8 Best Microsoft Teams Games to Boost Productivity
Work meets play with these games!
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Microsoft Teams is a great collaboration tool but holding meetings day-in and day-out can become monotonous and if you’re looking to boost engagement, you may want to try some games.
Organizations have moved from in-person meetings to virtual meetings in the past five years and with remote work, it lacks the socialization aspect. Luckily Microsoft Teams has games that you can play before the start of the meeting or during breaks to ease up the temperatures.
How do I play games on Microsoft Teams?
1. Create a team in Microsoft Teams
- Open up the Microsoft Teams app.
- On the right-hand side of the page you can see different areas such as Teams, Devices, Locations, Users, and more. Click Teams.
- You will be directed to all different teams that you are part of.
- At the bottom left-hand corner of the teams’ list, click New team.
- Then, click Create a new team.
- In the popup dialog box, name your team and give it a description.
- You will then be asked to add the members of the team, so type in their name.
- Any matches will pop up for you to select from.
- Once selected, click the Add button.
- When you’re done adding members, click Close to finish the process.
- Once created, your team will appear in the Admin Center, and in Teams too.
2. Add new Teams members
- Go to the main Teams overview grid.
- Navigate to the team’s profile page.
- Here you can see the members, owners, and guests that belong to the team, along with all the team’s channels and settings.
- From the team profile page, feel free to:
- set whether members can edit and delete sent messages – in Conversation settings.
- set whether the team is public or private – in Privacy settings.
- add new members:
- Click More options > Add member.
- Start typing a name, distribution list, security group, or Office 365 group to add to your team.
- Type the email addresses for adding people outside your organization as guests.
- Once all team members are added, just select Add.
- Then, select Close.
- People you’ve added will receive an email letting them know they are now your team members.
Note: A team can hold up to no more than 5000 members.
3. Create channels for your team
- Find the team that you created.
- Click More options > Add channel.
- Give the channel a descriptive name.
- As a team owner, you can automatically favorite channels for the whole team, making them more visible to all members.
4. Add games
- Select the Team, and then the channel where you want to add games.
- Click the + icon along the top bar of Teams to add a tab and click on Get more apps.
- You can search for games or type in the specific game you wish to add and hit Add to a team and select the one you created in 3 above.
What are some fun games for Microsoft Teams meetings?
Ricotta Games & Trivia – Breaking the ice
If there are new hires or people who haven’t met yet, it may be a little difficult to keep conversations going because everyone is uptight. With the help of Ricotta Games & Trivia, you can break the ice by asking some fun questions to get t know your colleagues a bit better.
The quizzes will help fill in for people who have a hard time maintaining small talk and the trivia will help you get to know each other a little deeper outside the workplace.
You’ll also get a feel of everyone’s strengths which can be instrumental especially if you want to assign work to the right team. Unfortunately, the free trial period only lasts a fortnight so you can test it out and if it’s worth it, you can subscribe to a package.
Who Scavenger hunts – Interactive game
This is yet another game that not only breaks the ice but aims to foster communication among colleagues. It’s basically a get-to-know-your-colleague as the team leader sets up some questions and others have to answer.
It could be about a colleague, department or the organization in general. You can create a time limit for these questions and pair up colleagues to get the adrenalin running.
Each team will have to work hard to come up with the right answers and at the same time, learning valuable information about each other and the company.
Pictionary – Mind-boggling game
Pictionary is a game that puts Microsoft Teams features to use. You’ll be using the Whiteboard as you try to get your team members to guess the picture using words. This game is meant to test critical thinking and how fast you’re on your feet.
Again, you can divide the team into pairs, set a time limit and award points to the best performers. It’s a great energy booster especially if you’ve been holding the meeting for a while and need to recharge.
As a team leader, you can also use this as a benchmark when selecting colleagues to assign different roles for optimum performance.
⟹ Get Pictionary
Wordament – Guess the word game
This is yet another game to break the monotony of all work and no play. Team members are supposed to come up with a complete word by connecting letters to complete the puzzle. This is one of those games you play when you can’t meet for a face-to-face team-building exercise.
It has all the elements of competition, and fun and promotes communication through bonding.
⟹ Get Wordament
Kahoot – Earn-your-stay game
In a virtual setting, people tend to stay quiet and this can go on for consecutive meetings without hearing from select people. However, when you introduce Kahoot to the team, the team members will be engaged and with the quizzes, they’ll be prompted to speak up.
The good thing about Kahoot is you can customize it to fit the current setting. Whether you want to discuss work but on a more fun and lighter note, you can tweak the questions to reflect this.
Since it is also a competitive game, members can be encouraged to get their A-game up which can easily boost morale and encourage them to participate more in future meetings.
⟹ Get Kahoot
GIF story challenge – Fun communication game
Get to test your employees’ creativity by having them guess a GIF. This can be a fun and interactive way to explain a process that’s been fairly difficult for them to understand or breaking the monotony of a session with fun GIFs.
GIFs are already available on Microsoft Teams so the team’s familiarity could make it more fun. Try to relate the GIFs to the workplace, company terms, new hires or anything related to work to help colleagues break the ice.
It could be an imitation of the boss, description of how you feel about certain work processes or communicating your feelings about an issue without the seriousness. Your boss can then catch the hints and adjust accordingly.
Skribblio – Get-to-know each other
Skribblio is all about bringing the creativity out of your team members in a fun and interactive way. You can all pair up and each group takes a turn to draw something and the rest should guess accurately.
If you’re on the same team, you can share hints on the Teams chat to help you score points. You can add more fun to the game by referencing some company terms, heads of department or even a slang word you use to keep it fun and interactive.
The best thing about this game is everyone is involved and it encourages you to step out of your comfort zone as you move from the known to the unknown.
⟹ Get Skribblio
Spin the wheel – Reward game
The good thing about spinning the wheel games is how customizable they are. You can curate it to reflect the mood of the day or whatever activity you wish your team members to participate in. One of the most common wheels employed is the wheel of fortune.
You basically set up the wheel with different prizes or tokens and other slots with a loss or anything else to keep the game going. Each team member will be eager to participate to win something so it’s a great way to interact as you also reward employees.
This can boost their morale and encourage them to work harder if they know their efforts are appreciated.
Another tip we’d recommend is to use Teams as a walkie-talkie and use Teams avatars to identify members of the same group while playing these games especially when you’re split into groups. You can communicate with members of your team to help you with clues and win for your group.
You can also incorporate the Teams note taker to help you refer to the game in your spare time if you want to play the game again and master it.
And it’s not just games. If you’re looking to get into the festive mood, we have outlined some of the best Christmas party ideas to get you started.
If you’d like to find out more about Microsoft Teams, we also have an all-in-one Teams essentials list to help you discover the ins and outs of this collaboration tool.
We also have a guide on the best whiteboard apps for Microsoft Teams so don’t miss it.
Have you played any other Microsoft Teams games that you think we should know about? If so, let us know in the comment section below.
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