Icebreaker (facilitation)

Last updated November 18, 2024

An icebreaker is a brief facilitation exercise intended to help members of a group begin the process of working together or forming a team. They are commonly presented as games to "warm up" a group by helping members get to know each other and often focus on sharing personal information such as names or hobbies.^[1]

Purpose

An icebreaker should be related to the subject or the purpose of the meeting.^[2] For example, if a collaborative learning environment is needed for a training project, then an icebreaker exercise that promotes collaboration could be chosen. If the subject of the meeting is literature, then the subject of the meeting could be introduced through an exercise that revolves around a participant's favourite books. Most icebreakers should promote an appropriate level of self-disclosure, as this builds trust between participants in the group and helps develop group cohesiveness.^[3]

Icebreakers should be relaxing and non-threatening.^[2] For example, icebreakers in a professional setting should not require people to reveal personal information or to touch other people, as this may be stressful or culturally inappropriate. They should not embarrass the participants or make them feel compelled to participate. They should also not show disrespect for any social and professional hierarchies in the group, as this can be uncomfortable for participants. A simple activity without right or wrong answers can reduce anxiety for people who are in a new situation or an unfamiliar group of people.^[3]

The icebreaker should allow people to experience the behaviors that are expected or desired within the group.^[3] For example, if the main group activities will use rigid turn-taking during discussions, then the ice breaker should model rigid turn-taking. An icebreaker can help people understand whether this will be a psychologically safe group that will accept different opinions.^[3]

At the end of a well-executed icebreaker exercise, the facilitator should be able to summarize for the group what was learned during the exercise or what the purpose of the icebreaker was.^[3]

Reactions

Icebreakers are often disliked, but having participants feel awkward or think that the exercise is unpleasant does not impair their effectiveness in bringing individuals closer together.^[3]

People who dislike icebreakers may be reacting to previous experience with irrelevant, pointless, or poorly designed icebreakers, which can feel like a waste of time.^[3] Participants may also show aspects of their personality, as people with different personalities respond differently to the same exercise.

Types

There are many different types of icebreakers. Some of the most common are:

Introductory icebreakers: Often, when people get together for the first time, they do not all know one another. Introductory icebreaker games and activities not only help people begin to know each other, but also help them recognize and appreciate differences and similarities. Introductory icebreakers can be as simple as asking each person to tell the group their name and one fact about themselves, or they can be complicated exercises designed to build trust and a desire to work together.
Getting-to-know-you icebreakers: Icebreakers are frequently presented in the form of a game to “warm up” a group by helping the members to get to know each other. They often focus on sharing information such as names, personal facts, hobbies, etc. Getting to know you icebreakers also help people who already know each other become more acquainted.
Team-building icebreakers: Many icebreaker games are intended to help a group to begin the process of forming themselves into a team or teams. Some teamwork icebreakers, such as building activities, aid group dynamics by building trust, communication, and the ability to work together.
Party (fun) icebreakers: Party icebreakers introduce guests to one another. Use icebreakers that are simple and entertaining to coax people to converse and laugh. This sets the right mood for the rest of the party.
Icebreaker questions: As the name implies, icebreaker questions simply elicit information from people in an effort to get them comfortable and relaxed. Icebreaker questions can be serious or funny. The best icebreaker questions are designed specifically for an identified age and purpose and prepare people for activities or experiences that follow.

Warm-up exercises

Examples of warm-up exercises include:

Little-known fact: Participants are asked to share their name, role in the group, length of service, and one "little-known fact" about themselves. This "little-known fact" becomes a humanizing element for future interactions.
Two truths and a lie: Each participant makes three statements about themselves—two true and one untrue. Other group members try to identify the falsehood.
Mingle, Mingle, Mingle: A super easy way to get people moving and shouting at one another! Make space around the room and ask everyone to stand and walk round in one direction saying the word 'mingle' over and over. The facilitator then shouts a number. The participant group together in that number. The facilitator commiserates any not in a group and then starts the process again.
Interviews: Participants are paired up and spend five minutes interviewing each other. The group reconvenes and the interviewer introduces the interviewee to the group.

The exercises are particularly popular in the university setting, for instance among residents of a residence hall or groups of students who will be working closely together, such as orientation leaders or peer health teachers.

Group interaction exercises

Challenging icebreakers also have the ability to allow a group to be better prepared to complete its assigned tasks. For example, if the team's objective is to redesign a business process such as Accounts Payable, the icebreaker activity might take the team through a process analysis. The analysis could include the identification of failure points, challenging assumptions and development of new solutions — all in a "simpler and safer" setting where the team can practice the group dynamics they will use to solve assigned problems.

Two examples of group interaction exercises are:

Ball Exercise

Immediately after introductions, the facilitator arranges the group in a circle and asks each person to throw a ball to a participant on the other side of the circle while stating their name. When every person in the group has thrown the ball at least once, the facilitator announces that the exercise will be repeated (but with it being timed) and announces the rules.

