Not only when starting an interview and survey, a presentation or a survey, but in any conversational situation with strangers, it can be quite awkward when you approach someone and want to start a conversation.
You’re waiting with a stranger and have an urge to break the silence because you’re so uncomfortable inside, or maybe you’re a group leader and need a way to greet the people on your team, give them options for answers, and start a conversation to get going.
Whatever your scenario and interest in these icebreaker situations. Get ready to get tips to open the conversation in a meeting with someone else, eliminate the awkwardness, and create opportunities to fuel social interactions with panache.
Icebreaker questions are often part of survey questionnaire design
Among the question types, icebreaker questions are often the entry-level research questions in research questionnaires. The aim of this type of question is to make the respondent “relax for answers” with the question to increase their attention and motivation and to suggest that taking part in answering the present questionnaire can be easily implemented by the participant. Criteria for icebreaker questions are: uncomplicated, exciting, topic-related, personally relevant to the interviewee, data that is technically easy to process. They lead to the filter questions and sensitive questions.
37 well-known and more commonly related icebreaker questions
- If you could only take one thing with you to a desert island, what would it be?
- What is your most unusual hobby?
- What your your favorite song?
- What’s the best dessert you’ve ever eaten?
- What is one of your favorite things to do on your free evening?
- If you were a tree what kind of tree would you be, where would you like to be and why?
- Which animal would you like to be and why?
- Would you rather be rich or famous?
- If you were a natural element, which would you rather be: fire or water?
- Diamonds or Pearls?
- What is your favorite age and why?
- If you could have dinner with any famous person, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
- What is your favorite outdoor activity?
- If you had to paint the whole world one color, what would it be?
- What physical trait would you change if you could?
- Which well-known person do you know or have you met personally?
- Would you rather be invisible or be able to read minds?
- What do you think you will be doing in 20 years?
- If they were a piece of fruit, which fruit would they want to be?
- If you had unlimited money and space, what would you design in a bedroom?
- What do you prefer to wear or would you rather wear: glasses or contact lenses?
- When you were in elementary school, what did you want to be when you grow up?
- What’s the first thing you do on Saturday morning when you wake up?
- What is the best present you have ever received?
- What is one of the things on your wish list?
- How would you spend $1,000,000?
- If you didn’t have a job, were healthy and had plenty of time, what would you do?
- Will you reveal a personal fact that no one would suspect about you?
- Where would you retire?
- What are your three favorite smells?
- What’s your favorite cuisine?
- Do you prefer to eat the frosting on a muffin or the muffin first?
- How many times does the phone ring before you answer?
- What was your nickname growing up or now?
- What is your favorite cartoon character and why?
- If you could breathe underwater or fly underwater, which would you prefer and why?
- What do you like best about living in this country?
18 ice-breaker questions for the workplace
In this part, we’ll go over some getting-to-know-you questions to ask with your colleagues and teams in your workplace to encourage collaboration. They may just sound like questions but in reality they give you a deeper insight into the person you know, who is he or she? These questions will help you when they have a new teammate
- What is the meaning of her name?
- What’s the best vacation you’ve ever taken?
- How would you spend a billion dollars?
- Are you a morning person or a night person?
- What is your dream home?
- What would you do if you had all the money and all the goodies?
- What is your favorite reality TV show?
- Are you a night person or a day person?
- What was your worst job?
- What are your favorite books?
- What is your morning routine like?
- Who do you think is the most famous person?
- What is your favorite sport?
- How would your friends describe you?
- What would be the best gift you could get?
- Describe your hidden talents?
- Tell us about your favorite pet peeve?
- Tell us about the smartest person you know?
12 Icebreaker Questions Remote Work Questionnaire
- What is the biggest challenge when working from home?
- What is the most interesting article you have read lately?
- What habits and methods of working from home have you found most successful?
- What was the last Youtube video you watched?
- What is the story behind the background of your cell phone?
- What do you like best about teleworking?
- Would you rather start work earlier or later in the day?
- Have you ever given a one star review online? Why?
- What will you do differently next week?
- What is your favorite exercise for working from home?
- What would be your signature tune?
- What’s your favorite breakfast food?
64 more personal and exceptionally icebreaker questions
- What music do you listen to all the time?
- What are you looking for in a friend?
- What was the most embarrassing thing you did on a date?
- Tell me something most people don’t know?
- What is your favorite flavor of Pringles?
- What is your favorite cereal?
- What’s the nerdiest thing you do in your free time?
- What does that pair of shoes you always have in your closet look like?
- What was your favorite toy as a child?
- Are you a cat or a dog type?
- What was your favorite reality TV show growing up?
- What is your favorite type of ice cream?
- When did you have your worst haircut?
- If you were a cocktail, which cocktail would you want to be?
- Tell us about your favorite vacation.
- What’s your favorite smell?
- What’s your favorite Disney character?
- Which is your favorite dessert?
- What is the easiest song to sing karaoke?
- What’s the craziest fashion trend everyone is following?
