Ever thought about utilizing fun icebreaker questions in your next meeting but didn’t know where to start? We, here at Team Building Unlimited, are here to help with our comprehensive guide to icebreaker questions!

Learn exactly what an icebreaker question is, what its purpose is, and why you should be integrating them into your organization’s daily work life!

What is an Icebreaker question?

An icebreaker question is essentially a prompt asked when two or more people are looking to get to know each other better. 

Icebreakers are generally asked when a group is meeting for the first time, at the beginning of meetings, or as a way to facilitate team-building or leadership activities. 

What is the Purpose of an Icebreaker?

The purpose of an icebreaker is to aid in introducing a team to each other in a way that feels more personal than just your average handshake.

Sometimes giving a formal introduction can feel very awkward and impersonal. The icebreaker question is meant to eliminate that awkwardness! Icebreaker questions create an atmosphere that feels more comfortable, casual, and a bit deeper than the average introduction.

This is why when it comes to building a “dream team”, icebreakers can play a HUGE role!

Ways to Utilize Icebreaker Questions within Your Team

Icebreaker questions provide a super fun way for your team to get to know each other on a deeper level than simply working together in the office every day. 

• Meetings – Consider using ice breaker questions simply as a creative way to begin your next meeting. Team members will have the chance to get to know each other and share some laughs before getting down to business.
  

• Morning Activities – For smaller organizations, plan to host an icebreaker activity at the beginning of a workday. Get everyone in the office involved. This is a great way to ramp up the energy early in the morning! 

• Team-Building Events – Plan an exciting team-building event in which your team uses ice breakers in an exciting game! Need help with planning your event? Team Building Unlimited specializes in planning and hosting amazing team-building events that will quickly become an asset to your organization. 

• New Team Members – Have a new employee joining your team? Icebreaker questions provide the perfect way to introduce them to your team and help them to feel comfortable quickly. When introducing them to their new co-workers, encourage them to answer silly icebreaker questions. Be sure to get everyone else in the office involved with answering the questions, too! Breaking the ice is a two-way street. 

• Office Games – Host an icebreaker game in the office. Separate participants into groups of four where they’ll be provided with five icebreaker questions that all group members will have to answer. You can even take this a step further by encouraging participants to report their team member’s responses back to the group as a whole. 

• Pizza Parties – Hand out index cards containing different written icebreaker questions to everyone’s desk in the morning. Order pizza as a fun company lunch and have them report back with their answers at lunchtime! 

• Virtual Responses – Send out a company-wide email with icebreaker questions that they’ll have to respond to with their answers. You can make this even more casual by facilitating it on your organization’s preferred method of day-to-day contact–like Slack or Microsoft Teams! 

• Zoom Meetings – Let’s face it, virtual calls can be quite impersonal. Especially if your organization operates on a hybrid or remote-only basis. Spice up your next Zoom meeting with a fun icebreaker activity! 

• Anonymous Answers – How well does your team really know each other? Set up a fun game where team members will get to know each other better through anonymously answering icebreaker questions. Put everyone’s answers into a hat and select responses one by one. It will be up to the entire group to correctly guess who answered what!

The Benefits of Utilizing Icebreaker Questions

Icebreakers can be extremely useful for teams attempting to get to know each other better, but they have many other benefits, too!

Imagine for a moment that you start off your next meeting in a completely new way. You tell the team, “before we get started today, we’re going to go through some quick icebreaker questions where you’ll get to know each other in a completely new way”. Everyone on the team is sure to perk up in excitement knowing that they won’t just be sitting through the monotonous everyday meeting.

What does this mean for your meeting? Well, you’ve certainly already done one thing right… increased interest and excitement among your team!

After going through icebreaker exercises, teams have shown an increase in interest. motivation, energy, and involvement. 

And the best part? These benefits will last far beyond just your morning meeting. They will follow team members into the workplace as well. 

So what does this increased motivation and energy among team members mean for your business? Generally, when importance is placed on employee happiness, an increase in overall productivity occurs. 

What to Keep in Mind When Planning Your Icebreakers

While icebreakers are definitely lots of fun and provide a way to rejuvenate everyday office life, there are some things you’ll want to keep in mind when you are planning icebreaker activities for your team.

Sometimes icebreakers can make an already awkward environment even more awkward. Be sure to motivate and excite your team prior to asking them to answer icebreaker questions. And always check in on them! The more comfortable an environment feels, the better icebreakers will be able to work at breaking down the walls between group members.

Use a variety of questions! Icebreaker activities can become quite boring if all of the questions used are the same types of questions. 

For example, “What’s your favorite color?” is not a good question to pair with “What’s your favorite movie?”. These are too basic and don’t go deep enough to keep team members engaged!

There is nothing wrong with asking more surface-level questions, especially in the beginning to just begin breaking the ice. However, it’s important to switch things up and really try to get into the good stuff! Your activity will be much more engaging, and certainly more memorable this way.