Each person must touch the ball in the same order as the first round.
Each person must touch the ball with at least one hand.
Time stops when the ball is returned to the facilitator. (For further complication, the facilitator will sometimes introduce three balls in succession to the process.) Regardless of their performance, the facilitator expresses disappointment with the group's performance and urges them to repeat it faster. When asked for clarification, the facilitator only reiterates the rules. An effective team will creatively redesign their process to meet the requirements of the rules. After several iterations, the facilitator will call a halt and use the exercise to draw out morals which will be relevant later in the day such as challenging assumptions, dissatisfaction with the first answer or being creative.

Human Spiderweb: The facilitator begins with a ball of yarn. He/she keeps one end and passes the ball to a participant. Each participant introduces him/herself and role in the group, then, keeping hold of the strand of yarn, unrolls enough to hand the ball to another person in the group, describing how they are dependent on that person (or role). The process continues, often with multiple dependencies until everyone is introduced. The facilitator then pulls on the starting thread and asks the group if anyone's hand failed to move. The facilitator then uses the yarn as a metaphor for the interdependencies of the group or the process to be discussed.

Related Research Articles

The Socratic method is a form of argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions.

Party games are games that are played at social gatherings to facilitate interaction and provide entertainment and recreation. Categories include (explicit) icebreaker, parlour (indoor), picnic (outdoor), and large group games. Other types include pairing off (partnered) games, and parlour races. Different games will generate different atmospheres so the party game may merely be intended as an icebreakers, or the sole purpose for or structure of the party. As such, party games aim to include players of various skill levels and player-elimination is rare. Party games are intended to be played socially, and are designed to be easy for new players to learn.

A focus group is a group interview involving a small number of demographically predefined participants. Their reactions to specific researcher/evaluator-posed questions are studied. Focus groups are used in market research to better understand people's reactions to products or services or participants' perceptions of shared experiences. The discussions can be guided or open. In market research, focus groups can explore a group's response to a new product or service. As a program evaluation tool, they can elicit lessons learned and recommendations for performance improvement. The idea is for the researcher to understand participants' reactions. If group members are representative of a larger population, those reactions may be expected to reflect the views of that larger population. Thus, focus groups constitute a research or evaluation method that researchers organize to collect qualitative data through interactive and directed discussions.

Team building is a collective term for various types of activities used to enhance social relations and define roles within teams, often involving collaborative tasks. It is distinct from team training, which is designed by a combination of business managers, learning and development/OD and an HR Business Partner to improve the efficiency, rather than interpersonal relations.

Facilitation in business, organizational development and consensus decision-making refers to the process of designing and running a meeting according to a previously agreed set of requirements.

Brainstorming is a creativity technique in which a group of people interact to suggest ideas spontaneously in response to a prompt. Stress is typically placed on the volume and variety of ideas, including ideas that may seem outlandish or "off-the-wall". Ideas are noted down during the activity, but not assessed or critiqued until later. The absence of criticism and assessment is intended to avoid inhibiting participants in their idea production. The term was popularized by advertising executive Alex Faickney Osborn in the classic work Applied Imagination (1953).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Active learning</span> Educational technique

Active learning is "a method of learning in which students are actively or experientially involved in the learning process and where there are different levels of active learning, depending on student involvement." Bonwell & Eison (1991) states that "students participate [in active learning] when they are doing something besides passively listening." According to Hanson and Moser (2003) using active teaching techniques in the classroom can create better academic outcomes for students. Scheyvens, Griffin, Jocoy, Liu, & Bradford (2008) further noted that "by utilizing learning strategies that can include small-group work, role-play and simulations, data collection and analysis, active learning is purported to increase student interest and motivation and to build students ‘critical thinking, problem-solving and social skills". In a report from the Association for the Study of Higher Education, authors discuss a variety of methodologies for promoting active learning. They cite literature that indicates students must do more than just listen in order to learn. They must read, write, discuss, and be engaged in solving problems. This process relates to the three learning domains referred to as knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA). This taxonomy of learning behaviors can be thought of as "the goals of the learning process." In particular, students must engage in such higher-order thinking tasks as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Indoor cycling, often called spinning, is a form of exercise with classes focusing on endurance, strength, intervals, high intensity and recovery, and involves using a special stationary exercise bicycle with a weighted flywheel in a classroom setting. When people took cycling indoors in the late 19th century, whether for reasons of weather or convenience, technology created faster, more compact and efficient machines over time. The first iterations of the stationary bike ranged from the vertical Gymnasticon to regular bicycles on rollers.

Human decontamination is the process of removing hazardous materials from the human body, including chemicals, radioactive substances, and infectious material.

The priest of the parish is a party game for 50–150 people and one chair for each person. The chairs are arranged in rows of equal numbers, half of them facing the other. Each row of chairs is given a number from one to ten. The players get into teams of five and each team sits in one of the ten rows.

