Posts Tagged ‘ice breakers for meetings’

Here's a different approach to an introductory ice breaker presented by Cathy Sork.  Rather than each person usually offering information about themselves get each person instead to write "ask me about........ " on a post-it note and use it as a name tag. Each person's keyword could be something they know a lot about or an experience they had or something they simply want to share. Or you could give the group a theme. The group informally mingles around and asks each other about the topic. This is a great conversation starter.

via Ice Breaker Ideas!.

Ice breaker games are powerful allies for getting groups and teams to gel and work together quickly.

Many trainers, group leaders, teachers, charity workers, committee leaders, church, youth and team leaders to professional consultants and managers employ ice breakers to break down barriers and accelerate the getting to know you phase of learning and engagement.

This ice breaker game is ideal for newish teams and  ideal group size is 7 -15.

• So, give each person an envelope and enough strips of paper for every person in the group. So, if there are 12 people in the group give each person an envelope and 12 strips of paper.
• Get everyone to write their name on the envelop and then pass the envelope to the person on their left.
• Instruct every receiver of the envelope to write a positive first impression about the person with their name on the envelope they hold. Then place the strip of paper in the enveope and pass to the left again. Repeat the process for every person in the group.

Eventually the envelope will return to the owner and will contain 12 strips of paper, each with a positive first impression. Ask each person in turn to dip into their envelope and read aloud a positive attribute.

How powerful is this! Each person will have an envelope full of positive messages and will feel warm towards the group, even though they barely know each other. This is a fantastic platform to build on!

Get more fantastic and brilliant ice breaker games and ideas for your groups and teams at ice-breaker-ideas.com

• Divide the room into 2 teams and throw out a few wacky questions related to the topic in hand. First team to get the right answer scores a point.
• Have a few brainteasers to either hand out or display on a large screen related to the presentation or training topic.
• Have teams brainstorm a few pertinent questions related to your topics - pros and cons, new ideas etc.
• Use physical ice breakers when people have been sitting for long periods. Try a simple bit of stretching or a physical exercise like - Knots:

Knots

Group size: Any number of teams usually teams of 6 to 8 work best
Time: 15 minutes
Equipment needed: none

Divide group into even numbered teams of no more than 10 per team. Ask each person to put their right arm into the centre and take hold of someone else’s hand, ensuring it is not the people on either side of them. Then ask them to put their left hand into the centre and take hold of someone else, also ensuring they do not hold onto the people on either side of them. Break the knot in one place and ask the team to unravel themselves without letting go.

Always be on the lookout for fun puzzles and games you can buy or use for your training. Do anything you can do to make the session fun and lively and encourage participation, and your audience will be enthralled. There is nothing worse than one-way communication. And don't forget you can use fun puzzles and ice breakers throughout the day and when energy is low.

More great ice breaker games and idea at ice-breaker-ideas.com

Invest 10 minutes of your time in an ice breaker game at the beginning of a meeting and you'll be glad you made the investment, many times over. Ice breaker games ensure a sense of belonging and sharing. Starting a programme or meeting without any kind of introductions can lead to very formal and unfriendly one way communications, with little participation from the audience. If you want your participants to "buy into things" you need to get them taking part. I'm always aghast when I attend a meeting and people don't even get introduced leading to feels of unfriendliness and "wishing I wasn't here feelings" or "why did I bother"

Far better to introduce your participants to each other in a fun and light hearted way by use of a couple of well targeted ice breaker games. Once feeling more comfortable the exchange of ideas will flow, and generate a sense of team identity and coming together for a purpose. Simple ice breakers get participants to share commonalities and reveal information about themselves. There are lots of creative ways to do this. Brainstorming ideas in small teams on an issue everyone is facing is quite a good way to start or give a completely wacky problem to solve like ten things to take into space; ten things to take to a desert island or ten things you could never do without.

Here's a few ideas:

Namebadges

Make namebadges for each person and place them in a bowl.  When people walk into the room, each person picks a namebadge (not their own). When everyone is present, participants are told to find the person whose namebadge they drew and introduce themselves. When everyone has their own namebadge, each person in the group will introduce the person whose namebadge they had originally and say something of interest about that person. This is a great little introduction ice breaker.

The Business Card Game

Get everyone to put their business cards into a pot. Mix them all up and each person to pull out a card of someone they don’t know. From the description on the card they must now go and try and find that person and find three interesting facts about that person and introduce them to the rest of the crowd. 

Jigsaw

Equipment needed: several small jigsaws
Group size: any
Time: 30 minutes

This is a great icebreaker for when you want to split the group into teams. If you want to end up with say 4 teams get 4 smallish jigsaws of around 20 to 30 pieces. If you have 20 people in the room and you want to split into 4 teams of 5 make 5 small piles of jigsaw pieces from each jigsaw and put them into an envelope. Don’t mix the jigsaws up, and don’t show the group the jigsaw picture. Give each person an envelope of jigsaw pieces and tell them to go and find the other people who make up their jigsaw and put the jigsaw together. When choosing jigsaws choose ones with a similar theme so as not to make it too easy. This works better when people are mixing informally over breakout tea/coffee sessions.

