Fun Ice-Breakers
Ice is the feeling when you don’t know anyone and you don’t think you have anything in common
Depending on the time you have for the meeting, you can either do a shorter or a longer ice breaker. Ice breakers can a have a few purposes. One purpose is just to get everyone comfortable and warmed up. Another purpose is to let people get to know each other a bit more outside of their name and role. Another more advanced reason is to set the stage and tone for the rest of the meeting. If everyone already knows each other you can play a game like 2 truths and a lie. If everyone knows each other very well, then you can play a more advance ice breaker like a real improv game.
The reason why improv games are useful is because they set the tone for the meeting. You want the meeting to be full of intent listening and building on what has come before, vs people not listening and forgetting what has been established already.
One simple improv game is Party Planning.
The party planning improv game is always a big hit
Each person adds something that they will bring the launch/celebration party once the project/product is finished. You go around the group in a circle and each person adds something fun to the party. The game strengthens listening skills as people have to pay attention so they don’t bring the same item twice. Extra credit for those who bring something closely related to the person’s before them item. For example I say I am bringing wine, the next person who is listening closely would say, “I'll bring the wine glasses.”
Another ice breaker that is helpful is doing group story telling.
Thaw that ice!
Use the following format.
Once upon a time there was ___.
Every day, ___.
One day ___.
Because of that, ___.
Because of that, ___.
Because of that, ___.
Until finally ___.
And every day after that ___.
And the moral of the story is ___.
Assign members of your meeting to each line. A few rules to keep this moving and being productive are as follows:
Accept previous statement and don’t try to contradict it. The exercise is about listening and adding value. Don’t invalidate the person before by saying “that didn’t happen because they were actually dreaming and the woke up and none of that happened.”
Remember that ice breakers will make the rest of the meeting run much smoother. Allowing people to feel comfortable with each other. Getting them used to listening and respecting each person’s additions to the meeting is also a benefit from improv. Take advantage of these to get the most of our your groups conversation.
