Awkward silences, tense meetings, busy work days. These are all situations that can benefit from fun icebreaker questions!
Designed as simple team building activities to help ease employees or groups into a little team bonding, icebreaker questions don’t need to be as scary – or boring! – as they seem. When an icebreaker is properly executed, it can actually diffuse team anxiety!
Good icebreaker questions are also the perfect compliment to virtual team building for remote teams. When you start a video call with a quick round of team building icebreaker questions for work, you give your people a chance to connect on a personal level.
Check out our list of virtual team building ideas for more ways to connect virtual teams.
Here at Museum Hack, we know that not all icebreaker questions are created equal. That’s why we’ve collected the best icebreaker questions we could find and put them into this blog post.
These check in questions are relaxed, fun and simple but will also encourage your employees to give meaningful answers. Icebreakers are great for starting everything from meetings to events because they involve hardly any planning. Save or print this epic list of icebreakers for easy access. Keep it at your desk or post in it the office for everyone to use. Once you get into the rhythm of warming up with good icebreaker questions, your team will expect them and be excited about them!
Below you’ll find our favorite virtual icebreaker questions, funny icebreaker questions, great icebreaker questions to provoke thoughtful insight, the best icebreaker questions for meetings in the workplace, awkward icebreaker questions, and ‘If You Could’ icebreaker questions. We’ve even added some of our favorite ‘Would You Rather’ questions, which always have the potential to spark great conversation!
- Virtual Icebreaker Questions
- Funny Icebreaker Questions
- Great Icebreaker Questions
- Best Icebreaker Questions for Meetings
- Awkward, Weird Icebreaker Questions
- If You Could Icebreaker Questions
- Would You Rather Icebreaker Questions
- Icebreaker Questions for High School Students
- Icebreaker Questions for College Students
- Icebreaker Questions for Kids
- Christmas Icebreaker Questions
Virtual Icebreaker Questions
Here are fun introduction questions for virtual meetings, which are sometimes called Zoom icebreaker questions. These questions are especially useful during quarantine.
- Do you love working from home or would you rather be in the office? Is there a balance of both that you like best?
- What’s the hardest part about working virtually for you? The easiest?
- Do you have a dedicated office space at home?
- Show us your office space!
- Where do you work most frequently from at home? Your office? Your kitchen table? The backyard? Your bed?
- Be honest, how often do you work from bed?
- What did you eat for breakfast?
- What does your morning routine look like when working from home?
- What’s your number one tip for combating distractions when working from home?
- How do you stay productive and motivated working virtually?
- What does your typical work from home uniform look like?
- How many cups of coffee, tea, or beverage-of-choice do you have each morning?
- Are you an early bird or night owl?
- What about showers? Do you prefer morning or night?
- What’s one thing we could do to improve our virtual meetings?
- What’s your favorite flower or plant?
- What’s your caffeinated beverage of choice? Coffee? Cola? Tea?
- What’s your favorite scent?
- What’s the last great TV show or movie you wanted?
- Best book you’ve ever read?
- Best professional development book you’ve ever read?
- If you could learn one new professional skill, what would it be?
- If you could learn one new personal skill, what would it be?
- What’s your favorite way to get in some exercise?
- If you could write a book, what genre would you write it in? Mystery? Thriller? Romance? Historical fiction? Non-fiction?
Funny Icebreaker Questions
- What is one article of clothing that someone could wear that would make you walk out on a date with them?
- The zombie apocalypse is coming, who are 3 people you want on your team?
- What is your most used emoji?
- What was the worst style choice you ever made?
- What was the worst haircut you ever had?
- Who was your childhood actor/actress crush?
- If you were a wrestler what would be your entrance theme song?
- Have you ever been told you look like someone famous, who was it?
- If you could bring back any fashion trend what would it be?
- What’s the most embarrassing fashion trend you used to rock?
- What did you name your first car?
- Does your current car have a name? What is it?
- You have your own late night talk show, who do you invite as your first guest?
- If a movie was made of your life what genre would it be, who would play you?
- If you were famous, what would you be famous for?
- You have to sing karaoke, what song do you pick?
