However, back-to-back meetings can make your remote employees feel tired. So in this case, to keep the remote workforce energized and not fatigued, you can add 5-minute games to your virtual meetings. Incorporating short games won’t just engage remote workers but also enhance team bonding.
In this guide, we have come up with a list of entertaining 5-minute games that will excite your remote employees and inject much-needed energy into online meetings.
5-minute games For Virtual Meetings
1) Icebreaker Emoji
Emojis are a big part of the digital world, so playing an emoji-based game, such as guessing movie titles or songs, can help participants relax before a meeting while also providing an opportunity for them to have a little fun. It is a lighthearted activity that can help your workforce feel more engaged and involved in the meeting from the beginning.
2) Two truths and a lie
This game encourages participants to share personal stories and experiences in a fun style. It usually involves attendees sharing three things about themselves, where two of them are true and one is a lie, and the fellow attendees have to guess the lie. If the guess is wrong, the person then reveals the lie, which is often surprising or funny about the truth.
Since the game allows remote attendees to share parts of their personal lives with their teammates, it helps in getting to know one another in a fun and friendly way.
3) Quick Drawing Challenge
This is a great exercise to incorporate into your next online meeting. In this, you will give an object, like common meeting items, and ask everyone to draw pictures of them in just 30 to 60 seconds. Whoever finishes it in the allotted time wins points. With this game, you will boost the creativity of the participants and encourage them to think outside the box.
4) Collaborative Storytelling
The idea of this game is to have each team member add just one line to a story. One after another, participants take the story forward, depending on how each one thinks it should continue. This is a great way for team members to share laughs and unleash their creative sides.
5) Team Trivia
This game is like a rapid-fire round in which questions are posed to the team. Team trivia not only encourages friendly competition but also fosters cooperation among team members. Players are divided into teams (average size of 5 to 8 per team), where they discuss answers to trivia questions. Each question tests the team’s knowledge and understanding. The team that answers the most questions in the least amount of time is declared the winner.
6) Word Association
It is a great icebreaker game that gives team members a chance to show off their spontaneity and intelligence. This game starts with a random word. Participants say the first word that comes to their mind. Then other players of the team set the order and say the word that is connected to the previous word. Since the game is very fast-paced, the meeting atmosphere can become really fun.
7) Minute Lightning Talk
This game allows participants to present a topic of their choice that can be both informative and entertaining. Each participant speaks on any topic of their choice without stopping, repeating, or hesitating. The one who speaks the longest without breaking the rules and speaks coherently throughout the game wins the game.
8) Something in Common
This activity can ask participants to share things they have in common with their team members. This could include participants connecting over things they love, their favorite habits, or even a hobby that allows them to connect with each other.
9) Virtual Background Show and Tell
A virtual background show and tell is a beautiful and unique icebreaker activity where team members can share a glimpse of their lives with colleagues. Whether the background is a home setup or a landscape, there is always a story to tell, and that helps in fostering connections with other team members in a virtual setting.
10) Pictionary
This is an interesting five-minute game where participants are given a set of words, and they draw a picture based on their imagination from the words. The first team to correctly guess the words wins. The game is the epitome of creativity as a group, filled with lots of laughter and cool movements, which lightens the mood of the participants. Your remote employees can learn how to collaborate with teammates in a fun setting by playing this game.
11) Scavenger Hunt
This is a highly engaging game and also an entertaining one, as the participants are given a list of items to find and clues to complete it before the others and within the set time. In a virtual meeting, you can ask your employees to find something in their homes in five minutes, such as finding something red or an item that starts with the letter ‘P’. Remote workers will have fun playing this game and will feel like they’ve really won when they find the items.
12) Rapid Fire Questions
This game allows team member to communicate openly in front of their peers. In this game, you can encourage teams to ask short questions like “coffee or tea?” or “beach or mountains”. You can also let them ask one-word questions like “what is your favorite food or dream destination”. This game will naturally boost communication and collaboration among remote teams in your virtual meetings.
13) Never Have I Ever
This game is an amazing icebreaker where your workforce will get to know surprising and funny facts about each other. Here, you can ask your participants to share something they have never done, such as “Never have I ever gone to Dubai” or “Never have I ever been on a ship.” After hearing this, the person who has done it will raise his hand and say something he has not done, and then the other participants will raise their hands and say something they have done, and the game continues.
