What can we do to team build and actually have fun with our remote team? Virtual team building might sound awful, but it doesn’t have to be.
We’ve run distributed teams for years, and we know exactly how to get people talking, laughing, and connecting, even while we’re all on Zoom. We’ve put together a list of some of the best team building games and activities to play virtually, focusing on ones that are easy to set up, simple for your team to understand and play, and (most importantly) are FUN.
Combine team building with fun with these interactive, pro-social games. Each one has a different focus and is plug-and-play so you can get started quickly.
Team Building Questions Game for Work - A 10 to 20-minute slide deck that uses word clouds, image sharing, and polls to get to know the group better.
Mini Activity: Team Building Game - A 5 to 10-minute warm-up or mid-meeting break game that gives space for the group to share something about themselves and then debate a fun question.
Team Shenanigans Team Building Game - A 20 to 30-minute game that combines polls with trivia so the group gets to know each other better and compete a little.
Good Morning, Team - A 5 to 10-minute slide deck that prompts the group into sharing about themselves, including sharing a picture of something cute.
No matter which game you pick, your whole team will leave having learned more about each other.
Keep things light and fun with 3 quick rounds of trivia in this slide deck. Copy the slide deck to your account and customize what you want.
Or just click and go! It's got the questions, points, and timers all set up for you.
Like the classic game, with virtual Scattergories the goal is to come up with words starting with the same letter for different categories.
While you can have your team come up with their own categories, we recommend using this Virtual Scattergories Prompt, which randomly selects the letter, presents a list of prompts, and times the group.
To start your game:
Encourage your team to get to know each other better by sharing 2 truths and 1 lie about themselves.
If you have a smaller group or are meeting in person, you can facilitate the game by going around the room and having each person share 2 real things about themselves and 1 lie.
Or, if you'd like to play this game virtually, use our ready-made deck and get started. It's simple to set up:
Either option is fun and will help your team learn more about each other in a low-stakes way.
Just like the real-life version, in a virtual game of Heads Up! one person has to guess what word a teammate is describing on their phone, without seeing it themselves.
To get started:
If you don't have enough people for teams, you can always base the points on how many words individuals guess and have the entire group give clues together.
It's the classic game of 'Guess what I'm Drawing' and thanks to so many free online drawing tools, you can now play Pictionary virtually.
Simply:
Assign points either to the drawers whose work is successfully guessed or to whoever guessed the drawing correctly.
With this virtual scavenger hunt, you and your team get to share pictures according to the prompts, giving a little peek into each other's lives. And the deck is very easy to run:
You can also add a poll at the end to vote for everyone's favorite image!
The best parts about the game 'Would You Rather?' are it's extremely easy to play (in-person or virtually) and it immediately lowers barriers and gets the group talking. You can play Would You Rather? 2 different ways:
Find an expansive list of Would You Rather or This/That questions in our 101 This or That Questions for Work or Students article.
To play 'Guess the Team Member', simply:
The winner gets a virtual high-five!
A low-key way to kick off team building is with a virtual typing competition. As long as you can share your screen on Zoom and have a program everyone can log on to, the whole group can show off their typing skill together.
Some of our favorite typing speed competition sites include:
They all work great as lightly competitive team building games.
Seeing where your teammates line up on SFW, important topics (like tea vs. coffee) works as a great icebreaker and a way to get to know each other better. Play this easy-to-launch slide deck by:
A quick and easy game to play, with Guess the Emoji Keyboard, have your team send in a screenshot of their - you guessed it! - emoji keyboards.
Then share each one with the group on Zoom and see who can guess the most correctly.
While a virtual escape room will cost you a little money, the engagement and teamwork that comes from finangling your way out of the experience is well worth it.
The best part about a virtual escape room: You book it and someone else does all the work.
Some of our favorites include:
A quick word association game, Word Blurt gets your team talking, even the introverts (we see you! we love you!).
Want to know where to start?
And like all the best team building games, Word Blurt keeps things light and fun.
With an online murder mystery game, someone else does all the heavy lifting - You just invite your team and book the session.
Not sure where to start?
Check out:
With full casts of characters and prompts, your team will be fully involved and engaged with these murder mystery team building games.
Liven up any work day or meeting with a game of online team building bingo. Our favorite resource to use is the Team Building Bingo Cards, which allows you to use a ready-made card or create your own.
Have your team pull up their cards (click 'new card' to shuffle the phrases) and then shout out the Bingo calls to the group.
First one to Bingo gets a prize!
Virtual pet fashion shows are a great way for your team to share their beloved pets with the group, which in turn encourages non-work conversation.
Simply ask your teammates with pets to send in their favorite picture of their decked-out pets and share them with the group.
To add a layer of competition, have the team vote on their favorite at the end.
You and your team can test your cocktail knowledge (while sipping on cocktails, if you want) with this game that combines trivia with a few prompts for sharing.
How to play:
While this is heavy on the trivia slide deck, it also includes polls and chances for people to have their turn on the 'mic'.
Let the experts handle things with a storytelling workshop that will help your group learn to communicate better, give them more sales tools, and boost employee loyalty.
Museum Hack offers a 2-hour Virtual Storytelling Workshop with games, as well as storytelling training.
Team building games don't have to be a one-and-done experience, as Water Cooler Trivia proves. Water Cooler Trivia allows you to send your team weekly trivia quizzes through email, Slack, or Teams.
The scoreboard is shared with the whole team every week, with the top 10 responses as well as superlatives to keep things fun.
Have your team show off their musical chops with a simple game of Guess the Song Emoji Challenge. The best part is you can just use one of the below options to launch the quiz in a few seconds.
Just pull up the above quizzes and share your screen. Then have your group guess the answers out loud or type it into the chat.
Let your group pretend to be reporters with the game Hot Take. Pull up the game on your screen and have one person pitch to the editor an article idea based on an AI-generated phrase.
It's a hilarious game that will have your group filibustering as best they can.
Before HBO ruins all of our childhoods, have a little fun testing your team's Harry Potter knowledge with this easy-to-launch slide deck.
The deck includes polls and chances for people to sound off too - it's a great way to get people talking and laughing.
Test your team's detective skills with a virtual take on a classic favorite, One Night Werewolf. The easiest way to play this game as a group is to use Wolvesville. The website will prompt you to:
After you've started the game, it will assign roles and prompts to lead you through finding out who the werewolf in your group is before all the villagers are killed.
There are 2 ways to play Five Finger Showdown, in-person and virtual. The good news is, both are super simple and both get your team talking and sharing.
Then, you just go through a 'put a finger down' list, like the ones offered by Ice Breaker Ideas or Ponly.
The winner is either the person who puts all their fingers down first or the last one standing.
Tell stories, solve puzzles, and compete to win magical items with this fully facilitated game. War of Wizards is designed to be a fun, interactive virtual experience for work teams.
The game is designed to encourage collaboration, communication, and team building skills.
We've given you plenty of team building games to get your team started, but these games are much more than just for fun. In the State of Remote Work, it was found that the second biggest struggle remote workers had was loneliness, with the third being collaborating and communication.
Playing team building games addresses both the fostering of friendships between co-workers and improving communication, which leads to better collaboration.
So while these may just look like games, these team building activities have a real impact on the success of your team.
