15 Virtual team building activities

Just because you work remotely does not mean you don’t get to enjoy team building activities. 

There are some virtual games that won’t make you cringe but will certainly help you bond with your colleagues. 

We bring you a selection of 15 virtual team building activities, ranked alphabetically. 

Critical thinking virtual icebreaker 

🔸 Type: real-time virtual team building activity 

🔸 Time: 2 minutes per person

🔸 Objective: improving problem-solving skills

🔸 Participants: 5–10

🔸 Instructions: 

• Begin the meeting with this riddle: “Every month a woman writes two words on 50 sheets of paper. Why does she do this?” 
• Give your coworkers some time to think this through, discuss their answers, and find the most logical answer to this enigma. 

If you need to put your thinking cap on and have a blast, look no further — this activity is perfect for you! 

Five finger showdown

🔸 Type: real-time virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: 10 minutes

🔸 Objective: getting to know your teammates

🔸 Participants: suitable for larger groups

🔸 Instructions: 

• Schedule a virtual meeting and ask the participants to hold up one hand with five fingers extended. 
• Start with listing specific life experiences — climbed a mountain this year, speaks more than 3 languages, adopted a cat, made pie from scratch, etc.
• Participants that have the mentioned life experience put one finger down. 
• The winner is the player that puts all fingers down first.

If you want to find out random facts about your coworkers, Five finger showdown is the game for you and your team. 

MTV Cribs: remote team edition

🔸 Type: asynchronous virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: 3 minutes per person’s turn

🔸 Objective: getting to know your teammates

🔸 Participants: unlimited

🔸 Instructions: 

• All the participants should make a short video showing off their home, or a favorite spot in it. 
• After everyone has uploaded the video, the fun can start!

If you like interior design and sneaking a peek into other people’s houses every now and then (for strictly aesthetic reasons), this is the game for you.

You will get to know your teammates a bit better, and maybe even find some common interests or tastes. 

“Name that emoji song title”

🔸 Type: real-time virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: 3 minutes per person’s turn

🔸 Objective: improving creative thinking skills

🔸 Participants: unlimited

🔸 Instructions: 

• Use the #random channel on your business communication app.
• The first colleague gives a hint about the title of their last played song to their coworkers using only emojis. 
• The other participants guess the name of the song.
• You can even set the timer and make the game more interesting (e.g. 3 minutes per song).

If you like music and emojis, this is the perfect activity for you and your like-minded team members. 

Pancakes vs Waffles

🔸 Type: real-time virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: around 60 minutes

🔸 Objective: improving creative thinking skills

🔸 Participants: 2+

🔸 Instructions:

• It all starts with a question: “Pancakes or waffles?”
• It’s up to you to decide whether you keep pancakes or waffles. 
• The contender you didn’t choose becomes eliminated from this world for good. 

Your creativity sets the tone and duration of this game. Enjoy! 

Personality tests

🔸 Type: asynchronous virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: unlimited

🔸 Objective: getting to know your teammates

🔸 Participants: unlimited

🔸 Instructions: 

• Send your coworkers a personality test of your choice. 
• It can be anything — from the famous Myers-Briggs test to the charming A Walk in the Woods test.
• After everyone has sent you their results, all that’s left is for you to discuss your personality types in a virtual meeting.

This is a great and fun way to get to know your coworkers better.

Remote team cooking

🔸 Type: asynchronous virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: monthly

🔸 Objective: improving skill sets

🔸 Participants: unlimited

🔸 Instructions: 

• Choose ingredients for the month, set the timeline, and cook away! 
• After all the participants have completed their task, they take a photo of their masterpiece and share it with the rest of the cooks. 
• The dish with the most votes wins.

If you call yourself a foodie, this is the challenge for you — it allows you to show your creativity through cooking while competing with your colleagues.

Remote work bingo

🔸 Type: asynchronous virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: a week or a month

🔸 Objective: have fun

🔸 Participants: unlimited

🔸 Instructions: 

• Share the remote work bingo template with your colleagues. 
• Decide on a timeline — a week or a month. 
• When you complete a box, you mark an X. 
• Follow the Bingo rules — the first one that completes the row wins. 

This online bingo has an all too familiar theme — remote work — and it’s a perfect way to bond with your colleagues over situations you deal with on a daily basis. 

The birth map game

🔸 Type: real-time or asynchronous virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: 15–30 minutes

🔸 Objective: getting to know your teammates

🔸 Participants: 5+

🔸 Instructions: 

• Share a collaborative map with your colleagues. 
• All participants place a pin on the city or town they were born in. 
• Schedule a virtual meeting and share your favorite fun facts or urban legends about your birthplaces.

If you want to find out more about your coworkers’ personal histories, this game brings you one step closer to your goal.

Theme photo contest

🔸 Type: asynchronous virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: one week or month 

🔸 Objective: improving skill sets

🔸 Participants: 10+

🔸 Instructions: 

• Choose a theme for the photo contest — anything from red objects to portraits goes. 
• Decide on a timeline and have each participant send the photo that best suits the theme. 
• The winner is the one who gets the most votes for their masterpiece.

So, if you fancy yourself as another Mapplethorpe or Leibovitz, grab your camera and get ready!

Virtual book club

🔸 Type: asynchronous virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: monthly or weekly

🔸 Objective: getting to know your teammates

🔸 Participants: 6–10

🔸 Instructions: 

• Choose a book and decide on the timeline for reading it. 
• Then, discuss the book over a cup of tea or coffee with your colleagues via a video call. 

This is the perfect activity for bonding with your colleagues with a library card. 

Virtual movie club

🔸 Type: asynchronous virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: monthly or weekly

🔸 Objective: getting to know your teammates

🔸 Participants: unlimited

🔸 Instruction: 

• Choose a movie for the month (or a week). 
• After you have watched the chosen movie, discuss it with your fellow cinephiles in a video call.
• You can even organize themed movie marathons — e.g. Wes Anderson movies month or movies about New York.

This is a perfect game for all of you movie enthusiasts. 

Virtual pub trivia

🔸 Type: real-time virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: around 60 minutes

🔸 Objective: improving teamwork

🔸 Participants: 10+

🔸 Instructions: 

• Organize your colleagues into smaller teams and have the host read out questions. 
• Your colleagues and you answer them as a team. 
• Every correct answer brings a point. 

If you like quizzes and are known as a walking encyclopedia, this is the activity for you.

“Who da baby”

🔸 Type: asynchronous virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: indefinite

🔸 Objective: getting to know your teammates

🔸 Participants: 5–10

🔸 Instructions: 

• All the participants upload their baby photos to a shared folder.
• You and your coworkers now have to guess who the baby might be. 

If you like to look at baby pics of your friends and family, this is an activity for you.

Water cooler channels

🔸 Type: asynchronous virtual team building activity

🔸 Time: indefinite

🔸 Objective: strengthening employee relations

🔸 Participants: unlimited

🔸 Instructions: 

• Nothing special — just browse through the channels related to leisure, not work. 
• The most popular ones are #music, #random, #movies, etc.

Browse through the channels of your favorite business communication app, find something you like, and enjoy the conversation.

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