14) Virtual Movie Session
An amazing five-minute activity you can do with your employees is to have them discuss their favorite movies. Here, you can allow teams to speak about and express their opinions on movies based on inspiration, comedy, or real life. With this activity, virtual team members can relax, open up, and have an engaging conversation.
15) Skribbl
A fun game where a digital screen becomes a shared canvas for team members. One member draws a word and the others guess what that word is. In a limited time, the rest have to guess the words before the clock runs out. Scribble is an exciting game to play in a virtual gathering for a short time that helps participants improve their quick thinking and artistic imagination.
16) Charades
Charades is a fun game to play in an online meeting in five minutes, where one person tries to say something without speaking, using gestures or signs. It could be anything, like the name of a movie, song, book, or anything else, and the others have to guess it. Here, you can divide remote workers into teams and ask one person in every team to perform this task, and their teams to guess that action in a limited time, which creates excitement in the entire team.
17) Sweet Food Talk
We all love sweets, but everyone’s favorite sweets can be different. In this game, you ask teams to name their favorite sweet food. Each team member names their favorite sweet, so it can be anything, such as pancakes, waffles, chocolate cookies, or cheesecake.
To make the session a little more engaging, you can encourage employees to put a photo of their favorite sweet treats on the virtual background. This is a great exercise before a virtual meeting, because this activity allows everyone to share their favorite sweet food with their teammates or colleagues.
18) Story Time
This exercise gives participants the opportunity to share a short story or their experiences with teammates. It’s a great icebreaker to help team members relax and engage before the actual meeting begins. Encourage everyone to briefly share their experience or a fictional story that is relatable. The rest team members will tell how they felt about the story or experience he shared. Because of conducting this, your distant employees will talk and collaborate naturally during the rest meeting.
19) Quick Yoga
Yoga is the best exercise for stressed and busy employees. If you are seeking a 5-minute activity to boost your team’s energy, focus, and productivity, a brief virtual yoga session could be the perfect remedy. It will add a sense of peace and relaxation to your virtual meetings.
You can pick a few yoga poses to practice, such as Sukhasana, Vrksasana, Seated Side Stretch, and more. Before beginning the yoga session, show your team members on the screen how to do yoga, share the video link with them, and lead the session.
20) Virtual Riddles
A riddle is a type of interrogative puzzle game, often solved by a clever or creative response. People of all ages have enjoyed solving puzzles for centuries. This is a great fun activity to test your virtual team’s creativity and problem-solving ability.
This activity involves forming teams and giving them a riddle to solve within a set time frame. For example, a riddle might be, “If you speak its name, you break it. What is it?”, the answer is “Silence”. Another example is “What can fill a room but doesn’t take up space?”, the answer is “Light”.
By including such mystery riddle games, you can encourage team collaboration, strengthen teamwork, improve communication, and boost their critical thinking abilities.
21) Debate competition
A debate session is an activity where participants engage in a friendly debate on a controversial topic. This healthy competition allows participants to discuss a specific topic and put their views strongly.
In this debate game, two teams are usually formed where one team supports the matter and the other opposes it in a friendly way.
To hold a virtual debate contest, pick a topic that is thought-provoking and that your participants will be interested in. Divide participants into two teams. Set a time limit for each team member to speak and express their thought about the topic.
Count the score of each team and declare the one with the most points as the winner.
Here are some debate topics for you to consider:
- All people should be vegetarians
- Should AI be used in the education system?
- Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?
- What is most vital? knowledge or experience
- Which one is better? remote work or office work
22) Talent show
Conducting a talent show session during a video conference meeting might be a great approach to bring out your employees’ hidden abilities in front of others. This entertaining activity will promote a sense of fun among colleagues and also enhance their relationships.
Encourage your remote employees to showcase their hidden talents in front of others during your next virtual meeting, which can include singing, dancing, acting, playing musical instruments, performing magic tricks, and more.
Give everyone 10 to 15 seconds to demonstrate their talents. After everyone is done with it, ask them to vote for their favorite performer. Whoever’s talent gets the most votes, award them prizes.
23) Object Memory
Object Memory is a fantastic team-building exercise that will sharpen your team’s brains and encourage teamwork. In this game, you will divide the workforce into teams. Next, you will share your screen and show 15 to 20 pictures that can be related to the online meeting, such as headphones, microphones, laptops, and more. Then, give each team 30 to 60 seconds and ask them to send what is in those pictures via chat. The team that guesses and provides the most correct content within the allotted time will win this game.