Never be without ice breaker games and ideas to get your events off to the best possible start. For great ice breaker games and ideas visit ice-breaker-ideas.com

Physical ice breakers are brilliant for that after lunch slot when people are feeling sleepy. Try singing or stretching or a team building activity.

Here's a few helpful guidelines:

• Be organised. Make sure you have all your props and equipment.
• Don't use ice breakers that will make your participants be uncomfortable, embarrassed or look silly
• Don't pressurize people to take part - this would not be a good start
• Allow plenty of time - they always take more time than you think
• Use ice breaker games throughout the day to energize participants.
• Don't complicate instructions - make them plain and simple
• Make sure everyone is listening when you give out instructions
• Don't labour a game if it is working - cut it and say "we'll try another"
• Make sure people are enjoying the games and having fun - "keep in tune" with your participants

For great ice breaker ideas and games visit ice-breaker-ideas.com

Last time we spoke about devising your own ice breaker games for your training sessions, no matter what kind of training you are carrying out. Even hard core training topics benefit from a bit of fun, in fact these are the very topics that would benefit most from the use of ice breaker games.

Some ideas: you could use competitior brands to stimulate a discussion. You could split into teams and have small quizzes giving the description of products and asking the teams to name them. You could give out brand logos and ask teams to identify them. For car sales people you could ask for their name and then ask them to share the first car they ever owned. This is fun but it also gives other people something to latch onto for further discussions. You could ask accountants what job they would do if they weren't an accountant.

Just think about your group and your audience and think about a topic they could relate to, then either put it into a question form and ask people to share or make into a quiz for teams.

A little bit of imagination goes a long way and a great, relevant ice breaker game can turn a dull training session into a memorable event. More great ice breaker games and ideas can be found on our web-site ice-breaker-ideas.com

This year we are celebrating 20 years of providing dynamic & experiential team building events for corporates all over the world and I can reveal that one of our best kept secrets has been the use of carefully thought out ice breaker games to kick-start every event. Whether for corporate meetings, conferences, functions, team building or training, a fun ice breaker game at the start of the event will lighten the atmosphere and help people relax.

Icebreakers are great ways for introducing people quickly and breaking down barriers; ice breakers accelerate that "getting to know you phase". Above all if carefully chosen, they are great fun and your group will be in a positive frame of mind for the main event of the day.

Quick icebreakers are a valuable tool for every trainer, team leader and party organiser. To get meetings off to a great start ice breakers should be a compulsory item in the tool kit. I'm often asked "have you got a game we could do", and it's always a pleasure to provide one and see people laughing and enjoying taking part.

Find out how to run a great icebreaker game by downloading our collection of Incredible Ice Breaker Games & Ideas from www.ice-breaker-ideas.com

We're often being asked for a large group ice breaker for conferences and conventions and I have to share one of my favourite all time ice breakers - Limericks. I love this game and have used it so many times as a  large group ice breaker on many events. It always gets a laugh; it really gets people mixing and groups will end up in teams of five which is really useful if you want them split into groups for anything else. So here goes:

You will need to find some humourous limericks - the web is always a good place to look for these. You will need to print each limerick out and cut into strips. There are 5 lines per limerick and you will need one line of a limerick per person. Your group numbers will not necessarily divide equally by 5 so a few people will have a couple of lines. Mix all the limericks up and hand out a line per person. Ask the group to mingle and try and find the 4 other lines to make up their limerick. Once each limerick has been put together ask the small groups to stay together until all other limericks have been matched. Once everyone has been matched up ask the groups to read out their limericks and congratulate on a job well done.

Depending upon numbers this will take around half an hour for 30/40 people. For larger numbers, the task is harder and you may want to number the limerick lines with 1-5 to make it easier.

For more great ice breaker games and ideas for large groups, small groups, school groups, meetings, youth groups etc. check out our web-site http://ice-breaker-ideas.com

Just learnt of a really nice little ice breaker game called "Memory Lane", suitable for corporate meetings and any number of people.

Ask the group to think about a major event that happened in the year they were born. Then ask each person in turn to describe the event to everyone else in the group. Everyone else has to guess the year.

A variation could be to ask for 2 or 3 events for the year to make it a little easier. For more great ideas to kick-start meetings and events  you can still get my ice breaker games collection at a reduced price for a limited time only. Why scour the internet for ideas when you can get a full set of our very best ice breakers that we have used for 20 years! 

I am a member of a local business group called The Foundation, based in Swansea. Next week we are meeting to see if we might, as business people, set-up somekind of business help and support for a community in Zimbabwe. The local schools are already exchanging emails and ideas. I am probabaly going to be asked to run an icebreaker before the meeting starts. As I like to run icebreakers that are relevant to the topic being discussed i wondered if any readers might have a relevant icebreaker or lead-in to such a topic? We are likely to be a small group - perhaps 10 or 12...

Cheers, Sharon