Icebreakers are short, interactive sessions at the start of a workshop, offsite meeting or conference, designed to get attendees into the right mood for creative thinking and collaborative work. A good icebreaker helps people get to know each other, communicate more freely and foster a spirit of shared purpose. There are hundreds of great ideas online for both small groups who already know each other quite well and larger groups of colleagues and strangers. Choose whichever icebreaker feels right, given the numbers of attendees and what you know of their personalities. Participants should all feel comfortable with whatever the icebreaker requires them to do, but ideally, they should also feel slightly nervous or excited.
The simplest icebreakers require each participant to share something about themselves with the group. These work well in both virtual and face-to-face workshops. For example, the facilitator could ask each attendee one of the following questions, picked at random: - As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? - What was the naughtiest thing you did as a child? - Where is the furthest from home you’ve been? - Are you better at drawing, running or cooking? - Which is bigger, your shoe size or the age you first moved house? - What are you most scared of? - Where in the world do you most want to visit? - When was the last time you laughed really hard? These questions work well because people have to give some thought to their answer, but can usually respond without too much difficulty. They can either decide to go for a safe response or to say something more surprising. The questions themselves are only the starting point. Like a game show host, it’s up to the facilitator to ask questions that encourage participants to get into the swing of things and reveal more about themselves. Here are four reliable icebreakers that work well for face-to-face workshops. |