lessons, which would you choose?
8. What symbol would you have on your own coat of arms?
9. Tell us one good thing that has happened today
10. Each share one thing that is or isn’t true about you. Everyone must guess if it’s a truth or a lie e.g. I did 20 press-ups this morning; I swam in the sea on New Year’s Day; I had a ‘full English’ for breakfast.

In a particularly long meeting, it could be useful to use some of these talking points as short breaks in the agenda to lighten the mood and refresh everyone mentally.

How do you use meeting icebreakers to set the right tone at the start of a video call? If you have other tips for maintaining personal connections and culture when your team is working remotely, please join in the conversation on Twitter. You can find us at @iTSLeadership.

You can also find other best practice tips on holding virtual meetings in this recent blog.