Meetings can be essential to collaborate on ideas and make important decisions. However, keeping people engaged throughout long meetings can be a challenge, as individuals may end up feeling drained and unfocused. Incorporating quick icebreakers into your meetings can make a significant difference, helping to boost energy and creativity.

In this article, we explore some of the best 5-minute icebreakers for your long meetings, including activities that you can utilise at any point throughout the session to break the monotony and keep your team motivated.  

Are icebreakers necessary?

Icebreakers can help people get to know each other, which can be crucial to kicking off a meeting. They will break down social barriers that might hold people back from contributing to a meeting, helping to promote conversation between all the participants.

Icebreakers can, therefore, help to reduce anxiety and promote engagement in a meeting. The right type of icebreaker can make people feel energised and creative, and ready to collaborate with their teammates.

The best icebreakers for your meeting

There are a number of great, quick icebreakers that can foster creativity and collaboration for your meeting.

First Job and Worst Job

This icebreaker is great at the beginning of your meeting, as it will help participants get to know each other. With this icebreaker, each person will take turns telling everyone their first job and their worst job. However, rather than simply telling people what they did, they’ll also have to tell people what they learned from each job. This is great for not only highlighting important life lessons but also establishing a positive atmosphere for your meeting, showing that even negative experiences can be learning experiences.

Guess Who

This icebreaker is perfect for helping participants get to know each other. Ask each participant to write down a random fact about themselves, ideally something that others won’t already know. Then collect the papers and read them out one by one.

The participants will have to try to guess who the fact is about. Give people a little bit of time to discuss their reasoning and then once they’ve finalised, ask the person who it’s about to come forward.

An added bit of fun for this icebreaker is that the individual whose fact the group are discussing might want to put people off the scent by suggesting it’s about someone else – but that’s up to them to decide how they want to play!

Two Truths and a Lie

This icebreaker is a classic, but there’s a reason it’s so popular. It’s ideal for encouraging people to talk and get to know each other, as well as helping people to get creative with an element of fun. For this task, ask each person to write down three statements about themselves, but one must be a lie. The aim for the individual is to get the group to guess the wrong statement as the lie, so they’ll have to pick something that sounds plausible. The group can then try to guess which one is false.

One Word

This icebreaker is a great way to get people engaged with the topic of the meeting as well as to start people working collaboratively. For this activity, ask people to work together in pairs or small groups, depending on how many participants you have. Then ask them to come up with one word to describe something that will be discussed in your meeting.

For example, if the purpose of the meeting is to discuss sales results from the previous quarter, ask each group to come up with one word to describe how they think the last few months went. If your meeting aim is to come up with a new process, ask groups to come up with a word to describe the current process, or maybe a word to describe how they want the new process to be.

Give teams a minute or two to come up with their word and then go round and ask them what they came up with. Write each word on a whiteboard and keep them there for the duration of the meeting, so people can refer back to it.

Word Association

Word Association is an easy game to play to help ignite some creative thinking. You can play this at the start of the meeting, or in the middle of long meetings if there seems to be a lull in energy.

For this activity, ask everyone to sit in a circle, if they aren’t already. Then ask the first person to say a word – this could be a completely random word, or something related to the meeting if you want to keep people on topic. The next person will have to say a word they associate with the first, and so on around the circle.

For example, the first person might say “communication”, the next person might say “connection” and the next person might say “relationships”. If you’ve chosen a topic related to the meeting, you might want to write the words down to keep them in mind for the rest of your time together.

Fizz Buzz

Fizz Buzz is another popular, energising icebreaker. Like word association, you can play this at the beginning of the meeting, or partway through to try to inject more energy back into the environment.

To play Fizz Buzz, everyone needs to sit in a circle. Each person will take turns to count up from one, but any number that’s divisible by three will be said as “fizz” and any number that’s divisible by five will be said as “buzz”. So, the round will go as “1, 2, fizz, 4, buzz, fizz, 7, 8, fizz, buzz, 11” etc., with each person saying one number (or fizz/buzz).

If someone takes too long to say their number or gets it wrong, they’re eliminated. The last person left will be the winner.

Walk in Sync

This icebreaker is perfect for energising the group, helping to foster collaborative working, and encouraging people to think outside of the box. For this activity, ask everyone to stand together in a line (ideally, you’ll have plenty of room for this). Then tell the group they have to start walking together and then stop walking at the same time. The catch is, they’re not allowed to speak to each other.

Instead, they’ll have to find ways of communicating without speaking so they can remain in sync. Give the group some time to work out how best to do this until they can successfully achieve the goal. Afterwards, take some time to discuss how they thought it went and what they learned from the task.

Host effective meetings with Nobo

Nobo has a range of tools and workplace solutions to help you conduct effective, productive meetings. From projection screens to whiteboard pens, we have what you need to keep your team engaged throughout long sessions and workshops.