Virtual coffees

As mentioned in this post, I’ve been trying to run virtual coffees with my new team at least once a week and tried to include some sort of activity to mix it up a bit. Below is my dumping ground of things I’ve tried and will continue to grow as I try others.

2 Truths, 1 lie

Old faithful. Always a winner and I’m sure most people will know this one. It’s especially good when you’re trying to get to know a new team.

Each person has to tell you 2 truths about themselves and also make up one lie. Pretty straightforward – everyone else has to guess the lie. You’ll always find some interesting things out about your colleagues.

Share a photo

There’s 2 ways to play this one. The first is the nicer, gentler way of asking everyone to grab their phones and share a photo that’s special to them with a little explanation as to why.

The other way doesn’t always work, but the rules are you have to share the last photo you took on your phone. Could be some humdingers in there, but probably not and let’s face it – if it’s embarrassing it’s probably going to be skipped anyway!

Everyone just shared their photo on the team Slack channel just before they about to have their turn. Worked quite well.

Random fact guess who

Before the coffee, gather a random fact from everyone about themselves that no one else would know and that they are happy to be shared. Once all the facts have been collected read them out during coffee time. Everyone else has to guess who the fact was about.

Especially interesting when you find out someone in your team has been on a home renovation TV show!

Random question lucky dip

Make up a random set of questions. They can be as silly and as stupid as you like. For example “You’ve hit it rich and won the lottery! What is the first thing that you buy?” or “If you were a vegetable – which one would be?” (I told you they can be stupid)

One by one, ask everyone to pick a random number in your range of questions and proceed to ask them the corresponding question.

Name, Place, Animal, Thing

Pick a random letter from the alphabet and ask everyone in the group to name:

• A celebrity
• A place
• An animal
• A thing

beginning with the chosen letter.

We used the chat in our Zoom call and the person who submitted correct answers first wins. We also gave points to 2nd and 3rd quickest.

Keep repeating for different letters until you’ve done all 26 or you run out of time.

I Spy

With Zoom grid view, this is a good one to get everyone spying on everyone’s backgrounds. The aim is still the same as when you were a kid, choose an object that you can see, for example an apple. Say ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with A’. Everyone else then has to guess the word beginning with that letter – except now you get to have a nosy around everyone’s rooms in view (or virtual background). Someone goes first, the person who guesses right goes next and so on.

*The next few were recommended by a colleague of mine 🙂

Drawasaurus – Online Pictionary

Drawasaurus is great fun and tests everyone’s mouse or trackpad drawing skills. You just need to set up a private room and share the link and password to your group and away you go. Points are scored based on how fast you guess someone’s drawing and you’re presented with a nice leaderboard at the end for bragging rights.

Wheel of Fortune

This handy tool let’s you customise a wheel of fortune style wheel. It can be customised in any way you like, but when mixed with random questions like the lucky dip above it can be a fun get to know you activity.

Higher or Lower

The Higher or Lower game of google searches presents each player with 2 search terms and asks them to guess whether they think the 2nd term has more or less searches than the 1st term. The game continues until you get one wrong and presents you with your score at the end.

Another good one for bragging rights.