You have found our list of interesting ideas and topics for team meetings. Changing the routine of team meetings can make them more interesting, so we list some ideas that can help you and your team. Examples of ideas include hikes, field trips and team meetings.
These events are designed to engage and motivate participants, spark creativity and encourage team building. In addition, we show the advantage of holding work meetings with these types of activities, as it is critical for groups and teams to develop, solve problems and make decisions to effectively achieve organizational goals.
Key facts
- Increase synergy in the work team.
- Helps make structured meetings more effective and dynamic.
- It is the best way to report on the objectives achieved and report on the achievements obtained.
Top 28 Team Meeting Ideas: The Ultimate List
If you are one of those who complains and thinks: Another meeting! Or you think they are a waste of time, we want to tell you that work meetings don’t have to be boring and repetitive. In addition, we give you a list of creative ideas to run a meeting and change the routine and involve your employees.
1. Start by breaking the ice
An icebreaker is an activity to help people get to know each other and connect, often involving the exchange of names, birthplaces and basic information about the other person. Team building activities are designed to help teams bond.
Truth and Lies
Gather everyone in a group and form a circle. Everyone has to think of themselves 3 truths and 1 lie. Just give them the floor one at a time to reveal those 4 things about themselves and the lie must be found through discussion.
- Difficulty: Low.
- Focus: To groups that barely know each other.
Break the ice with just one word
Allows working groups to interact to get to know each other over time. Multiple teams of 4 or 5 should be created at random (this will depend on the number of participants). You will act as the initiator of the game and propose a topic: individually, come up with a very short sentence and the reason for the meeting.
After thinking for a few minutes, gather everyone’s thoughts. Finally, each group chooses a sentence or word to present to the other groups, who then discuss and evaluate the options together and choose the best one. If no agreement is reached, find out why.
- Difficulty: medium.
- Focus: to introduce people to the work team.
Mime Game
The game consists of one person explaining what a certain object is for. The rest of the team must guess what the object is. The difficulty is that the main players cannot speak.
- Difficulty: Medium.
- Focus: To value innovation and creativity of everyone.
Treasure hunt
Make groups of 2 people. You will have to make a list of things to do in the environment, unusual tasks. The group that completes the list of tasks in the shortest time possible wins.
- Difficulty: Low.
- Focus: Build confidence in the team.
Speed dating
In this dynamic, participants meet in pairs to discuss a topic for a limited time. When this time has elapsed (2 to 5 min), a bell rings and one of the pairs passes to the next pair formed.
- Difficulty: Medium.
- Focus: For the working groups to get to know each other.
2. Contests
Quizzes are a fun activity that can liven up a meeting. By pitting participants against each other in friendly competition, it can capture the attention of attendees. Always healthy competition allows participants to strive to win.
- Divide the group into 2 or 3 groups depending on the number of participants.
- Assign games and trivia questions. In this step, reward points for job accomplishments are allowed. Example: Give a powerful presentation or share a milestone achieved.
- At the end of the session, tally the points and award prizes to the team with the most points.
3. Outdoor meetings
Outdoor meetings are ideal for fostering creativity, connecting with nature and breathing fresh air. Designate a meeting place where everyone feels comfortable and remember that if you plan to discuss confidential matters or use technology to display information, it’s not a good idea.
4. PowerPoint Party
As the name implies, all participants make a short PowerPoint presentation not to exceed 5 minutes, slide presentations can be about movies, songs, video games, books, food, comics, manga, historical events or famous people.
The host can explain why his or her choice is the best. If the group chooses conspiracy theories, it will be interesting to convince them why they are true. Anyway, as a good game to play with friends, there are no strict rules. At the end of all the presentations, you can vote for the one you like the most.
5. Rewind
Realizing what you’ve learned is the best opportunity to reflect on the past and evaluate the team’s progress. These meetings allow teams to celebrate victories. This can include work accomplishments, team outings, life changes and more, and can look back over a year or more.
You can create a presentation or video with highlights, or have each team member attend a meeting to share their past accomplishments, explaining the method or what they did to achieve the goals outlined. This meeting topic can give the group an opportunity to evaluate accomplishments and motivate teams to continue.
6. Breakfast meeting
First, it is necessary to know the number of people who will participate, as well as their gastronomic tastes, so that no team member is left without food. Ask a company that specializes in lunches to prepare a variety of snacks, coffee, tea and juice.
