Icebreakers for remote teams, without the meeting

The best icebreaker for a remote team is one that does not need everyone on a call at the same time. A short weekly quiz built from true facts your colleagues share about themselves does the job: people take part whenever suits them, nobody is put on the spot, and the conversation it starts carries on in your team chat.

Why live icebreakers fall flat

  • They put people on the spot. Thinking of something interesting about yourself in ten seconds, on camera, is hard.
  • They cost a meeting. Ten people for fifteen minutes is a lot of calendar for one round of “two truths and a lie”.
  • They need a host. Somebody has to plan it every time, and it stops when they get busy.
  • They do not fit time zones. A team across several offices never has a good moment for everyone.

An icebreaker that runs over email

Crewnum turns the get-to-know-you game into something asynchronous. Everyone writes a few facts about themselves once, in their own time. Each Friday morning a short quiz arrives by email: here is a fact, whose is it? People guess on their phone in a couple of minutes, see the team leaderboard, and the surprises tend to come up in conversation afterwards. There is no host and no meeting, and it keeps going week after week. See how it works.

Fifteen fact ideas that work at work

A good fact is true, a little surprising, and something a colleague could plausibly guess. These are some of the ideas Crewnum suggests to anyone stuck for something to write — none of them touch health, relationships, money or politics, because a work game should not ask about those.

  1. A place you have lived that nobody here would guess
  2. The worst job you have ever had
  3. A skill you have that never comes up at work
  4. Something you were weirdly good at as a kid
  5. The furthest you have ever travelled for something silly
  6. A food you refused for years and now love
  7. The first concert or gig you went to
  8. Something you have done exactly once and will never do again
  9. A hobby you gave up and still miss
  10. The most useless trophy or certificate you own
  11. An animal that has genuinely frightened you
  12. A film everyone loves that you have never seen
  13. The last thing you made with your hands
  14. A subject you were hopeless at in school
  15. Something you collected obsessively at some point

They work just as well as conversation starters in a team chat or at the start of a meeting, if you would rather run it yourself.

Try it

The demo quiz is a real Crewnum quiz played against a made-up team. It needs no sign-up and saves nothing. When you are ready, start your team — it takes about two minutes. More answers are in the FAQ.