Best Icebreaker to Kick Off a Meeting, Project or Workshop

This icebreaker is called hopes and fears. My favorite thing about this exercise is that right at the beginning it allows people to actually express all of their feelings, get everything out, align their perspectives, and it helps them build trust with each other because they understand each other's viewpoints before diving into solving the challenge at hand. What materials do you need? You need a whiteboard or a big space for you to place some sticky notes on. You need sticky notes. You need one of each color. We're going to do pink for hopes and blue for fears. I don't know why in my head blue is fear. For the very first step, you're going to be sharing the purpose of the exercise with the group. You're going to be telling the group that they're going to be sharing their hopes for this particular session. And you need to give examples as a facilitator, so you can say things like, "I hope to gain a clear understanding of the project goals. " Another one could be, "I want to strengthen collaboration in our team. " Next, you just ask participants to start writing their hopes on the pink sticky notes with their Sharpie. And make sure to tell them that it's one hope per sticky note. And then the next step is you're asking participants to place their hopes on the board. And they can read them out loud if they're comfortable. Step four is you're just going to ask them to repeat the exact same process, but with the fears. Again, you as the facilitator need to give examples so that they know what a fear actually is. So, I've written some here. "I'm afraid my ideas won't be taken seriously. I'm nervous about speaking in front of a group. " Again, same process. You ask people to come up. If people are comfortable to share their fears, they can share them out loud. If not, that's okay. They can just place them on the board. And by the end of it, you'll have a whole board of hopes and fears for the session.