- What was your least favorite food as a child? Do you still hate it or do you love it now?
- If you had to eat one meal everyday for the rest of your life what would it be?
- If you were left on a deserted island with either your worst enemy or no one, which would you choose? Why?
- If aliens landed on earth tomorrow and offered to take you home with them, would you go?
- 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s: Which decade do you love the most and why?
- What’s your favorite sandwich and why?
Great Icebreaker Questions
- What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
- When you die, what do you want to be remembered for?
- What is your favorite item you’ve bought this year?
- What would be the most surprising scientific discovery imaginable?
- What is your absolute dream job?
- What would your talent be if you were Miss or Mister World?
- What would the title of your autobiography be?
- Say you’re independently wealthy and don’t have to work, what would you do with your time?
- If you had to delete all but 3 apps from your smartphone, which ones would you keep?
- What is your favorite magical or mythological animal?
- What does your favorite shirt look like?
- Who is your favorite Disney hero or heroine? Would you trade places with them?
- What would your dream house be like?
- If you could add anyone to Mount Rushmore who would it be; why?
- You’re going sail around the world, what’s the name of your boat?
- What fictional family would you be a member of?
- What is your favorite television network?
Best Icebreaker Questions for Meetings
- What sport would you compete in if you were in the Olympics?
- Who is the better businessman or business woman and why? (Example: Justin Timberlake or Justin Bieber?)
- What was the worst job you ever had?
- You can have anyone fictional as your imaginary friend, who do you choose and why?
- What would your superpower be and why?
- Which band / artist – dead or alive would play at your funeral?
- As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
- What’s your favorite tradition or holiday?
- What fictional world or place would you like to visit?
- What is your favorite breakfast food?
- What is your favorite time of the day and why?
- Coffee or tea?
- Teleportation or flying?
- What is your favorite TV show?
- What book, movie read/seen recently you would recommend and why?
- What breed of dog would you be?
- If you had a time machine, would go back in time or into the future?
- Do you think you could live without your smartphone (or other technology item) for 24 hours?
- What is your favorite dessert?
- What was your favorite game to play as a child?
- Are you a traveler or a homebody?
- What’s one career you wish you could have?
- What fictional world or place would you like to visit?
- What’s your favorite place of all the places you’ve travelled?
- Have you ever met your idol or someone you revere greatly?
- Have you ever completed anything on your “bucket list”?
- Do you have a favorite plant?
- What did you have for breakfast this morning?
- What was the country you last visited outside of United States?
- What’s is one thing we don’t know about you?
- What is your favorite meal to cook and why?
- Are you a morning person or a night person?
- What is your favorite musical instrument and why?
- Are you a cat person or a dog person?
- What languages do you know how to speak?
- Popcorn or M&Ms?
Awkward, Weird Icebreaker Questions
- What’s the weirdest food you’ve ever eaten?
- What’s the most out-of-character thing you’ve ever done?
- What is your cellphone wallpaper?
- You can have an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life, what is it? Sushi? Scotch Tape?
- What’s your best scar story?
- Would you go with aliens if they beamed down to Earth?
- Are you sunrise, daylight, twilight, or nighttime? Why?
- What season would you be?
- Are you a good dancer?
- What fruit or vegetable would you most want to be?
If You Could Icebreaker Questions
- If you could hang out with any cartoon character, who would you choose and why?
- If you could live anywhere in the world for a year, where would it be?
- If you could commit any crime and get away with it what would you choose and why?
- If you could choose any person from history to be your imaginary friend, who would it be and why?
- If you could see one movie again for the first time, what would it be and why?
- If you could bring back any fashion trend what would it be?
- If you could live in any country, where would you live?
- If you could choose any two famous people to have dinner with who would they be?
- If you could be any animal in the world, what animal would you choose to be?
- If you could do anything in the world as your career, what would you do?
- If you could be any supernatural creature, what would you be and why?
- If you could change places with anyone in the world, who would it be and why?
- If you could rename yourself, what name would you pick?
- If you could have someone follow you around all the time, like a personal assistant, what would you have them do?
- If you could instantly become an expert in something, what would it be?
- If you could be guaranteed one thing in life (besides money), what would it be?
