One of our specialties at LifeLabs Learning is training managers to help teams connect. We’re passionate about finding ways to creatively build a sense of belonging and camaraderie, even across the digital divide. I wanted to share one of our favorite games. We’re a remote team of over 50, and we often lean into virtual games to build rapport within a team that already knows each other pretty well.
Enter LifeLabs’ Quick-Connect. This game was rated a favorite activity at all-virtual retreats. I’m sharing our script and formula below.
How it works
Exactly as it sounds, Quick-Connect is an opportunity for teammates to spend 1-2 minutes in breakout rooms with just one other teammate, answering a question presented by the facilitator. After the time is up, breakout rooms are closed, and participants are switched to a new partner to answer a new question. The key is the great questions and the rapid pace.
Quick-Connect best practices
- Anyone can lead this event! The facilitator just needs a quick intro, a basic understanding of tech, and a list of questions (see below) to ask participants.
- Using Zoom’s breakout rooms makes things easy. We organized all rooms to have 2 participants and randomly assigned rooms each time.
- Move fast. Speed keeps things interesting and builds momentum. We don’t discuss or debrief questions in a full group at all when we run it.
- Give folks a way to figure out who is answering first. I used prompts like “the person who is alphabetically first” or “the person who is wearing the darkest shirt” to determine who would start first.
- Because there’s no limit to the number of questions you can ask, there’s no required amount of time for this activity. However, I recommend allocating at least 30 minutes total if you plan to run multiple rounds.
Timing breakdown + script
- 5 minutes for a quick intro to the activity. Here’s my script:
Here’s how this will work: I’ll be managing randomly assigned breakout rooms, and questions will go from slightly easier to answer to slightly harder to answer.
For the first round of questions, you’ll have one minute each to answer. For the second round of questions, you’ll have two minutes each to answer. I’ll keep time. When you see the breakout room call back, don’t come back to the main room until the time is up (that’s your 1-minute warning).
- 20+ minutes for the questions: Here are the questions I’ve used with our team. Feel free to swap in your own, but be sure the questions you pick are answerable in the time allocated.
Questions to answer in 1 minute per person (2 minutes per round)
- Round 1: Who is someone you admire and why?
- Round 2: What brings you joy?
- Round 3: What is one of your pet peeves?
- Round 4: What’s something you learned about yourself this year?
- Round 5: What’s something in your life that you’re really proud of?
- Round 6: How would you describe your perfect adventure?
- Round 7: What’s your ideal Saturday/weekend day?
- Round 8: What’s a gift/talent you regularly use to help others?
Deepener time! Questions to answer in 2 minutes per person (4 minutes per round)
- Round 9: What’s something no one (or almost no one) knows about you?
- Round 10: What’s an event or person that’s shaped your life in a big way?
- Round 11: What’s something you’ve needed to get off your chest?
- Round 12: What do you hope other people feel when they spend time with you?
- 5 minutes for a quick close. I also share other ways people can keep connecting after the activity. Some that I recommend are using Donut on Slack, inviting people for virtual coffee/phone calls to catch up, or sending someone a kind email to just let them know you’re thinking of them.
Give this a shot with your team and let us know how it goes!
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