Ice breaking techniques for a new project team

A project team may have attended project management training together and this can go a long way in breaking down barriers and helping people to feel comfortable with each other, but it does help to have a number of options in you toolbox that you can use when starting a project with new colleagues. A note of caution on icebreakers; they should not make anyone feel uncomfortable or made to feel like they have to volunteer extremely personal information about themselves. 

The One Word exercise can be played out in a number of ways. You can use it in a non-personal context (i.e organisation/business related) or to encourage colleagues to reveal something a little personal. It shouldn't be used to ask people to give an opinion about something as one word answers will not achieve anything. The one word technique is best used when asking the following types of questions:  What one word describes what you want to achieve by the end of this project? / What one word describes how you feel about conflict with co-workers/ In one word describe your most significant challenge to date / Think about the current culture of your organisation and use one word to describe it / If your friends were to describe you with one word what would they say?

Nothing brings people together like food and drink. Having one of the first project meetings with a new team over lunch can support individuals to start to develop a relationship with each other. Food invites conversation, especially if it is a lunch where colleagues have been asked to bring a favourite dish along to share with others and share why they've chosen that option or those ingredients. If it works well and individuals enjoy the session, you may want to consider scheduling a regular catch up lunch.

This exercise is great to get people up and out of chairs. Colleagues spend a few minutes talking to each other with the aim of identifying three things they both have in common – maybe one could be the project management courses you’ve taken. Once everyone has had a chance to talk to each other, each person shares with the person sitting next to them what they had most in common with other team members.

Each team member shares their name, their specialism/role and a unique fact. The facilitator (most likely you as project manager) notes each fact and the person to whom it belongs. The facilitator will then share facts at random and team members have to guess who they belong to. 

If you've got a bit more time to undertake your icebreaker exercise, this activity works very well. The project team is split equally and each group is given a number of resources. The aim is to build something which will protect a raw egg when it is dropped from a height! Once the contraption is built the exciting and fun bit is to test it out. The team with an unbroken egg win.

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