CO

LL

AB

OR

AT

IVE

VIR

TUA

LL

Y

WW

W. L

O R I SS A G A R C I A

. CO M

FACILITATION

ACTIVITIES FOR

REMOTE DELIVERY

A Crowd SourcedResource LET'S BAN BORING ONLINE GATHERING'S!

I created this resource for anyone convening

virtual meetings - HR professionals, leaders,

managers and of course trainers and

facilitators.

I can only imagine the slow death of

motivation from people sitting through online

gatherings feeling burnt out, bored and

disengaged. When we involve people in our

online live spaces, we get so much more from

them - and better outcomes for our meetings.

We get fun. We get engagement. We get

participation. And most of all, we get the

opportunity to gain their trust.

When a global pandemic hit and we all (most

of us) moved to our home offices, suddenly

Zoom and MS Teams became household

brands. All kudos to those companies, they

provide a tool to connect, but now that

connection needs more to be effective.

With the help of some online friends, I've consolidated this guide with over 20 ideas for

welcome warm ups, icebreakers, and activities, bringing together the best opportunities to

make your meetings more engaging and to help you as a facilitator, manager, leader or

meeting convenor to get better outcomes for your online gathering's.

F's GIF's GIF's GIF's GIF's GIF's GI

SURBHI SHARMACorporate Facilitation &

Training Freelancer

"I allow the team to pick a GIF or

supply them with some reflection

pictures and choose the picture

that says who they are currently.

Imagination runs wild. And some

discovery happens too!

A win-win."

LEISA MOLLOYBusiness

Psychologist

"A simple but fun type of

icebreaker that some of my

participants enjoyed was asking

how they felt about a topic and

giving them a 'scale' between 1 to

6 using funny gifs. It drew people

into sharing some personal

experiences quickly, which was

great for creating a bit of trust

and opening up the topic."SIMONEMCDONALD

Director PeopleSolutions &Capability

"GIF Games on Mural."

F's GIF's GIF's GIF's GIF's GIF's GI

LORISSA GARCIA

Allocate pairs in the main Zoom room and ask

them to get a piece of paper ready. The person

whose name is first alphabetically draws first and

must draw their partner.

Seems easy, but once pen has hit paper, the

drawer must look up and cannot look down at

their pen or paper until time is up.

Reverse the roles so every participant gets a

portrait, then get your new found artists to sign

and date their work and send it to their subject.

Capability, Culture & People Strategywww.lorissagarcia.com

[LIFE] DRAWING CLASSES......

REBECCA LLOYD

SquiggleBirds!

Step 1: Grab a spare peice of paper and a pen

Step 2: Put pen to paper and go wild squiggling

whatever shape or doodle comes to mind

Step 3: Turn it into a bird by adding an eye, beak

and little legs

Let your bird fly free in your neighbourhood for

someone else to find.

Captain of probaby the best design agendy inthe world - Rowboat

www.wearerowboat.com

"Asking participants - what’s

something small but wonderful that

this pandemic (or the last 12 months)

has given you? Encouraging

reflection and gratuity in a difficult

time, but in a way that’s non-

threatening. Some of the stories that

come out of this are amazing."

Dara Simkin & Culture Hero run some amazing playful

workshops weekly that have given me some fantastic

ideas, such as the "yes and/but" game (where you start

a conversation with a prompt and improvise it, but

every sentence starts with "yes and" and a following

one is "yes but"), and "object malleability" where you

think of all the possible uses for a mundane item (ie a

colander - could make a great substitute tinfoil hat for

all of those conspiracy theories!)."

Gonzalo Cardozo

Jake Lipman

OD | Leadership Development | OrganisationalCapability | L&D & People Strategy

Learning & Development Specialist

DAVID DEWEIL

Associate Principal(From Twitter)

"“My new favourite thing is

asking my class to share a

boring fact about themselves

(way too much pressure to

share an interesting fact) . Today

I shared I don't l ike mayo on

sandwiches. One student puts

both socks on before putting on

shoes. Another eats a pound of

turkey each day.”

"A great one I ’ve had is f ind something on your desk,

kitchen table, workspace and tell us why it ’s

important or valuable to you."

JULIE JARDINECapabil ity, Change & Culture Advisor

"An oldie but a goodie is 2 truths and a l ie and

work online as well as in the classroom. Every

participant tells the group 3 facts about

themselves, two are true, one is made up and the

group has to guess which one is the l ie."

JESSICA SCHUBERTLeadership Expert

Kahoot! is my favorite. So many different ways you

can take it for a trivia session or quiz. Even getting

workers to send in cute baby pics or facts about

themselves and other workers have to guess who it

is . A nice tool for facil itating more team connection!

MOLLY BURLEYCustomer Success Manager

"Collage your personality on Miro."

- SARAH REDMONDLearning Design Manager

Rachel Ben HamouFacilitator | People EXD | Agile HR | Talent Product Manager

PeopleStormingwww.peoplestorming.com

The game is called 'Fortunately, Unfortunately' and we play

it with teams in our workshops when we want to stimulate

reframing. . .

