The Most Common Free Business Meeting Game Ideas

The Most Common Free Business Meeting Game Ideas
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Don’t bore your staff or others during your next meeting, when you can incorporate one or two free business meeting game ideas. Breaking the ice is vital to building relationships, motivating your team or alleviating tension. You don’t need to include a game in every single meeting, but one of the following games would be fun to include in a monthly or quarterly meeting:

Getting to Know You

It’s an age-old game that you probably played at one point, either at work or at your freshman orientation in college. The goal of this free business meeting game idea is for attendees to get to know each other. The best time to play this game is when the group members don’t know much about each other, or are meeting each other for the first time. Here’s how you play it:

  • Generate a list of five questions for each attendee to ask one other attendee
  • Pair up attendees, or ask them to find someone to interview
  • Post the list of questions on a whiteboard, screen, flipchart or whatever you have available at your meeting space
  • Instruct attendees to interview their “partner” by answering the five questions posted
  • Give 15 minutes for the interview process, and 3 minutes for each person to introduce their partner

You want to set time limits so that the game doesn’t eat up your meeting time. It also keeps the introverts in the meeting motivated to complete the exercise, because they’ll count on your calling time and rescuing them from the one-on-one conversation.

Modified 20 Questions

Free business meeting game ideas are no different from team builder games that exist in many settings. For example, you can play “20 Questions” the same way you would with young children, except you should modify it for business meetings. Too many questions can cause boredom and leave little room for the meeting itself. Try seven questions, and restrict the category to one, such as bestselling authors or politicians. You’ll also want to limit the time you play the game, as well as the number of people answering the questions. Here are the rules for playing a modified version of 20 Questions:

  • One person thinks of a person or thing in the category you choose
  • The rest of the group takes turns, asking a “yes” or “no” question to find out the person or thing that the “answerer” has in mind
  • If the person answering says “no” to a question, someone else in the room gets to ask the next question
  • Only seven questions can be asked, including any guesses as to what the answer is

It’s a fun game, and the question and answer process can reveal interesting tidbits about the players.

Silent Line Formation

A challenging game that encourages teamwork is the Silent Line Formation game. It goes by many different names, but the point is to get meeting attendees to line themselves up without speaking or writing, in the order in which they were born. Those born in January would line up first, and so on. You’ll get to observe the group dynamics and immediately tell the leaders from the followers. It’s a great way to break away from the chairs that they may have to sit in for many hours that day.

Free business meeting game ideas are fun and take little preparation time. The benefits of including them, for team building and stress relief, are worth it.

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