So I am a facilitator for a conference at school. Mostly consisting of faculty and administrators from around the nation and the world, who tend to come here expecting cutting edge research, impressive facilities, etc. Part of my job is to put them at ease, reassure them that they are a valued part of the conference, and to break the ice a little.
Most of these folks are older than me and more experienced. I want to hit that tone where I’m encouraging them to loosen up, but I don’t come off as unprofessional or a game show host. I had an idea of getting a ball of yarn and getting people to share facts about their lives, and when someone hears something that they share with the speaker, they call for the ball of yarn, share the commonality, and then discuss another thing about their life… so at the end we have a web of connectedness. Symbolic, eh?
I just wondered if anyone has an easy icebreaker that isn’t hard to set up suitable for 10 or so people. Anyone?
I like to have these be focused on letting people talk about things they are good at, but not necessarily related to the specific topic at hand. It benefits everyone, because if they ever, say, need to know someone with a private pilot’s license, now they do. Sometimes this is as simple as going around and everyone talking for about a minute about what their talent is. Or you could get talents from people in advance and have people guess who is who. Or you could have them give clues about their talent, like charades.
Another one I’ve done is to put together a grab bag of miscellaneous items, and discuss how it could, theoretically, imaginatively (with any luck, depending on the group) be used in tackling the project at hand.
And yet another was to make up sheets of paper with a blank outline of a t-shirt on it, and have people design a t-shirt about them and explain it.
I think yours sounds OK, as these things go. Just think about how you might steer people to the appropriate middle ground, “I like bike riding” and away from too general “I breathe” or too strange “I collect miniature guillotines.”
We had a pretty decent one once, where we each went around, introduced ourselves, and told what was the first album we bought with our own money.
The answers were funny, slightly “revealing” because everyone has terrible taste in music at 11 or so, but on the other hand not too personal. Also it worked across a wide age range.
We’ve done a version of the “Inside the Actor’s Studio” 10 questions, which works pretty well with adults because if you are familiar with the show, you “get it” and if you’re not, the questions still make sense. For some reason, we always get the biggest reaction with the "what other profession … " questions causing a stir.
I’m a big fan of trainers simply presenting their material. If it is interesting, people will participate. If it is a waste of time, no amount of parlor tricks will make up for that.
I’ve attended a ton of training sessions and seminars. The only “exercise” I can even remember - not sure I would recommend it - is where we were divided into groups of 4-5, and were given a short time to write down on a large paper objects on our persons beiginning with all 26 letters of the alphabet. The facilitator cut the time short, I guess to force cooperation under pressure. I’m not sure what it was supposed to illustrate - maybe the different ways people can accomplish the same task. But at least it minimally engaged me, which is more than I can say for just about any other training exercise.
One of the most engaging speakers I’ve seen simply went around the room and asked (1) what’s your name (2) what do you do and (3) what did you want to be when you grew up? It was neat because it turns out a guy I work with that I thought I had nothing in common with had the same “when I grow up” job, and some it started some “hey my dad does that” type conversations. It also had the benefit of not being cheesy and easy to cut off if time got short.
The yarn things strikes me as plenty cheesy, plus it invites people to interrupt someone who’s speaking. If you really feel compelled to put structure around the introductions, maybe do Two Truths and a Lie. Let everyone tell three things about themselves (two true things, one lie) and have that be a conversational crutch for later.
I think some of this is related to the culture – in education, the icebreaker sort of thing is a little more accepted/expected (obviously, some people still hate it but at least they’re used to it). I was even going to ask if it was a conference for Res Life folks, because if so, they’ll bring their own balls of yarn and you won’t have to plan anything.
Another thing I’ve done is is trivia cards related to the topic of the conference, or, if it’s more of a “welcome,” related to the host institution. For 10 people, you need 5 questions and 5 answers. Each question goes on an index card, and each answer goes on another. Pass them out, people need to find their match. I usually use questions where no one is really expected to know the answer right off the bat, but that the answer could be realistically figured out when presented with five possibilities. Finding your match can be a group process – with the entire group figuring out the question/answer pairs.
Instead of question/answer, each card could be a significant event in the history of the field of the conference topic, and the group goal is to place them in chronological order. (If they are insanely academic, you could go with putting significant publications in the right chronological order). This is fun (read: if you are a geeky academic person this is fun) because it will come up that people in the room have a personal connection to the events.
Never underestimate how much people like FREE STUFF if it is even halfway decent, so you could also have each person write their name on the card, pass them back to you, and then pick one at random to win a travel mug or whatever your budget will permit.
Surprising responses to the yarn thing! I should explain that this is an educator’s conference, and it’s at Harvard - so a lot of people come here trying very hard to appear flawless, when we really want to lower the anxiety and make sure that the teams are at ease with each other. (We later do an activity where they have to make team decisions about a survival plan - that’s fun to watch, because the pretense drops instantly.) We also want them to have a sense of humor about this part of the conference. I should note that I’m an excellent facilitator - I’ve done this about six years now, and I think the yarn idea has a good connection to the point of the icebreaker - we’re all connected. Though if it’s the yarn that bothers y’all, I can use fishing twine instead, or barbed wire.
I like the suggestion about the first album you bought with your own money. That could be fun. I figure my people will be thirty to fifty-somethings, so nobody should be outed as an old fogey.
Two truths and a lie is hit or miss. Some people can’t generate interesting stuff, or their lie is so egregious it’s not even fun.
There’s always the simple “name/rank/serial number” which is probably good for a Fortune 500/G-8 meeting, but in my mind that only reinforces formality and roles. In fact, if we get people to forget that they’re vice president, or dean, or even head of admissions for a few hours, we’ve done a good job.
Right, because that would make the women feel left out.
We’ve done “the origin of your name” and “two truths and a lie” but it was with our in-house group.
That yarn thing is really bad. Besides being hokey, it’s a setup for people to be constantly interrupted in what they’re saying. That’s not going to set a good vibe for the remainder of the meeting.
I really, really despise most ice-breakers, but I do much better with ones where you don’t have to say something personal. I refuse to reveal things to a group of strangers, and usually lie and my mood goes to shit afterwards.
Maybe I am an extreme case.
What I enjoy a bit better, is something that requires some brain usage…like trivia, or some sort of puzzle to figure out. Put the people in a few groups and have them work together on some sort of game, and whoever wins gets something (or not–I know I have way too many corporately emblazoned cups, pens, yo-yos…)
I honestly think that if people are already anxious about what people will think of them, the best thing you can do is absolutely nothing. Don’t make them talk about themselves or throw a ball of wool around or anything. It may be dull from the organisers’ point of view, but the attendees will appreciate being left alone to make as much or as little impression as they want.
I absolutely hate “what do you expect/hope to get from this program?”. Perhaps I’ve just been asked it too often when the answer(both mine and that of many classmates) is more “credit for attending” than “knowledge of the subject matter”.
My last experience with this sort of thing was a new boss who had everyone describe the most unusual job they’d ever had. She’d been a hot-walker at a racetrack; my immediate supervisor had been a coat-checker at a well-known nightclub; my first non-work-study job was maintaining an insect colony (mosquitoes, mostly). As icebreakers go this has the advantage of not being very time-consuming or very “personal”, as long as no one announces their past as a stripper or a pot dealer.