- What do you do in the most difficult situation?
- What is your favorite holiday tradition?
- How would your best friend describe your good and weak side?
- What are your favorite business ideas?
- Tell us about your most valuable material possession.
- What is your favorite historical figure?
- What is your favorite dance step?
- Who is the funniest or smartest person you have ever met?
- What movie do you hate that most people love?
- If you were a wrestler what would your song be called?
- What do you miss most about your childhood?
- What’s your favorite movie?
- What’s your favorite knock knock joke?
- What would you do with a million dollars?
- What piece of advice have you received that has worked?
- If you had to lose one of your senses, what would it be?
- Which celebrity would you never want to meet and why?
- What would you say to make a date work?
- Pick three things that would help you in a zombie apocalypse?
- What’s the worst job you’ve ever had and why?
- Can you describe yourself in three words?
- What dish do you like to cook?
- Who is her celebrity crush?
- What makes you feel strong?
- What is your craziest Youtube project from your point of view?
- Which animal would be the cutest if scaled down?
- What’s the strangest food you’ve ever eaten?
- What’s your phone wallpaper?
- If you had an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
- What season would they be?
- What sport would you compete in if you were at the Olympics?
- What is the craziest fashion trend of today?
- What do you think of the zombie apocalypse?
- What’s the most embarrassing fashion trend?
- Tell us about a supernatural creature?
- What is your fondest childhood memory?
- What is your most embarrassing moment?
- What was the first gig you attended?
- What is your most used emoji?
- What’s the strangest fact you know?
- What are two truths and a lie about you?
- If you could relive this week…
- What was the coolest word in school?
- If they could choose an age and stay at that age…
- What is the one food you can eat for the rest of your life?
21 Icebreaker Questions for Private Dates With Strangers
- what is your love language
- Where are you a regular?
- What’s your favorite drink?
- What do you dislike about them?
- What goal have you set for this year?
- Have you ever skipped school?
- What is your most beautiful travel experience?
- Who did you have a crush on as a kid?
- What are you best known for among your friends?
- Shark diving, bungee jumping or skydiving?
- What does your typical Sunday look like?
- Did you have a nickname growing up?
- Would you worry more about introducing your date to your family or friends?
- What’s the best dish you prepare?
- What movie can you watch over and over again?
- How did you meet your best friend?
- Would you rather live in an RV or on a sailboat for a year?
- Have you returned any purchases lately?
- Do you collect anything?
- What is your favorite holiday tradition?
- What is your favorite musical instrument?
- What’s on your bucket list?
18 Icebreaker Questions for Teens
- What three emojis would they use to describe you?
- What’s the worst movie you’ve ever seen?
- Who is your favorite teacher and why?
- What’s the first thing you do when you get home from school?
- When would you most like to wake up each day?
- What’s the best animal noise she can make?
- Which emoji do you use the most?
- What is your best study tip?
- Who was your favorite teacher and why?
- Would you rather live in the ocean or on the moon?
- Has any of your teachers ever been insulted in class?
- What kind of copywriter are you? (Fast? Slow? Lots of small texts? Perfect spelling and grammar?)
- How old were you when you got your first mobile phone?
- What’s your favorite Disney movie?
- What job do you think you would hate the most?
- What’s the craziest dare you’ve ever done?
- What’s the most embarrassing thing your parents have ever done?
- What’s the best dessert you’ve ever eaten?
- What three emojis would they use to describe you?
15 Icebreaker Questions for Older People
- Where would you like to retire?
- What was the first concert you attended?
- What wastes the most time in your everyday life?
- What is a social cause that is close to your heart?
- What New Year’s resolution have you made but never kept?
- What is the biggest risk you have ever taken?
- What was your favorite book growing up?
- Is there any housework that you really enjoy doing?
- How did you spend your first paycheck?
- What would you wish was illegal?
- What big problem do you think technology will solve next?
- Which slang word has gone out of fashion the most?
- Which slang word has gone out of style the most?
- Who was your weirdest or most annoying neighbor?
- Would you rather have more time or more money?
- Which sport do you think is the most boring?
icebreaker apps
Collaboard.App
With the collaboard app you have access to warm-up and ice-breaker games for remote meetings, workshops, training sessions, coaching and other occasions, how to implement them on an online whiteboard.
Barchat app
Sit comfortably at the bar, discover an attractive person and introduce yourself to her in a relaxed manner. For many, the problem with the introduction is the last step: speaking. The Barchat app was developed to counteract this phenomenon. It is intended to make contact easier for shy people. It takes the matching principles and benefits of traditional dating apps and adds location features and limited chat time.
The concept and functions of a Barchat application are simple. First of all, users create their profiles with pictures and a short description. Based on their location, nearby places are shown and they can log in when entering. Following the example of Tinder, you can now see the visitors of the bar in the app and, if they are interested, make a request. Then simply confirm them – they already have a match and can report you. Now you have ten limited messages to use with icebreaker questions for example.
