9 Quick Virtual Team Building Activities for Busy Teams (5–60 Minutes)

Not long ago, a client asked us to run their annual team building event for 500 employees plus 300 new interns who’d never spoken to anyone outside their own small teams.

The interns needed to feel like part of the group by lunchtime, not by month three. So we built the session around quick virtual team building activities: icebreakers that got total strangers talking within minutes.

That’s the brief most of you are working with too — not “plan an offsite,” just “get people talking, and do it fast.” Here are 9 activities that deliver, sorted by exactly how much time you’ve got.

⚡ TL;DR: The best quick virtual team building activities run 5 to 60 minutes and need little to no prep. For a 5–10 minute meeting warm-up, try This or That or Two Wins and a Want. For a proper 15–30 minute icebreaker, a Virtual Scavenger Hunt or a facilitator-led Virtual Water Cooler both work well. Got 45–60 minutes? A Coworking Jam Session or a fully managed digital escape room builds real connection without eating your whole afternoon. Full list and how-to-run steps below.

Who Quick Activities Work Best For

These activities are for the manager who needs something today, not the People team planning a quarterly offsite three months out. They’re built to slot into an existing meeting, a Friday wind-down, or a new-hire onboarding call — no separate calendar invite, no big-budget approval required.

They’re especially useful for onboarding: new starters and interns don’t build rapport just by being on the same call as everyone else. Fully remote employees report loneliness at work at roughly 25%, compared to 16% of on-site staff, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace research reported by Fortune. A five-minute icebreaker at the start of a meeting is a small, repeatable way to close that gap.

Quick Virtual Team Building activities You Can Run in 5-10 Minutes

Start here if you’ve got a meeting that can spare a two-minute detour before the agenda kicks in.

1. Two Thuths and a Lie (5-10 minutes)
2. This or That (5-10 minutes)
3. Wildcard Presentation (15-30 minutes)
4. Virtual Scavenger Hunt (15-30 minutes)
5. Human Bingo (15-30 minutes)
6. Virtual Water Cooler (15-30 minutes)
7. Spotify Jam Sessions (45-60 minutes)
8. Escape the Zombie Apocalypse (45-60 minutes)
9. Virtual Race Around the World (45-60 minutes)

1. Two Wins and a Want

We’ve swapped this in for the classic “Two Truths and a Lie” — same quick format, but we’d rather not build good team culture on the back of practising a convincing lie. Each person shares two recent wins (work or personal) and one thing they want more of, help with, or less of.

How to run it:

• Give people 30 seconds’ notice before their turn to prepare
• Go round the group, one person at a time
• Optional: keep a running note of the “wants” — they’re often genuinely useful signals for managers

Best for: Team check-ins, retros, or any group that could use a positivity boost with a bit of substance behind it.

1. This or That

Everyone picks between two options — brownies or chocolate chip cookies, mountains or beach, and shares their answer out loud or in the chat. The trick is making the choices just interesting enough that people pause before answering.

How to run it:

• Prep 8–10 either/or questions ahead of time, or crowdsource them live in chat
• Ask one question at a time and have everyone answer in turn
• Ask one or two people to explain their choice for a laugh

Best for: Meeting warm-ups, brainstorms, or any moment energy is flagging.

Pro tip: Run This or That or Two Wins and a Want as the first two minutes of a recurring meeting. Consistency does more for connection than a single big event ever will.

Virtual Team Building Activities for a 15-30 Minute Slot

Once you’ve got half an hour, you can go beyond a warm-up and into something people actually remember.

3. Wildcard Presentation

One person preps a short, deeply unserious slideshow on a topic of their choice (competitive pancake eating, the history of the office kettle, whatever). It’s completely random and somehow always the highlight of the meeting.

How to run it:

• Ask for a volunteer (or assign someone) to prep a 10-15 minute talk
• They present, enthusiasm mandatory, facts optional…
• Leave 5 minutes for questions — this is usually where the best moments happen

Best for: Teams that like to nerd out, or anyone tired of the same three icebreaker formats.

4. Virtual Scavenger Hunt

Give people a list of odd items to find at home: ‘something you can wear on your head’, ‘a vegitable’, ‘a power tool’ — and race to find them all first.

How to run it:

• Prep 5-10 items, leaning slightly absurd rather than obvious
• Set a timer (1-5 minutes works well)
• First person to show all their items on camera wins
• if you still have some time, ask players to hold up their items, pick a few interesting ones and ask them to tell everyone more about it

Best for: Re-energising a team after back-to-back meetings.

