Icebreaker questions can be effective tools that make virtual work team meetings more engaging. Here's a how-to along with tips to make your virtual work team meeting a success.
How to Use Icebreaker Questions in Virtual Work Team Meetings
The most convient way to share icebreaker questions in virtual work meetings is to simply:
- Pull up the Random Question Generator for Work or Random Questions Generator for Teams in a web browser
- During the meeting, share the browser in presentation mode through your video conferencing software such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
With this quick and easy method, everyone will see the question live and are less likely forget it as they consider a response or potentially get distracted.
The Random Question Generator will show one random icebreaker question at a time. You can choose when to preceed to the next question and even skip a question altogether.
Tips on Using Icebreaker Questions in Virtual Work Team Meetings
- Be open to sharing questions that are not directly related to work because these type of questions tend to help give the team member confidence speaking in front of the group and strengthen bonds within the team
- Keep questions light-hearted and easy to answer; avoid asking questions that are too personal or sensitive, and steer clear of controversial topics that could lead to heated debates or hurt feelings
- Let the team know your target time to end the icebreaker so that they have a sense of how much time they will have to respond
- Take the pressure off the team and let them know that answering each question optional
- Have people volunteer to answer to allow those who need more time a chance to think of a response, if these choose to respond
- Thank people for their responses and share follow-up questions, if you have time, to show further interest
- We recommend making the icebreaker question the first meeting agenda item as we have seen it increase engagement for the entire meeting and beyond
- Consider adding one icebreaker question to each team meeting, especially virtual ones
We have had great experiences using icebreakers questions in virtual work team meetings. We look forward to hearing about yours.