24) Meeting Roulette
If you want to foster relationship-building across different departments and teams, this is a great exercise to go for. Since remote work, employees don’t have much interaction with employees from other teams or departments. Allow employees to connect for a few minutes via the chat feature, where they can mingle, learn about each other’s work, and more.
25) Meme Chat Session
Meme chat is a wonderful five-minute exercise that employees will love. It is a non-cheesy way to start a meeting that won’t entertain participants but also lighten their mood. Encourage team members to find a meme that is relevant to an experience they’ve had or a project they’re working on. Ask everyone to share the meme via chat so everyone can see it.
Importance of 5-minute game in Virtual Meetings
In a world where most of us spend a significant part of our days breezing through meetings, a 5-minute game could come as a refreshing change. Not only do we get to unwind for those few minutes, but it also helps the meeting attendees interact with each other differently, and build a rapport that goes beyond work.
Let’s take a quick look at the other ways in which 5-minute games can help organizations that rely on virtual meetings.
Engagement: We’ve all attended meetings where there are one or two primary speakers and the rest are passive listeners. A 5-minute game before getting on with the meeting can help the more reserved attendees shed their inhibitions and can actually make the meeting more interactive and fruitful.
Team Building: 5-minute games for virtual meetings can be transformative for remote teams, helping them bridge the gap that physical distance can create over time. Depending on which game you choose to play, you can gain insights into how your teammates approach a problem, work together and come up with ways to tackle an issue, share meaningful conversation or even giggles, and so much more!
Creativity and Innovation: With participants having to make split-second decisions while playing, these games also enhance creativity and innovation.
When time is of the essence, one is forced to think out of the box and find ways to win the game. This encourages participants to embrace creativity, professionally as well!
Stress Buster: 5-minute games for virtual meetings are often designed to relieve stress, and minimize the pressure of the meeting. They help in distracting the mind and taking the edge off, especially on days when back-to-back meetings have drained one out!
Strategies To Enhance Coworkers’ Focus In Virtual Meetings
- Set Clear Objectives: Define specific objectives for online meetings in advance. It will help you begin the session with a brief agenda including the main topics, desired outcomes, and more.
Communicate the agenda to all the attendees before the meeting and give them ample time to prepare. And, ensure that the objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).
- Limit Meeting Length: According to this study, 57% of employees want fewer and shorter meetings. Too-long online meetings can cause increased stress on the brain. By limiting the meeting length, you can reduce fatigue, decrease stress levels, and increase the attention of teams over time. Remember, shorter meetings often minimize distractions, allowing attendees to focus more efficiently on the discussion.
- Encourage Video Use: One of the great ways to increase the focus of your teams is to encourage them to use video. Having video running during remote meetings can greatly help team members build personal connections and build trust with each other.
According to this stat, 78% believe video conferencing is great for team meetings. Because, turning on the webcam lets participants better recognize spoken words, which can spark more meaningful conversations.
Seeing familiar faces reduces isolation, making attendees more involved and engaged in meetings. Non-verbal cues such as facial expressions can help better understand the thoughts of another person which leads to improved communication.
- Make Use of Visuals: Adding visual elements like slides, charts, and diagrams can make virtual meetings more engaging, break the monotony of successive meetings, and improve attendees’ interest and participation. Plus, you can use eye-catching images, infographics, or short video clips for effective presentations that will pique their interest in learning the information.
- Use Interactive Tools: Interactive features such as Q&A sessions, live chat, polls, and whiteboards can significantly increase the attention of remote employees. They all will break down the monotony of passive listening in virtual meetings. By creating a more engaging meeting experience, interactive features can keep attendees actively involved and more focused in session.
- Have Break: You need to schedule a short break in your online meetings and if a meeting is long then, of course, it should be. Quick breaks can help attendees relax for a few minutes, resulting in improved attention spans in further sessions. Keep short breaks in between sessions so the participants can take a few minutes to freshen up, re-energize themselves, and just cool down.
- Incorporate 5-minute Games: Include interactive and entertaining 5-minute games to improve team concentration, and engagement as well as make the meetings more enjoyable. When you carefully and appropriately use short games for intended audiences, they can help break the ice and improve the effectiveness of digital meetings.
- Assign Responsibilities: Assigning specific responsibilities to each team member is a great idea to keep them fully engaged throughout the conference. When attendees have specific roles, they are more likely to stay active and focused. Meeting goals will also be fulfilled when everyone contributes.