Joint application design is a term originally used to describe a software development process pioneered and deployed during the mid-1970s by the New York Telephone Company's Systems Development Center under the direction of Dan Gielan. Following a series of implementations of this methodology, Gielan lectured extensively in various forums on the methodology and its practices. Arnie Lind, then a Senior Systems Engineer at IBM Canada in Regina, Saskatchewan created and named joint application design in 1974. Existing methods, however, entailed application developers spending months learning the specifics of a particular department or job function, and then developing an application for the function or department. In addition to development backlog delays, this process resulted in applications taking years to develop, and often not being fully accepted by the application users.

Collaborative methods are processes, behaviors, and conversations that relate to the collaboration between individuals. These methods specifically aim to increase the success of teams as they engage in collaborative problem solving. Forms, rubrics, charts and graphs are useful in these situations to objectively document personal traits with the goal of improving performance in current and future projects.

Insight Seminars is an international non-profit organization headquartered in Santa Monica, California. The first seminar was led in 1978 by founders John-Roger and Russell Bishop under the name Insight Training Seminars. Insight has held seminars in 34 countries for adults, teens, and children, in addition to Business Insight corporate trainings. Seminars are primarily presented in English and Spanish, and have also been translated into Russian, Portuguese, Bulgarian, and Greek.

"Choosing Healthplans All Together" (CHAT) is the name given to a simulation exercise in which players decide which benefit types they would like to include in their health insurance package, and what level of service they prioritize. This activity emphasizes the critical need to design health insurance benefit packages based on local information. The core goal of this exercise is to ascertain which benefit package best reflects the priorities of the group of players within a finite budget allocated for health insurance and within the circumstances in which the participants live.

Sport psychology is defined as the study of the psychological basis, processes, and effects of sport. Sport is defined as any physical activity where the individuals engage for competition and health. Sport psychology is recognized as an interdisciplinary science that draws on knowledge from many related fields including biomechanics, physiology, kinesiology and psychology. It involves the study of how psychological factors affect performance and how participation in sport and exercise affect psychological and physical factors. Sport psychologists teach cognitive and behavioral strategies to athletes in order to improve their experience and performance in sports.

A working group is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. Such groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers, often from more than one organization, working on new activities that would be difficult to sustain under traditional funding mechanisms. Working groups are variously also called task groups, workgroups, technical advisory groups, working parties, or task forces.

Speed networking is a meeting format designed to accelerate business contacts.

An assessment day is usually used in the context of recruitment. On this day, a group of applicants who have applied for a particular role are invited to an assessment centre, where a combination of selection techniques are used by the employers to measure the suitability of an individual for the job role. These selection technique usually include exercises such as presentation, group exercise, one to one Interview, role play, psychometric test etc. Most large organisations like banks, audit and IT firms use assessment days to recruit the fresh talent in their graduate programmes. With an increase of popularity of assessment days, several training institutes have been formed that prepare candidates for assessment days, for example, Green Turn is a famous institute that prepares candidates for assessment days of big 4 accountancy firms.

Diversity Icebreaker is a questionnaire used in seminars where the aim is to improve communication and interaction in the group or between different departments or subsidiaries in a more prominent company or organization. Based on the results from the questionnaire, the participants are divided into three categories. Each color represents a particular set of preferences. The facilitator is suggested to follow a specific seminar structure to help the participants develop a shared understanding of effective ways to communicate and work with people with different preferences.

Social workers employ education as a tool in client and community interactions. These educational exchanges are not always explicit, but are the foundation of how social workers acquire knowledge from their service participants and how they can contribute to information delivery and skill development.

References

↑ Dennick, Reg. Small Group Teaching: Tutorials, Seminars and Beyond. p. 20.
1 2 3 Doctoroff Landay, Susan (March 2011). "Not Another Icebreaker!". ELearn. 2011 (3). Association for Computing Machinery: 4. doi:10.1145/1966297.1966301. ISSN 1535-394X. S2CID 35930920 . Retrieved 2015-10-09.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Romm, Cari (2016-09-09). "Icebreakers Are Terrible. They Also, Unfortunately, Work Really Well". The Cut. Retrieved 2023-07-02.

External links

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Dennick, Reg. Small Group Teaching: Tutorials, Seminars and Beyond. p. 20.

[:0-2] 1 2 3 Doctoroff Landay, Susan (March 2011). "Not Another Icebreaker!". ELearn. 2011 (3). Association for Computing Machinery: 4. doi:10.1145/1966297.1966301. ISSN 1535-394X. S2CID 35930920 . Retrieved 2015-10-09.

[:1-3] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Romm, Cari (2016-09-09). "Icebreakers Are Terrible. They Also, Unfortunately, Work Really Well". The Cut. Retrieved 2023-07-02.

[1]

[2]

[3]