Icebreaker Questions for Work Teams

All 60 questions in this deck

1. What's the first job you ever got paid to do, and what did it teach you?
2. What's a small purchase, under about twenty dollars, that made your life noticeably better?
3. What's your most defensible unpopular food opinion?
4. If your work style were a weather forecast, what would today's be?
5. What's a skill you have that has never once appeared on your resume?
6. What did you want to be at age ten, and what's the closest you've come to it?
7. What's the best piece of advice a coworker ever gave you?
8. Coffee, tea, energy drinks, or pure willpower: what actually runs your mornings?
9. What's something you learned in the last month, work or not?
10. What app on your phone would be hardest to give up for a week?
11. What's the most beautiful place you've ever eaten a completely ordinary meal?
12. If you had a guaranteed free hour every day, what would you actually spend it on?
13. What's a tiny thing a teammate can do that instantly makes your day better?
14. What's the last thing you fixed with your own hands?
15. Which fictional workplace would you actually want to work at?
16. What's your go-to order at the place you order from too often?
17. What's a sound you love that most people never mention?
18. If your job had a very literal title for what you actually do all day, what would it be?
19. What's the best meal you can reliably cook without a recipe?
20. What's a habit you picked up during a busy season that you've kept on purpose?
21. What subject could you give a fifteen-minute talk on with zero preparation?
22. What's the strangest thing currently in your bag, desk, or car?
23. Which chore do you secretly enjoy, and which one do you negotiate away?
24. What's a movie you'll watch any time you find it already playing?
25. If this team had a mascot based on how we actually work, what would it be?
26. What's the smallest hill you are fully prepared to die on?
27. What's something your hometown does better than anywhere else?
28. Early bird, night owl, or 'whatever the calendar forces me to be'?
29. What's the best live event you've ever been in the crowd for?
30. What's one tool, app, or trick that saves you real time every single week?
31. What were you unreasonably afraid of as a kid?
32. What's your favorite way to spend a day off that costs nothing?
33. If you could instantly master one skill for work and one for fun, what are you picking?
34. What's the best thing you've read, watched, or listened to this year?
35. What snack could end a meeting-room argument in your favor?
36. What's a compliment you received years ago and still think about?
37. What's the most useless fact you know by heart?
38. Would you rather never sit in another meeting or never write another status update?
39. What's your favorite family tradition, inherited or invented?
40. What's one thing you're better at than you were a year ago?
41. If we could teleport the team anywhere for lunch today, where are we going?
42. What's the best white-elephant or secret-santa gift you've ever seen?
43. What everyday task do you do in a weirdly specific order, and why?
44. What's a job that exists that you're still amazed is a real job?
45. Describe your week so far in exactly three words.
46. What's the first concert, game, or show you ever attended?
47. What would you title the documentary about your commute?
48. Which season is objectively the best, and defend it in one sentence.
49. What's something you own that's over ten years old and still going strong?
50. What's your most reliable cure for a bad day?
51. If you had to teach a class on something non-work-related tomorrow, what's the topic?
52. What's the furthest you've ever traveled, and what do you remember most?
53. Whiteboard, sticky notes, notebook, or forty-seven browser tabs: how do you think?
54. What's a food combination you swear by that others find suspicious?
55. What's the kindest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
56. If your pet (real or hypothetical) could review your work-from-home behavior, what would it say?
57. What's one small thing this team does well that we never talk about?
58. What game (board, video, or playground) did you take way too seriously at some point?
59. What's the best mistake you've ever made?
60. You get a billboard for one week, free, on a busy road. What goes on it?

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Frequently asked questions

How do I use these in a meeting?

Open the deck, tap for a card, and give the room one minute. One question per meeting beats ten at an offsite: the value compounds when it's a small, regular ritual.

Are these questions safe for professional settings?

Yes. No politics, religion, relationships, salaries, or anything that puts someone on the spot in front of their boss. The riskiest thing in here is a strong opinion about condiments.

Can remote teams use this deck?

It's arguably best on a video call: share your screen, tap a card, and go around the grid. The big type is built to be readable over screen share.

Can I save the questions my team liked?

Yes. Tap the heart on any card and it's saved in your browser. The end-of-session report lists your favorites with a copy button.

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Guides

• 50 Icebreaker Questions That Actually Work