- If you had to teach a class on one thing, what would you teach?
- If you could magically become fluent in any language, what would it be?
- If you could be immortal, what age would you choose to stop aging at and why?
- If you could be on a reality TV show, which one would you choose and why?
- If you could choose any person from history to be your imaginary friend, who would it be and why?
- If you could eliminate one thing from your daily routine, what would it be and why?
- If you could go to Mars, would you? Why or why not?
- If you could have the power of teleportation right now, where would you go and why?
- If you could write a book that was guaranteed to be a best seller, what would you write?
Would You Rather Icebreaker Questions
- Would you rather live in the ocean or on the moon?
- Would you rather meet your travel back in time to meet your ancestors or to the future to meet your descendants?
- Would you rather lose all of your money or all of your pictures?
- Would you rather have invisibility or flight?
- Would you rather live where it only snows or the temperature never falls below 100 degrees?
- Would you rather always be slightly late or super early?
- Would you rather give up your smartphone or your computer?
- Would you rather live without heat and AC or live without social media?
- Would you rather be the funniest or smartest person in the room?
- Would you rather be able to run at 100 miles per hour or fly at 10 miles per hour?
- Would you rather be a superhero or the world’s best chef?
- Would you rather be an Olympic gold medallist or an astronaut?
Icebreaker Questions for High School Students
- Do you play any sports?
- Do you play any instruments?
- If you could donate a million dollars to any charity, what cause would you choose?
- Do you have any hidden talents?
- What school subject is your favorite?
- What school subject is your least favorite?
- What are you most excited about this year?
- What song or album could you listen to on repeat?
- If you could live in one fictional universe, which one would you choose?
- Name one cool feature you would add to your dream house.
- Describe a time you laughed so hard you thought you would cry, or when you did cry. What was so funny?
- If you could have your own TV show, what would it be about?
- What is one thing you want older generations to know about teenagers today?
- What is your favorite memory with your best friend? (Your best friend can be an animal!)
- What is the best dish you can cook?
Icebreaker Questions for College Students
- What is your major?
- If that wasn’t your major, what would your major be?
- What most surprised you when you first arrived on campus or first started classes at this school?
- If I visited your hometown, what local spots would you suggest I see?
- What is your favorite midnight snack?
- What is your best study tip?
- What is the strangest habit you have?
- What is the most amazing story about your family?
- What movie do you think everyone should watch?
- What is the last TV show that you binge-watched?
- What is one thing we would never guess about you?
- Name an imaginary college class you wish this school offered.
- What current fact about your life would most impress your five year old self?
- Besides graduating, what is your number one goal for your remaining time at college?
- Describe the best teacher you have had so far.
Icebreaker Questions for Kids
- If you could have any animal for a pet, what would it be?
- If your pet could talk, what do you think it would say?
- Would you rather explore outer space or the bottom of the ocean?
- Would you rather visit a volcano or a rainforest?
- If you could only eat one dessert for the rest of your life, what would it be?
- If you could choose any name besides your name, what would you choose?
- If you had a million dollars, what would you buy first?
- Who is your favorite Disney character?
- If you could switch lives with anyone for a day, who would it be?
- What is your favorite color?
- Which cartoon character do you wish was real?
- If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
- What is your best idea for a new invention?
- If you were invisible for a day, what would you do?
- What is your favorite ice cream flavor and ice cream topping?
Christmas Icebreaker Questions
- What is your earliest holiday memory?
- How old were you when you learned that Santa – gasp – doesn’t exist?
- Do you prefer gingerbread people or houses?
- Would you rather get coal in your stocking, or pizza?
- What is your favorite Christmas carol?
- If you could spend the holidays in any location, where would it be?
- Does your family have any holiday traditions?
- Would you rather eat a candy cane that tastes like turkey, or a turkey that tastes like candy cane?
- Which of Scrooge’s ghosts was the most effective?
These holiday-themed questions are perfect for virtual Christmas parties.
More team building icebreaker questions for work
Looking for even more of the best icebreaker questions to warm up your group? Check out the The #1 List of Icebreaker Questions.
You can compile your own list of good icebreaker questions too.