50+ fun team building activities your remote team will love

50+ team building ideas for your remote team

Ice Breakers activities

1. Share gifts: Have the coordinator set a gift price limit and assign each team member a person to send a gift to. This can be arranged before a special meeting (e.g after the completion of a project) or randomly.
2. Favorite things: Assign a favorite thing topic (e.g favorite thing about the company or your favorite aspect of a product). Have each member spend a few minutes to tell you their favorite things about the selected subject before the meeting.
3. 10 common things: Divide the team into smaller groups. Give each group 10 minutes to come up with a list of 10 things they have in common. It could be work-related or random (e.g we all love tea, we love the same brand of clothes, etc)
4. Ice breaker questions: You can start each meeting by asking ice breaker questions. You could ask questions like if you could have dinner with anyone (living or dead), who would it be? Or If you had a free airplane ticket anywhere, where would you go?
5. Picture sharing: Before the beginning of each meeting, have a team member share one personal picture. This picture must be unrelated to work (e.g family members, pets or gadgets). Have them explain the picture to other team members.
6. Personal facts guessing game: Create a sheet of personal facts. Upload them (without adding the names) at the beginning of each meeting. Have the team members guess which team member the fact belongs to. Upload each answer for everyone to see.
7. Never have I ever: Have everyone else raise five fingers up. Mention an action you’ve done. Those who have done this action too put a finger down. (e.g. never have I ever eaten pizza and everyone that has eaten pizza would put a finger down)
8. Learn someone’s life story in five minutes: Pair team members into sets of two each. Give each group 5 minutes each to tell their partner their entire life story. After that, the listener has to relay the life story from memory to the group.
9. Baby photos: Before the meeting, have every team member send you their most adorable baby photo. Upload these photos and have everyone guess which photos belong to whom. To make it competitive, everyone can write their answers on a sheet of paper.

Team building activities

10. Online team building bingo: You can create a bingo board of action items or accomplishments on it. Then mark the spot off the board if anyone has done the listed action or achievements (e.g I am wearing pajama bottoms to a video meeting)
11. Donate to a cause: Remind your team members of your company’s real-world presence by donating to a cause. Choose a charity together and make a donation of food, clothes, or cash. This will let participants know their work is helping to make a difference in the real world.
12. Learning circle: Ask your team members to vote on three non-work related topics they will love to know about (e.g a myth or country). Have the team member most knowledgeable about this topic come forward and explain what they know to everyone.
13. Remote team dinner: Challenge team members to create a variation of the same dish. Choose dishes with flexible ingredients that will make it easier for people to create dishes that match their taste (e.g Rice, Pasta). Connect virtual and eat together.
14. Virtual coffee break: Set up a 30 minutes virtual coffee with zero agenda. Talk only about topics not related to work. The conversation could be about the latest sports stories, personal lives, and current events.
15. Take a virtual museum tour: Some museums put collections online for virtual tours (The Getty Museum, The British Museum, etc.) Take a virtual museum tour with your team members.

Team engagement activities

16. Share recipe: At the end or beginning of each meeting chose a team member to share their favorite recipes. Participants  will make a meal based on this recipe and share the  result in the next meeting for all to see.
17. Origami challenge: Every week, you can have the coordinator teach the team how to make a new origami animal (e.g birds, frogs or cranes). Team members can place the animals on their desk to decorate their working space.
18. Virtual trivia: You can organize a weekly trivia game. Participants should be grouped into teams and each correct answer wins points.  The theme of the trivia should be around something popular like Netflix shows, musical clues or science facts.
19. Virtual book club: Organize a virtual book club with team members. Choose a short material, a novelette or an essay that can be finished in one or two sessions. Make sure   to choose the book everyone agreed on.
20. DIY craft challenge: To do a DIY challenge, bring the team member on a virtual call and share the rules. Give everyone 30 minutes to build something from materials available at home (the goal should be to  create something interesting and funny).
21. The gardening challenge: For one month, have your team members plant and cultivate a garden from scratch. Participants can sow seeds from fruits or vegetables. At the end of the month, have team members show off their gardening results.
22. Assign title or role: Assign specific and humourous roles to team members. Have them play their role to make them more engaged during the meetings. Roles could include cheerleaders, virtual photographers, etc.
23. Virtual exercise challenge: Schedule a weekly exercise session with team members. You can make a competition out of this by grouping participants into teams with tangible rewards to motivate participants. 
24. That’s right, Bob: Choose a team member to share a simple news story with no more than a sentence (e.g there was a car on the road). The next member states “That’s right, Bob”, repeats the line and then adds to it, (e.g there was a car on the road, and a lady is driving it.). Every member continues to add to the story in this way, until time out.
25. Gratitude challenge: Before every meeting session, give each team member time to share what they are grateful for that day. This could be as simple as being thankful for waking up to a more specific scenario.
26. Virtual debates: Choose a fun, debatable topic (e.g sports teams, superheroes, movie characters). Have a friendly  discussion over who’s better and why. The coordinator can serve as the judge, handing out points to the winner.

• 9 activities to break the ice in virtual meetings
• 5+ virtual activities to build a stronger team
• 10+ ideas to increase team engagement
• 10+ activities to bond team members
• 20+ games and storytelling activities for remote teams to play virtually together

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