Check out some of our icebreaker questions below to get started with curating a list of prompts that will work perfectly for YOUR team!

Easy Ice Breaker Questions

These are some of the more basic, bare-bones questions that you may want to get your activity started up with. These are perfect for groups of people who are genuinely meeting for the first time and know absolutely nothing about each other, but they can also work as a way to ease into some of the more creative questions for groups that are already familiar with each other. 

• Where are you from?
• What’s your favorite food?
• What’s your favorite dessert?
• What is your favorite restaurant?
• What did you do last weekend?
• Do you have any hobbies? If so, what are they?
• What’s your favorite season?
• What’s your favorite pizza topping?

This or That Questions

“This or That” questions are also usually pretty easy for participants to answer because they only involve choosing between two different choices. You’ll be surprised to see how your coworkers answer some of these questions… and they may even spark a debate or two!

• Are you a cat or dog person?
• Do you prefer coffee or tea?
• Do you prefer wine or beer? What about mixed drinks?
• Do you prefer pancakes or waffles?
• Are you a morning or a night person?
• Do you prefer watching TV shows or movies?
• Do you like crunchy or smooth peanut butter better?
• Do you like getting dressed up or staying casual?
• Do you like Netflix or Hulu better?
• Do you prefer going out to eat or staying home and having a home-cooked meal?
• Do you like shopping online or in stores better?

Entertainment Inspired Icebreaker Questions

What makes entertainment-inspired icebreaker questions so great is that they provide an opportunity to place team members on common ground. Does your co-worker LOVE the same TV show as you? Been to all of the same concerts for your all-time favorite music artist? Maybe they have–and you didn’t even know it!

Entertainment icebreaker questions give the team members the chance to find their new go-to person to share lunch and a great conversation with! They’ll be bonding over these questions for years to come.

• What’s the last show you watched on Netflix?
• What is your favorite television show of all time? Why?
• What’s the last documentary you watched? What was it about?
• Who’s your favorite music artist? What’s your favorite song of theirs?
• What concerts have you been to within the last two years?
• If you could spend the day with one celebrity, who would it be?
• Do you like Broadway and theater productions? Which is your favorite?
• What is one song that you know every single word to?
• What’s your favorite song to sing along to in the car?
• Do you listen to podcasts? What’s your favorite one and what is it about?
• What’s the last book you read? What was it about?
• What’s one movie that you could watch over and over again?
• Who’s your favorite actor, and what is your favorite show or movie they have acted in? 

Creative Icebreaker “Get to Know You” Questions

Get creative with your icebreakers! Creating fun scenarios can really get your team members to think and their answers will tell a lot about their personalities.

• What would you do if you won $1 million?
• What would your ideal vacation look like? Laying out on the beach or spending time skiing in the mountains?
• What’s your favorite sandwich? Where is it from or is it something you make yourself?
• Would you rather spend a day being invisible or have the ability to fly? Why?
• What’s the best meal you’ve ever had? What made it so delicious?
• If you could live in a different country, where would you choose to live?
• Where was the best place you’ve ever visited? What did you love about it so much?
• What is your favorite way to stay active? How often do you do this activity? Do you wish you got to do it more often?

Silly Icebreaker Questions

Nothing says “break the ice” quite like a silly question! While some of these may seem ridiculous on the surface, we promise that your team’s answers will have everyone bursting in laughter. Give them a try!

• Do you have any nicknames for your pet? What are they?
• What was one of your most embarrassing moments?
• How many times did you snooze your alarm today?
• What’s your hidden talent?
• What’s one of the worst fashion trends you’ve ever taken part in?
• What’s one song you absolutely hate but still know every word to?

 Deep Icebreaker Questions

What’s a better way to get to know someone new than asking deep icebreaker questions? You’ll get some really great insight on how your coworkers think, as well as how they feel about a variety of different situations.

• What is one challenge you are proud of yourself for overcoming?
• What is the best advice you’ve ever gotten? Who did it come from?
• Who is the most inspiring person in your life? How do they inspire you?
• What was one moment in your life that changed you for the better?
• What does your dream life look like? Dream house, car, job?
• If you could go back in time and change one aspect of your life, would you do it? Why or why not? What would you change?
• What’s one memory you can think of that makes you exceptionally happy?
• What’s usually the best part of your day?
• What is one thing you wish you had more time for?

Begin Incorporating Icebreakers in your Meetings!

Now that you know some of the fun ways that you can incorporate icebreakers within your organization, it’s time to get to work! Get started with planning an icebreaker activity for your team by making the perfect list of questions you’ll ask, then plan when you’ll host the event.

Team Building Unlimited Makes Team Bonding Easy!

Want all the benefits of hosting a team-building event without the headache of having to plan and host it? Here at Team Building Unlimited, we make planning corporate team-building events and activities simple. Leave it to us to plan the perfect every for your group!

Check out the complete list of games, events, and activities we offer to find the best opportunity for your team.