This Meeting Icebreaker is from our collection of practical tips, tools, and techniques. Our tips are gathered from our experience, training classes, and alumni contributions.
IceBreaker Tip One: Warming Up A Group
This icebreaker tip is useful for people who are unfamiliar with each other, or for familiar groups that need some new dimension to their relationships for the purpose of the workshop. Because it may take up to one-half hour for a group of nine, manage your time accordingly.
Ice Breaker Tip — Newspaper or Magazine Headline
- 2 minutes: Have each person write their name on a small piece of paper. As they finish, collect the names in a container (e.g., bowl, box). Next, have each participant draw or select a piece of paper.
- 5-10 minutes: Allow a few minutes for each person to find the person named on their piece of paper and “interview” them. In addition, encourage them to take notes from the interview because you want them to share the highlights.
- 3 minutes: Now have the participants write a newspaper or magazine headline that describes an event or accomplishment of the person named on their piece of paper. Consider a specific newspaper or magazine that most members of the group are likely to read. Either emphasize a personal or professional accomplishment, but consistently emphasize the perspective you choose. Point your participants to a frequently read page or within a specific column of the magazine or newspaper.
- 5-10 minutes: Finally, have each person read the headline for the person named on the piece of paper.
IceBreaker Tip Two: Alternative
Move the headline to some point in the future (e.g., five years from now) when it becomes the aspiration of the participant rather than an actual accomplishment.
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Register for a workshop or forward this to someone who should. MGRUSH facilitation workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each participant practices tools, methods, and activities every day during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International®, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See class descriptions for details.)
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Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
