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8 quick & easy brain teaser games for virtual team building
If you’ve been searching for engaging team building ice breakers and brain games ready to challenge your teams and aid communication, the hunt is over. We look at 10 quick virtual team building brain teasers so you can take your pick.
The best brain teaser games for team building & meetings
1. Solitaire Challenge
Time: 15 minutes
Turn the solitary game of Solitaire into a team strategy session. First, set up a card deck or virtual Solitaire game on a shared screen visible to all team members. Together, strategize each move, with everyone suggesting strategies based on the game's current state. This exercise promotes teamwork, critical thinking, and collective decision-making as you aim to complete the game in the fewest moves possible. It's a unique way to foster communication and collaboration, making Solitaire not just a game of individual skill but a shared team-building adventure.
2. Complete a team crossword
Time: 10 minutes
Set a timer, open up a shared screen displaying a crossword, and have your team try to solve it within the time limit. If you don’t want to search for brain teasers for your virtual meetings, this makes a fun icebreaker that brings together many different challenges in one game. Perfect for getting everyone working together.
3. Try a Rebus
Time: 10 minutes
A Rebus is a picture, word, or illustration that represents a name, work, or phrase. For a short brain teaser game, open up a Rebus on a shared screen and have your team decipher its meaning. We’ve found them surprisingly tricky! Find Rebus examples to try here.
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Share fun facts and bond with a team quiz
Have your participants choose from a list of questions they’d like their coworkers to answer about them, before watching as they guess the right answer.
01. Yes
share-fun-facts-and-bond-with-a-team-quiz
Run a guided recognition activity
Have your participants choose from a list of questions they’d like their coworkers to answer about them, before watching as they guess the right answer.
01. Yes
run-a-guided-recognition-activity
Organize a virtual cooking class
Hire a professional chef to help your team cook a delicious lunch or dinner. May be difficult for co-workers with families. To find providers and get tips, read our blog about virtual cooking classes.
02. No
organize-a-virtual-cooking-class
Hire a stand-up comedian
Have your participants choose from a list of questions they’d like their coworkers to answer about them, before watching as they guess the right answer.
02. No
hire-a-stand-up-comedian
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Table of contents
If you’ve been searching for engaging team building ice breakers and brain games ready to challenge your teams and aid communication, the hunt is over. We look at 10 quick virtual team building brain teasers so you can take your pick.
The best brain teaser games for team building & meetings
1. Solitaire Challenge
Time: 15 minutes
Turn the solitary game of Solitaire into a team strategy session. First, set up a card deck or virtual Solitaire game on a shared screen visible to all team members. Together, strategize each move, with everyone suggesting strategies based on the game's current state. This exercise promotes teamwork, critical thinking, and collective decision-making as you aim to complete the game in the fewest moves possible. It's a unique way to foster communication and collaboration, making Solitaire not just a game of individual skill but a shared team-building adventure.
2. Complete a team crossword
Time: 10 minutes
Set a timer, open up a shared screen displaying a crossword, and have your team try to solve it within the time limit. If you don’t want to search for brain teasers for your virtual meetings, this makes a fun icebreaker that brings together many different challenges in one game. Perfect for getting everyone working together.
3. Try a Rebus
Time: 10 minutes
A Rebus is a picture, word, or illustration that represents a name, work, or phrase. For a short brain teaser game, open up a Rebus on a shared screen and have your team decipher its meaning. We’ve found them surprisingly tricky! Find Rebus examples to try here.
Get-to-Know Activity
Guess What
Always wanted to know more about your team? Wish they understood you better? Go on, let’s get started then!
Try this activity
The best riddle activities for virtual team building (+ answers)
For riddles to bring into any virtual meeting, save these team building brain teasers with answers.
4. One thing your team has in common
The riddle: What does nobody want, yet nobody wants to lose?
Answer: A job
5. A perplexing piece of trivia
The riddle: What runs but never walks, murmurs but never talks, has a bed but never sleeps, and has a mouth but never eats?
Answer: A river
6. An injection of sarcasm
The riddle: Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the tallest mountain in the world?
Answer: Mount Everest, it just hadn’t been discovered yet.
7. One man and an elevator
The riddle: A man lives on the 30th floor and hates taking the stairs. Every day he takes the elevator down to the lobby floor to go to work. When he comes home from work, he takes the elevator to the 20th floor and walks the rest of the way up, except on days when it rains. Those days he takes the elevator all the way home. Why does he walk the last ten flights of stairs if he hates it so much?
Answer: The man is too short to reach the button for the 30th floor. He can only reach the 20th-floor button. On days when it rains, he uses his umbrella to hit the button for the 30th floor.
8. No fear in the face of a bear
The riddle: One Saturday morning, a mother was walking hand in hand with her young child when they spotted a grizzly bear in the distance. Rather than running away in fear, the mother picked up her child and ran towards the bear instead. Why was that?
Answer: They were at the zoo!
Discover virtual team building with Gomada
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Why are brain games so great for team building?
Free and accessible to all, brain teasers are the perfect ice breaker!
Brain teasers and riddles are powerful team building tools, helping to exercise the mind, encourage communication, stimulate creativity, and sharpen critical thinking.
The benefits of effective team building include:
- improved relationships
- increased trust
- enhanced communications
- a wealth of strengthened skills for your teams
When you’re looking to take your team-building to the next level, Gomada knows how important it is to find activities matching your team’s needs. Our platform measures exactly what your employees struggle with before matching you with activities to strengthen your team.
Interested in more team building activities?
The hunt for team building ideas for work is over. We know how hard it is to come up with team building activities as a manager who’s got one-hundred-and-one other things to do! That’s why you’ll find loads more ideas elsewhere on our site:
- Start right away with team building that requires no additional materials and easy free team building ideas.
- Make the most of Zoom with the best video-based team building games of 2022/2023.
- Take the headache out of team building ice breakers with our top suggestions.
- Make team building for large groups easy
- Consider the best team building apps and software
Team building is only a small part of the employee engagement puzzle
To learn more about why employee engagement is vital to your organization’s success and discover the tools to help you engage your teams, see these:
- Our top virtual employee engagement platforms of 2022/2023
- The absolute best employee engagement apps
- Employee engagement solutions: 10 platforms to consider
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Our team building activities are rated 9/10 by over 900 remote teams.
It's the easiest way to feel close when working remotely!
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