Project kick off meetings are when your new project team comes together, potentially for the first time. Sometimes you’ll want to incorporate icebreaker exercises as part of the meeting.

An icebreaker is a short exercise or game to help the team members get to know each other.

Here are five icebreakers that you can use with your project team.

1. Introduce a colleague

introduce a colleague

This is a simple exercise that anyone can do, and it takes no preparation. It works with a group of people around a table. Ask the project team members to turn to the person next to them. Ask them to find out their name, department, role on the project and a couple of interesting facts.

You might want to work out your questions in advance and put them on a flip chart or presentation slide. Then ask each individual to introduce the person next to them. You could also put people in groups of three if that suits the number in your project team better.

The downside of this icebreaker is that it is a bit boring and it doesn’t work that well with people who know each other already.

2. Two truths and a lie

Ask everyone to share three pieces of information with the rest of the team. Two of these should be true, and one should be a (plausible) lie. The rest of the team has to guess which one is the lie. This can work with team members who already know each other, but they might need a moment to work out what they are going to say.

3. Three things in common

This is good to get everyone up out of their chairs and talking to each other. Ask everyone to spend a couple of minutes talking to each of their colleagues with the aim of identifying 3 things they have in common with that person. This could be things like favourite foods, languages spoken, pets, sports and family. It can be quite fast paced. Once everyone has spoken to everyone else, ask them all to sit back down and share what they had in common with the person sitting to their left.

4. Summarise your experience

Summarise your experience

This can work well with big groups, especially if your kick off meeting room layout has people sitting on cabaret-style tables. Split people into groups, such as the table they are sitting on. Each group should summarise their experience.

For example, you could ask them to add together their years of service with the company, their time on the project, the number of children they have or any other facts to give you some statistics. One person from each group should feed back to the rest of the room.

5. Build an egg tower

This icebreaker exercise takes the most time and requires the most preparation. The aim is to build a tower to support an egg. Split the project team into groups. The group that builds the highest tower (that successfully supports an egg for 10 seconds) wins.

You’ll need to provide some equipment for the teams to build their towers. Try spaghetti, paper, sticky tape, string, paperclips and other office supplies.

You’ll need to give the team enough time to build their towers, and you’ll need to watch carefully for signs of cheating! You’ll also need to provide the eggs. You could choose to set a different task, such as supporting a tennis ball instead. This could be less messy! Another alternative is to hard-boil the eggs.

If you really want to raise the level of contribution to the challenge, offer a prize.

This could be a box of chocolates or biscuits – pick something that can be shared between the winning group.