How to facilitate team building with ice breaker bingo
As any manager knows, team building sessions are essential to creating a successful, productive team. In a remote or virtual work environment, this is particularly important. While it can feel difficult for team managers to figure out how to facilitate these sessions, we have lots of ideas on how to make these team building sessions fun, interactive, and productive. One of our favorites is ice breaker bingo.
Here at Bar None Games, we love ice breaker bingo for team building sessions because it’s an engaging way for your team members to get to know each other and build camaraderie. It can create opportunities for anecdotes and offers an easy way for your team to get to know each other in a more casual setting. One of our favorite reasons for why we love ice breaker bingo for team building is that it also brings team members who might be shyer or softer spoken out of their shell.
That being said, there are lots of components to ensuring that your ice breaker bingo session goes off without a hitch. Here are our top five tips on how to host the ice breaker bingo event that will bring your team together in a way they’ve never experienced!
Before the event begins, hype up the excitement for it by ensuring that everyone knows how it’s going to work and telling people why it’s important
To create the best get to know you activity, ensure that the ice breaker prompts on the bingo sheet are inclusive and unique
You can utilize an icebreaker bingo free card generator to help create the format for the card
To maximize the team building benefits, encourage open and free flowing conversation by ensuring that there’s a friendly and welcome atmosphere
If you have a larger group, split the team up into smaller groups to do the team building activity. Afterwards, bring everyone back into a larger group and share fun stories that were uncovered during the icebreaker bingo activity.
Below, we’ll go into more detail on each of these steps so that any manager can execute the perfect team building ice breaker bingo.
1. Before the event begins, hype up the excitement for it by ensuring that everyone knows how it’s going to work and telling people why it’s important
Ahead of the event, get everyone excited for what’s to come. Let them know that there will be a lot of fun prompts to generate fun stories, and they’ll get to know their team members in new ways. I’ve never left a bingo ice breaker event without a new crazy wild fact about a co-worker!
Before starting the ice breaker bingo game, make sure that everyone understands the rules and objectives of the game. One of our favorite ways to play ice breaker bingo that centers around team building is to split everyone up into smaller groups and have them all work off one bingo sheet. The bingo sheet will have a series of prompts on it, and as a group, they’ll need to see if anyone in the group can answer to the prompt. We’ve found that this format is the best to encourage collaboration amongst the team, while also breaking the ice.
2. To create the best get to know you activity, ensure that the ice breaker prompts on the bingo sheet are inclusive and unique
A key part to any great ice breaker bingo event is to make sure you have ice breaker prompts that are inclusive. You don’t want anyone feeling left out because they can’t contribute anything. To make it as inclusive as possible, we recommend you come up with a series of ice breaker bingo prompts that span a variety of topics, such as:
Sports
TV and movies
Travel
Food
Family
Hobbies
Technology
Culture
For example, the below ice breaker bingo prompts focus on inclusive team building:
You won an award in sports when you were under the age of ten
You know the lyrics for the entire theme song of a TV show
You traveled outside of the country twice in the last year
You have a food that you ate as a child, but now no longer eat as an adult
You have a significant other that you met via a mutual friend
You have a hobby that you participate in on a weekly basis
You have never had an Instagram account
You watched the most recent Oscar Best Picture winner
3. You can utilize an icebreaker bingo free card generator to help create the format for the card
To help simplify the work of organizing and hosting such an event, you can use a free ice breaker bingo card generator. This makes it much easier, so that you can just focus on ensuring there’s good quality, inclusive content. This is a favorite free bingo card generator of ours that is specifically designed to facilitate an icebreaker bingo experience.
Or, for the ultimate no-sweat experience, you can also let our team at Bar None Games host your ice breaker event. Teams of all sizes love breaking the ice with us, and in addition to icebreaker bingo, we have other get-to-know-you team building activities included in our icebreaker event.
4. To maximize the team building benefits, encourage open and free flowing conversation by ensuring that there’s a friendly and welcome atmosphere
The best part of a team building ice breaker bingo event is the amount of hilarious anecdotes that people learn about each other. You never know who might’ve been the child musician prodigy or has permanently sworn off of social media! In order to enable these stories, you have to ensure that there’s a culture and environment of trust. You can do this by kicking the event off with a friendly and welcoming tone. You can also be the first to open up by sharing a funny story, which will make others feel comfortable to share their own anecdotes. Ice breaker bingo is the perfect event to create easy conversation starters, and with the proper atmosphere, the team building will happen by itself.
5. If you have a larger group, split the team up into smaller groups to do the team building activity. Afterwards, bring everyone back into a larger group and share fun stories that were uncovered during the icebreaker bingo activity.
Since not everyone feels comfortable speaking up in larger groups, consider whether you should split your group up into smaller teams. This will give each individual more time to speak, and it will also be more inclusive for those on your team who may be more introverted. Don’t forget to bring everyone back into the main room together and ask individuals to share their favorite story that they learned! It’s a great format to encourage both large group and smaller group bonding. This also means that people will learn something new about other co-workers even if they weren’t paired to be in the same smaller group.
FAQ Icebreaker Bingo
Here are our answers to some of the most commonly asked questions on icebreaker bingo, especially when using icebreaker bingo as an activity at work for teambuilding.
What is icebreaker bingo?
Icebreaker bingo is a fun and interactive game that is often used in group settings, such as team building events, orientations, or other types of group meetings. The game is designed to help people get to know each other better by encouraging conversation and interaction. In a team building setting, it’s a great way for co-workers to break the ice and get to know their teammates better.
How do you play icebreaker bingo?
The game is played by providing participants with a bingo card that contains a grid of squares, each with a different question or statement. The questions or statements are designed to elicit information about the players, such as their favorite hobbies, where they are from, or their favorite foods. Players can either play individually, by individually seeking out others who “check off” each bingo box, or they can play as a group, with everyone working together to see who can contribute to which bingo box.
How do you play icebreaker bingo on Zoom?
To play on Zoom, a team-based approach is much easier, where players can work together off of one sheet. Ensure that you have a small enough group where each person is able to contribute. If needed, you can split a larger group up into smaller teams using Zoom’s breakout room function in order to get groups into a small enough size.
What are the rules for icebreaker bingo?
The rules for icebreaker bingo are easy, so don’t fret! Everyone gets an icebreaker bingo sheet, and they need to identify someone who is able to help them check off each bingo prompt. Once the sheet is fully checked off, they are done with that round.
Why is icebreaker bingo a good team building event?
Icebreaker bingo is a great team building event for several reasons! It encourages interaction amongst co-workers and easily breaks the ice. It’s a low pressure way to engage in fun casual conversation. It also breaks down barriers, as people have an opportunity to share more information about themselves. It builds relationships between participants as they get to strength their connection. And it also creates a positive atmosphere, given the prompts are typically lighthearted and fun.
How do you play bingo for team building?
Bingo is a great engaging team building event! You’ll need to ensure that you have a fun, high-energy person to host the bingo event. You should also incorporate fun multimedia components in the bingo event, such as music bingo or movies bingo. This creates opportunities for players to speak up and share a personal anecdote, which enables connections to be formed amongst coworkers. If it still seems confusing, you can let us handle the logistics with our bingo team building event. We’ll bring the host, the creative bingo rounds, and ensure that your group has a fantastic time.
What are some great icebreaker questions?
The best ice breaker questions are on topics that are fun, and specific enough to solicit an interesting answer. You can draw inspiration from any variety of topics – work, hobbies, get-to-know-you questions and more. We have a list of our top 100 icebreaker questions here.