Here are some roles and responsibilities you can assign to your remote teams:
- Meeting Facilitator: Assign this role to a skilled team member who will lead the discussion, ensure that everyone is heard, and keep the meeting on track.
- Note-taker: Allow one to write down minutes of the meeting and share a summary of it with everyone.
- Presenter: Let one person share the screen and present slides, demos, or other relevant things.
- Icebreaker Leader: If you have planned any fun icebreaker activity to engage the remote attendees, assign one who can smoothly run the activity.
- Tech Supporter: If participants encounter any technical difficulties, ask someone to look into it.
- Encourage Adherence to Meeting Etiquette: Ask attendees to follow virtual meeting etiquette such as not talking while someone is speaking, actively listening to what the presenter is saying, asking for permission before speaking, etc. By encouraging them to follow conference etiquette, you can increase attendee concentration, which leads to productive discussion.
How Can I Incorporate the 5-Minute Game Into a Virtual Meeting?
Now that we’ve seen some great 5-minute games for virtual meetings and also how they can help improve the productivity of your meetings and employees, let’s get to an understanding of how to incorporate 5-minute quick games into online meetings and how to successfully carry out them.
- Choose the Right Game: When choosing a game, ensure it is aligned with meeting the goal and objective as different games serve different purposes. A well-aligned game can boost engagement and maintain the flow of the meeting, thereby directly contributing to achieving better results. Choose the game that best serves your goal and make sure the game is easy to understand and interesting to play.
For example, if your meeting goal is team building, then “Two Truths and a Lie” could be the perfect game. It can encourage teamwork, spark team communication, and bring laughter.
- Explain the Rules: Kindly explain the rules of the chosen game to the team member. After introducing the game, explain its objectives and how it will be played. Use slides to explain the rules of the game. In addition, provide a brief example of the game to make the rules more clear to the teams.
Before starting the game, make sure everyone properly knows the rules and if anyone has any doubts regarding game rules, ask them to speak out.
- Encourage Participants: Motivate participants to be a part of the game. Use humor or upbeat music to get attendees excited about the game. You can use phrases like “Let’s have some fun together”. Most importantly, create a positive and supportive atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable and encouraged to participate.
- Follow the Time Limit: The time limit must be adhered to otherwise the meeting will become distracted. If the 5-minute game goes beyond its time limit, the period of play will be extended, delaying the meeting’s essential discussion. Remember that the purpose of games is to make meeting attendees more attentive and engaged during the meeting.
- Select a Technology-Friendly Game: Make sure that the 5-minute game you choose for the virtual meeting is technology-friendly. If it is not, the remote team may become frustrated and lose interest.
Working remotely, while a boon for many of us, also comes with challenges – one of which is virtual meeting fatigue. Playing a 5-minute game before the main discussion in the meeting should give attendees a sense of relaxation, not dampen their mood.
- Get Attendee Feedback: After the game ends, ask for their views on the game. You will know whether the game was relevant and engaging.
Here are some questions you can ask your teams:
- Did you enjoy the game?
- Was the game easy to understand and play?
- Would you like to play a similar game in a future meeting?
By collecting feedback from your team, you can make informed decisions about future game selections and create a more pleasurable experience.
Conclusion
Incorporating short, 5-minute games in a virtual meeting can effectively engage your remote team, enhance collaboration between employees, boost team morale, and bring happiness in a virtual space.
By playing a game for a few minutes in your online meeting, you can create a more positive and productive work environment, strengthen team relationships, and boost overall work performance.
If you wish to make your digital meeting engaging, entertaining, and memorable for your participants, consider including 5-minute activities that have been covered in this blog.
From Two Truths and a Lie and Drawing Challenge to Scavenger Hunt and Skribbl, each game will enhance your virtual team mood and encourage participation.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, 5-minute games can be a fantastic idea for team-building, especially to energize team members during meetings and workshops. In fact, short-term games will bring fun to the event, foster communication, and promote collaboration among team members. Engaging in quick games will help build trust within a group.
Yes, virtual teams of all sizes can enjoy playing short games. Whether you have a small team of five or a large group of hundreds, there are plenty of games that can be adapted to suit different group sizes such as Trivia, Bingo, Charades, Pictionary, and more.
Games or exercises that last 5 minutes are called 5-minute games, aiming to get participants engaged immediately in sessions. They can be played in small or large groups of remote teams. 5-minute games usually don’t require much time to set up as they are short and brief, ideal for bringing excitement to online meetings and conferences.