It’s true: food helps lighten the mood, facilitates brainstorming, helps people relax and, most importantly, energizes you during a long meeting. Allow enough time for people to enjoy breakfast to get things started.
7. Start each meeting with an accomplishment
Set an effective communication tone (4) for each meeting by announcing a recent accomplishment, highlighting a notable member of your team or showing joy at a milestone reached. Winning doesn’t always have to be important: it can be a positive outcome of a client meeting or a completed task. Or ask your team members to share a personal win they just experienced.
If you’re looking for ways to make employee meetings more interesting, starting with a win is an excellent strategy to create a positive and engaging narrative for the entire meeting while increasing employee motivation.
8. Stand-up meeting
This type of meeting is perfect if you are one of those people who like nature or walking. Not being within four walls, walking along a trail or to the cafeteria, helps to free the imagination. Be sure to inform the work team so they can wear comfortable walking shoes.
9. Guest speaker
Hiring a guest speaker is one of the easiest ways to make team meetings fun. Even better, if the guest is a motivational expert, he or she can participate in a panel discussion or address the team. A speaker can coach team members on their skills or provide tools to improve them, share a story of achievement, explain a philanthropic mission or simply talk about an interesting topic.
10. Support session
These meetings are a follow-up activity that managers or project leaders can use to gauge team morale and take care of the team’s mental and emotional health. Participants can exchange skills, talk, listen and express their feelings, they can ask questions about work and non-work, about an important milestone in the project planning, which is an invaluable exercise to generate empathy within the team.
11. Mini retreats
Mini-retreats are intensive experiences that can last 1 or 2 days and can take place in a structured and planned environment close to work. There, games and dynamics can be created to help problem solving, discussions, meetings, catering for colleagues. Ideal for focusing on topics such as professional development, current projects, long and short term departmental goals and teamwork without being distracted by outside influences.
12. Virtual reality meeting
Virtual reality has evolved to the point where meetings can be held in a virtual space with an avatar. This is useful for geographically dispersed teams, especially when team members are tired of screens and show Zoom, Meet or Teams fatigue.
Even if the group works in the same building, this meeting can be a welcome novelty and change of pace. Consider having the team download the software to conduct the meeting and most importantly create their avatar.
13. Meeting room equipment
Meeting rooms need technological equipment that can create secure and effective communication channels with people inside and outside the company. If you need a modern meeting room with state-of-the-art technology, you should consider:
- Available space
- Chairs and furniture
- Technical equipment
14. Search for video games
Many companies are finding that distracting work groups with video games can help employees reduce stress and let off steam. There are some video games that can be played in teams to help strategize, have fun, help the team share and improve communication skills.
15. Animal therapy
There are numerous studies that support the emotional and physical benefits of animal therapy and if you hold motivational meetings it is a major plus. The great majority of people love pets, and if they tell you that you can hug a dog or pet a cat, the enthusiasm is greater to attend the meeting.
Consider if there are allergic people in the work team before inviting them, ask for the support of a company or animal shelter that is used to this type of events, to facilitate meetings with animals.
There is a lot of research that supports the emotional and physical benefits of animal therapy, especially if you participate in motivational sessions. Most people love pets, and if they tell you what you can pet the dog or cat with, the encounter will be much more enthusiastic. Before inviting them, consider if you have any allergies in your work group and, seek the support of companies or animal shelters that are used to this type of event to facilitate the encounter with animals.
16. Job skills workshop
Sometimes, work team members are not aware of their capabilities and these are special sessions to develop the skills of the workforce. Professional development is something your employees will appreciate as they learn to use their full potential and improve their skills on the job (3).
The main skills that are valued today are teamwork, assertive communication and conflict resolution, which have become the common denominator for organizations to achieve their objectives.
17. Brainstorming
Brainstorming is an unstructured technique for work groups to seek solutions to various situations, where spontaneous and relaxed ideas will emerge. Brainstorming will allow you to find new insights from colleagues you see every day, but who you may not always see as your creative allies.
It is also one of the best tools for unleashing creativity, whether yours or that of your team members. Since its principle is to allow for increased collaborative capacity in team members, as well as a more relaxed atmosphere than usual, it can give you surprising results. Once this climate of trust is established, even the shyest person will express his or her opinion on a topic. It is recommended to apply with a maximum team of 8 people.
