23 Team Meeting Ideas: Activities For Fun Team-Building 😃

Learn how to transform meeting engagement with creative meetings ideas and meeting productivity tips.

By
The Meetingnotes Team
|
10
mins
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February 16, 2024
Teamwork

In the modern work landscape where remote work is the norm, effective team meetings are the heartbeat of every successful team. Despite their importance, meeting innovation often gets lost in the hustle and bustle of everyday operations.

Engaging meetings are not just a luxury; they're a necessity. By getting creative with team meetings ideas and injecting innovative team activities into your meetings, you will be able to effectively engage your team while boosting morale. Keep reading to unlock 23 innovative team meeting ideas! 

23 Team meeting ideas to try this year

1. Awards Show

Hosting engaging team meetings can be challenging which it's why it's important to incorporate new remote team meeting ideas from time to time. Not only will facilitating an award show provide you with the opportunity to give your employees the recognition they deserve, but it's also an excellent opportunity to boost morale and foster alignment. 

2. "Bad" Art Contest

It's never a good idea to take yourself too seriously. TO mix things up, and host more engaging team meetings, we recommend facilitating a “bad” art contest. This encourages teammates to participate regardless of their skill level and allows teams to let loose and have fun. 

“If you can laugh together, you can work together.”
– Robert Orben

3. Photo Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts are a great way to host more engaging team meetings. To facilitate a remote photo scavenger hunt, provide a list of items and encourage teammates to snap photos from around their home. Everyone can upload their finds to a shared folder and enjoy looking at what their colleagues have captured. Examples include snapping a photo of your favorite mug, a healthy snack, and office staple, etc. 

Here's a sample team meeting photo scavenger hunt list:

  1. Your favorite cup or mug
  2. A view fro a window
  3. A business card
  4. Someone/something listening to music
  5. Swag from any company (including your business)
  6. Coffee
  7. A manager
  8. Three things that have keys
  9. An excellent Zoom background

4. Out Of The Box Awards

Want to take a more creative approach to your award show? Think of funny, out of the box awards and encourage teammates to cast their votes. You can add an additional level of engagement to this innovative team activity by encouraging your teammates to think of their own out of the box awards.

5. Play A Board Game

Playing board games as a team is one of many great creative meeting ideas! To embrace this activity remotely, consider leveraging one of many free online resources. You can set aside an hour block to gather your team and bond over everyone’s favorite board games! 

“With an enthusiastic team you can achieve almost anything.”
– Tahir Shah

6. Find Your Inner Child

Looking to host more engaging team meetings? 

As an alternative to playing a board game, you can challenge your employees to do something they enjoyed as children. This may include coloring a picture, finger painting, or snacking on something nostalgic.

7. Lego Party

Speaking of inner child, a Lego set is the perfect, contained project that requires time and focus but can be finished during a meeting or virtual gathering. To facilitate this creative team meeting idea, consider purchasing a small Lego set for each teammate and encourage them to build them together. 

8. Movie Madness

“Movie Madness” is a great way to tell engaging stories. Use this segment of your meeting to reflect on your shared triumphs. Encourage each teammate to come up with a “scene” and continue to add to your highlight reel until you have a full-fledged storyline! 

Having a boring, regular 'ole staff meeting?
Check out this 11 Do's and Don'ts Staff Meetings guide

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9. Lunch and Learn

Lunch and learns are a great way to foster a sense of community amongst your remote team. Instead of hosting a boring meeting, kick it up a notch by providing your teammates with a stipend that can be used to purchase lunch. 

10. Automated Asynchronous Check-Ins 

Struggling to boost engagement among your remote team members? Leverage technology to facilitate asynchronous check-ins that spark engagement! Consider integrating a bot into your Slack channel that initiates brief watercooler check-ins throughout the day. Examples include asking teammates to share a photo of their pet, encouraging teammates to share a fun fact about their personal lives, or prompting employees to share a fun recipe. The opportunities are endless!

11. Leverage Polls and Quizzes 

Are you struggling to come up with innovative team collaboration strategies? Integrating quizzes or polls into your remote team meetings is a great way to boost engagement! Luckily, there are tons of online resources like Kahoot that make integrating innovative team activities into everyday meetings a breeze. 

12. Do Some Yoga

Work can be stressful which is why integrating innovative team activities into your meetings from time to time is so important. Before wrapping up your next meeting, consider facilitating a brief yoga session at the end. This will help teammates unplug and get their creative juices flowing as they move into the next phase of the meeting. 

13. Create A Virtual Masterpiece

Connecting with your remote team can be challenging if you don’t actively implement creative meeting ideas. If you're used to brainstorming by sharing your ideas via video chat, consider kicking it up a notch by encouraging your teammates to contribute to a virtual whiteboard- creating a virtual masterpiece!

“Teamwork is the secret that makes common people achieve uncommon results.”
– Ifeanyi Onuoha

14. Virtual backgrounds

Looking for innovative team activities? Consider creating fun backgrounds for each one of your meetings. To mix things up, encourage your teammates to do the same. You can create branded backgrounds specific to holidays or special occasions like team birthdays. 

