Icebreaker: Unusual Experiences

Purpose

This light-hearted exercise is guaranteed to break the ice quickly and bring people together. In this exercise you set people a mission to find out about other delegates and to share what they have found with the group. It is designed to be entertaining and educational. As such it is ideal for a new team or at the beginning of a new course, workshop or seminar when you want to get people to become familiar with each other quickly.

Objective

Complete your mission and share the results with the group at the end.

What You Need

• A clear area where everyone can interact with each other easily.
• A series of mission cards. Prepare several cards with one of the following printed on each:
  • Who has the most unusual hobby?
  • Who has the most unusual pet?
  • Who has the most unusual name?
  • Who has played the most unusual game?
  • Who has designed the most unusual thing?
  • Who has travelled the longest in a single trip?

Setup

• Distribute one mission card to each delegate.
• Ask delegates to approach and talk to others as research for their mission.
• Allocate 5 to 10 minutes for this part depending on the number of delegates.
• Bring back everyone and ask each delegate to share their mission. Each person should announce the most unusual answer they have found for their mission and then ask other delegates to guess whom the answer has come from. The delegate should then declare who it was.
• Expect a lot of laughter and surprise. This will break the ice.
• You can go for another round if you have enough new mission cards for all delegates but be careful not to overdo it. Icebreakers are not supposed to take too long.
• Sometimes there is nothing unusual about any of the answers given. Delegates can pick another mission card and conduct research on it. They should still report back on the original mission card. Entertain the delegates by saying that this group hasn’t done anything unusual about X; they are too normal!

Timing

Explaining the Exercise: 2 minutes

Activity: 10 min research + 10 min sharing = 20 minutes

Group Feedback: N/A

Discussion