18. Recess
Just as in childhood, this activity allows us to connect with our inner child, do activities that allow you to run freely and you can schedule breaks of 15 to 30 minutes. Go to the park or play a board game. The goal is to help employees get rid of work problems and reduce daily stress.
19. Lunch and e-learning
Have lunch with your work team to strengthen working relationships, share an office or go to a restaurant during lunch to chat, enjoy a snack or a meal while listening to a lecture. These activities are common in the workplace, but you can be creative with the topics you cover. Brainstorm a list of topics to discuss at the lunch meeting.
20. Timekeeping
These hourly check-ins allow you to keep the team on track and on plan, as it allows you to know the progress in a more expeditious way, it is not necessary to hold a meeting, such progress can be reported through the internal office chat or use tools such as Slack, which is very useful when assigning and tracking activities. This way, all team members can help or give suggestions.
21. Training meetings
Helping sedentary team members stay active is helping them stay fit by scheduling 20 minutes of exercise each day, whether it’s going to the gym, walking, yoga or swimming. It is important for employees to allocate at least 20 minutes of time to get moving each day. It helps to stay healthy and release stress. At the end of the week they will share how they felt and what changes they noticed in their daily routine.
22. Establish a ritual for meetings
A ritual can be any event that promotes positive communication and sharing of results or ideas. It can be meditation, breathing and mindfulness exercises, or simply expressing your thoughts about the week, or sharing your plans for the week ahead. This will allow your co-workers to build a stronger relationship and collaborative environment.
23. Q&A
The Q&A session gives teammates the opportunity to satisfy their curiosity, clear up confusion, and engage in discussions with subject-matter experts. This type of dynamic is ideal to raise awareness of organizational changes, changes in a brand, change of client; meet members of another department.
24. Friends
Helps employees become acquainted with the more reserved or distant members of the organization, establishing better bonds of trust. You can match team members who interact the least by assigning them an activity to share.
25. Spotify
It is well known that music can inspire and relax, and it is rarely used during meetings. Creating a background playlist will definitely enhance the experience. You can assign a team member to be the DJ for each meeting, ask the team about their music preferences and add it to the playlist. When sending out meeting minutes, share the playlist to inspire them.
26. Catch up with the customer
Allow employees to keep up with customer requests, learn more about them, and encourage the team to follow up. Through a presentation you can highlight some important facts about your client’s company that will help in problem solving and decision making. If you want to make it more fun, you can make a trivia game to find out who is better informed about the customer’s problems.
27. Short meetings
This technique is ideal if your team meetings (1) tend to be longer. Limit meetings to 20-35 minutes. This maximizes time and allows the team to focus on the most important issues to discuss. Your team is likely to have more focused and productive discussions when you have time constraints.
28. Pomodoro Team Session
The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method of working in 25-minute intervals followed by 5-minute breaks (2). To keep your team up to date and engaged, you can hold Pomodoro group meetings. You can complete tasks at work and work together or end meetings or discussions in this way. During the breaks, teammates can chat, eat snacks, stretch their muscles and recharge their batteries.
Conclusion
In most cases, meetings are conducted without following systematic procedures to get the most out of them. However, organizing them is key. Teamwork is an excellent option because it promotes creativity, reduces stress, improves performance and increases productivity.
No matter the size of your team, weekly or monthly staff meetings need a change of scenery from time to time. We hope our list of simple and useful ideas for business meetings will inspire you to reinvent your team meetings and make them more dynamic and productive.
References
1. Pacheco Quispe, Vanesa Victoria. Organizational communication and work team in the San Camilo health center in the district of Pozuzo, Pasco 2021 [Internet]. Universidad César Vallejo PE, 2022
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2. Beatriz Rodríguez-Romero, Isabel Raposo Vidal, Susana Viñas-Diz. Application of the Pomodoro technique during lecture sessions [Internet] – University of Coruña, 2020
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3. Gontero Sonia, Albornoz Sonia. The identification and anticipation of labor skills gaps in Latin America: experiences and lessons [Internet].-LC/TS.2019/11
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4. Nicolás Quaranta. Effective communication: a critical success factor in teamwork. [Internet].- Universidad Adventista de la Plata, Entre Ríos, Argentina, 2017.
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