5. Human Bingo

Build bingo cards with facts about team members — “has owned a motorcycle,” “can hold their breath for longer than 90 seconds,” “started this month.” People chat in breakout rooms and cross off matches as they find them.

How to run it:

• Build cards with 16–25 squares (a Canva template makes this fast)
• Send cards out before the session
• Give 15–20 minutes in breakout rooms to mingle and cross off matches

Best for: New teams, cross-functional groups meeting for the first time, or onboarding cohorts.

6. Virtual Water Cooler

This is one of ours — Virtual Water Cooler can be run in-house with your own prompts, or fully managed by one of our facilitators if you’d rather hand it off. Either way, it’s built around light games and conversation-starting questions like “if you had one extra hour a day, how would you spend it?”

How to run it:

• Prep 6–8 conversation starters, mixing quick-answer prompts with open discussion questions
• Split into smaller breakout groups so everyone actually gets airtime
• Bring the group back and ask one or two teams to share a highlight

Pro tip: This is close to what we ran for the client with 500 employees and 300 new interns — a handful of “get to know you” prompts in small breakout groups meant even the shyest new starter had said something out loud within ten minutes.

Best for: Onboarding new hires, cross-team mixers, or any group with people who don’t know each other yet.

Learn more about Virtual Team Activities for Large Groups

Longer Virtual Team Building Activities Worth Blocking 45-60 Minutes

Got closer to an hour? These quick virtual team building activities trade speed for depth.

7. Spotify Jam Sessions

Start a Jam with Spotify or Apple Music or nominate someone to be the DJ that takes requests. Set up a shared music playlist, block time on the calendar, and let people work alongside each other.

How to run it:

• Set up a shared playlist or start a ‘Jam’ on Spotify
• Block 30-60 minutes with no fixed agenda
• Let people join and leave as their schedule allows — no pressure to stay the whole time

Best for: Low-pressure connection for deep-work-loving teams who find “mandatory fun” exhausting.

8. Escape the Zombie Apocalypse

Our digital zombie escape room puts small teams under a countdown clock to solve puzzles together before the horde arrives. Available self-managed or fully hosted by one of our entertaining Remote Hosts.

Best for: Teams that want genuine problem-solving pressure, not just chat-based games.

9. Virtual Race Around the World

Our global trivia game sends teams racing through trivia and challenges from around the globe. Self-managed or fully facilitated, and easy to stretch past 60 minutes if your group’s having too much fun to stop.

Best for: Larger or more competitive groups, and teams spread across multiple time zones.

Bonus: Put a Seasonal Spin on Your Quick Virtual Team Activity

Any of the above works with a seasonal twist — a Halloween scavenger hunt, This or That: Festive Edition. Seasonal framing gives people a natural excuse to run something without needing a special reason.

If you want a ready-made version, our Escape the North Pole is a festive spin on the escape room format above — same fast-paced, problem-solving structure, wrapped in a Christmas theme and story-line.

Choosing a Platform for Quick Virtual Activities

For chat-based games like This or That or Two Wins and a Want, whatever you already use for meetings (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet) — is genuinely fine. No new tool needed.

For anything more visual or game-like (scavenger hunts, bingo, escape rooms), a dedicated app or platform tends to work better than a standard video call, mainly because it gives people something interactive to actually do rather than just talk at each other. Immersive virtual-office platforms are one option here, built for ongoing team presence rather than a single activity. A facilitator-led session with purpose-built event tech is another — less setup on your end, and a live host to keep momentum up, which matters more than people expect once a group goes quiet.

Neither is objectively “better” — it depends on whether you want to run this yourself or hand it off.

How to Choose the Right Activity (By How Much Time You Have)

• Got 10 minutes before a meeting starts? Run This or That or Two Wins and a Want — zero setup, works in any video call.
• Got 30 minutes and want people properly talking? A Virtual Scavenger Hunt or Virtual Water Cooler both create real interaction, not just a quick answer each.
• Planning a full hour-long session? Go deeper with a Coworking Spotify Jam Session, or make it an event with a fully managed escape room.
• Onboarding a big group of new starters? Virtual Water Cooler with breakout groups is built exactly for this

For more on this, read our blog: How to Choose and Run Virtual Team Activities That Connect Remote Teams

Frequently Asked Questions about Quick Virtual Team Building Activities

Ready to Run a Quick Team Activity?

You don’t need a big budget or a free afternoon to get your team talking — just the right activity for the time you’ve actually got. Browse our full range of quick virtual team building activities to find one that fits your next meeting, or get in touch and we’ll help you pick.