Think of a situation you’re feeling negative about and say

"unfortunately, …" (describing the situation in a short

sentence).

"Unfortunately, we didn't hit the deadline."

Then challenge yourself to create a second sentence that

starts "fortunately, …" (describing a positive way to look at

the same situation).

"Fortunately, we learned a lot about how we work (and

stand a better chance of hitting our next deadline)."

How does it feel to have both of those sentences sit next to

each other with equal r ight to exist?

More generally, how have you given yourself permission to

see the world differently?

' F o r t u n a t e l y , U n f o r t u n a t e l y '

Write Down the Task here: SARA SHIMOJIPeople Geek

JOSHUA COXPeople Person at Yellow Umbrella

www.yellowumbrella.co.nz Regardless of the icebreaker

(question or activity), I've had the

best participation when I have

made sure to include the context

in the calendar invite of the

meeting prior to allow everyone

the opportunity to prepare and

think through what they would

like to share.

For a little more spontaneity,

https://icebreaker.range.co/ is a

fun tool that randomizes

questions on different levels based

on how tight-knit the team is.

"Simple match the person to the

item game: Prior to meeting ask

team members to send in a

photo of a random / special item

or thing in their house, plus have

them add an explanation of why

they chose the item/thing. Put

the photos into an anonymous

PowerPoint / slideshow. Start of

Zoom , share your screen and

Step through the pictures ,

introduce the picture and the

reasoning but keep them

anonymous. Have team

members guess whose item is

whose as you go through. Then

go through the pics again and

see who guessed whose correctly.

Identify a winner. Good for a

laugh and yarn but also has

group learn new things about

each other and makes individuals

feel seen/understood."

“

K Y L I E B R A D Y

“"What Shaped Me"

Suited for Executive and senior staff, ask your

stakeholder to do a short presentation on what

life events (both professional and non) shaped

their personal and professional values and how it

impacts decision making and behaviour in their

role.

C H A N G E A N D C U L T U R E P E O P L E

L E A D E R

“L O R I S S A G A R C I A

“

Last artist you searched for on your music streaming

service of choice?

Last thing you paid cash for?

Last meal you ate?

Last live music concert you went to?

Last time you dressed up in costume?

Last time you laughed until your stomach hurt?

The Last....

As you open up the Zoom room and welcome people,

ask participants to tell you about the last...

C O A C H M E N T O R F A C I L I T A T O R

One of my personal favourites is

"Power Play" - give everyone a

playing card, and the higher value

the card, the more "power" they

have in a conversation. Throw out

a mildly controversial question (ie.

"rank the Tim tams/assorted

biscuits from best to worst") and

tell them they must all be in

common agreement. A great

learning platform to quantify

people's comfortability in certain

"levels of power" too :)

Jake LipmanLearning & Development Specialist

GretelBanfield

"One I’m enjoying at the

moment is WFH / COVID

themed ‘the price is right’,

closest guess wins

eg. Guess the price of a

packet of Tim tams, a

standing desk riser, pack of 10

face masks, a puzzle."

Organisational Development

Advisor

H m m m . . . . . . C h o c o l a t e B i s c u i t s

VIRTUAL FUN VIRTUAL

Run a virtual scavenger hunt, break into teams (Zoom breakout rooms), each

team are presented with a list of things and asked to source within their

houses and bring back to Zoom room for presentation.

KYLIE BRADYChange & Culture

People Leader

Ask participants, if you were to write a book about your life, what would the

title be?

CHARLOTTE BLAIRPartner, Strengths Partners

www.thestrengthspartners.com

LOTTY ROBERTS Founding Director-MindU

Change, Mindfulness, Culture, Leadershipwww.mindu.co.nz

At the start of a session, I ask people as

they introduce themselves to also

share either the first album they

bought or the f irst music concert they

went to. It 's usually very revealing,

nostalgic and creates a playful and safe

environment.

I note the bands/singers then when we

do group work, I pull up one of the

songs and play it in the background.

It get's some laughs and eye roll ing in

a good way and that creates a relaxed

environment of collaboration for

people to do the work.

M u s i c t o M y E a r s . . . . . .

“

WHO IS LORISSA GARCIA

“

Specialising as a Coach, Mentor & Facilitator to People Partners (HR practitioners)

and People Leaders, I partner to develop and uncover leadership capability across

all levels and disciplines, so that leaders and emerging leaders can become a more

strategic and credible partner in their organisation, lead with impact and have a

more positive impact on their people.

Through the lens of Positive Psychology and Strengths, I act as a translator,

connector and strategist to support growth and build up confidence. I help People

Partners & Leaders map their work to the organisational strategy, giving a line of

sight to the business goals, and purpose to their leadership role.

My other passion is being at the front of room - whether its driving a people

strategy, talking about the F-word while unpacking an organisations Emotional

Culture (that's feelings!), building team intimacy through workshops or Lego

Serious Play, Strengths Discovery, DISC sessions or leadership and management

development, it feels like a natural place for me to be.

I hope you find this resource helpful in your virtual facilitation and in the desire to

ban boring online gatherings!

C O A C H | M E N T O R | F A C I L I T A T O R