15. Coloring Books

Did you know that coloring and doodling are both great ways to engage your team? Coloring or doodling helps stimulate the brain, resulting in more creative outcomes. This is especially great if you have a brainstorming session or other creative aspects to your meeting. If you want to take an environmentally friendly approach, consider sourcing virtual coloring books or doodling boards. 

16. Word Association 

Ask everyone in the office to bring up words that start with a specific letter to see if they can associate those words with any of their coworkers. This is a quick and easy way to foster engagement during your  next remote team meeting. If you aren’t working in an in-person environment, create a Slack thread and encourage your teammates to participate virtually.

17. Breakfast Meeting 

Nothing brings teams together quite like sharing a meal! If your team works remotely and gathering in person from time to time isn’t feasible, consider providing a stipend and encouraging employees to join virtually for a meal. 

18. Brainstorm Graffiti

Brainstorm graffiti is one of many innovative team meeting ideas that encourages participation from all team members. The one-at-a-time format of more traditional brainstorming sessions may make teammates that are shy and hesitant to participate. In brainstorm graffiti, team members write down all ideas at once, and then explore the different topics as a group.

19. Team Pomodoro Session

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method that involves working in 25-minute intervals followed by five-minute breaks. To facilitate engaging team meetings that keep your team on-track and engaged, you can hold group pomodoro sessions. Your teammates can either work in a shared setting on individual tasks or use the time to collaborate on a shared task.  

20. Guest Speaker

Inviting a guest speaker is one of the easiest and most effective team meeting ideas. When choosing a guest speaker, make sure they provide value to your team. You will want to make sure that they have the means to facilitate an engaging conversation with your team.

21. Q&A

If you're looking for a classic team meeting idea that yields excellent engagement, Q&A sessions are a great idea! Q&A sessions give teammates the chance to satisfy curiosity, clear up confusion, and learn from industry experts! You can host Q&As to address upcoming organizational changes or use them as a learning opportunity for your team.  

22. Incorporate Mindfulness Sessions

Incorporating mindfulness sessions into your team meetings is one of many creative meeting ideas that yield incredible results! When added to the meeting agenda, these activities help create an atmosphere of collaboration, allowing team members to take a step back and connect with each other before getting back on track with tasks.

23. Tap Into Your Team

Can't decide which team meetings are the best? Divide your team into pairs and have each pair come up with three new ideas for the next week's meeting. This is an excellent way to generate new creative meeting ideas that you can leverage to host more engaging team meetings.

Interactive Tools for Engaging Team Meetings

Fellow

Fellow is the only all-in-one AI meeting transcription and management software for remote and hybrid teams. Not only are meetings with Fellow more impactful, but AI, behavior-driving features, and seamless integrations make them more engaging. In addition, Fellow creates a centralized hub for all meeting related content. This way there’s no scrambling to find where you saved your meeting agenda or navigating from tab to tab.

During meetings, you can remain fully present while your AI assistant is hard at work transcribing, recording, and summarizing the meeting content. Instead of focusing on administrative tasks, you can prioritize connecting, and collaborating with your team. The best part? Get 300 free minutes of AI recording and transcription.

Fellow

Kahoot

Kahoot transforms presentations, training sessions, events, and meetings in organizations of any size by empowering users to create and deliver engaging learning experiences.

When hosting a live Kahoot, questions appear on a shared screen and participants vote on the answer they believe to be correct. Participants join a live Kahoot by entering a unique PIN in their browser, or in the Kahoot app, to submit their answers. The standard Individual Kahoot Plan starts at $17 and allows up to 20 participants, and the most expensive plan is $79/ host/ month.

Kahoot


Poll Everywhere

Poll everywhere is a virtual collaboration tool that empowers users to host interactive online meetings by providing the tools necessary to engage virtual audiences, capture feedback, and present live results.

Poll Everywhere can be used to seamlessly engage audiences during virtual meetings through live online polling, surveys, Q&As, quizzes, word clouds, and more., making this an excellent resource when facilitating new team collaboration strategies. Poll Everywhere has a variety of plans that cater to both businesses and nonprofits.

Poll Everywhere


Miro

If you’re looking for a versatile tool that boosts engagement during meetings, Miro is an excellent starting point!  With cutting-edge features like timers, voting, a specific meeting mode, and chat features, Miro is built for running collaborative and engaging virtual meetings. In addition to helping users host collaborative meetings, brainstorming is where Miro shines.

To get started, Miro offers a comprehensive library of templates with numerous test cases, so you never have to worry about starting from scratch. Miro has four separate plans ranging from a Free Plan with its most basic features to an Enterprise Plan that is quoted on an as-needed basis.

Miro

Host more effective team meetings today

Virtual engagement has become a challenge for many organizations as they continue to embrace the shift towards a remote-first workplace. Remote work has become the norm, and as more employees begin to work virtually, the importance of engaging remote employees during meetings is more prevalent than ever. Effectively engaging virtual employees will enhance your company culture and ensure your team members are still as efficient and productive as they would be in the office.

Don't let unproductive meetings slow you down

See the impact of fewer, shorter meetings, increased accountability, and enhanced productivity with Fellow.

Get started with Fellow todayGet started with Fellow today

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