 So welcome to y'all. I hope you all had some lunch and you enjoyed your morning so far. How much does a polar bear weigh? Who knows, this joke hands up. What's the answer? Enough to break the ice. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure you're at the right talk. I'm going to be talking about ice breakers today. I feel there's something that people dread or maybe even stay away from. So I'm hoping to change that. Okay, so who am I? I'm Fonda, head of agile delivery at previous Nex. I've got a weird name. I've got a Westie called Hunter. I'm a foodie. I've got a bit of a chip problem. I'm a power lifter, but I quite enjoy running an ice breaker before I start a big workshop. My experience is if I can set the tone for a meeting, do some solid meeting prep. I get to learn a lot about the team that I'll be working with. So I thought I'd share some stuff with you today that may help you improve the way you kick off your meetings. Get to know your team better and strengthen your team's connection. Who are you? So you may be one or both of these. A facilitator, by the way, is anyone who runs a meeting. It's not just a project manager or a delivery manager. Meeting attendee, that's all of us. I'm calling out both, but mainly going to focus on helping facilitators today. So in particular, the ones who aren't a fan of ice breakers, so they don't ever use them. I don't want you to tune out, though, if you're a dev or a BA or a tech lead. I believe meeting facilitation is a skill that everyone should have. And the ice breaker is a simple one from the facilitation toolbox. Okay, so let's start with what the actual purpose of the ice breaker is. So the actual definition to break the ice is to do or say something to relieve tension or get conversation going in a strained situation or in a stranger's meet. So it's about making people who have or haven't met before feel more relaxed with each other. So why don't some of us like to use ice breakers? Here are some reasons. It's not an exhaustive list. If you're a facilitator, perhaps you don't see any value in using them. You'd rather just run the reading, why waste the time. You find running them boring. It's easier just to avoid it. You use ice breakers that are, you know, maybe inappropriate or too tricky to answer. And consequently, you find that you don't get what you need out of your team. Maybe the meeting stays tense or the team stays tuned out. As a meeting attendee, perhaps you've been scarred from previous ice breakers that are run terribly, or the facilitator wasn't very prepared. You think they're a waste of time. Let's just get on with the meeting. You find them super awkward. You don't want to talk about anything or share anything. You're just there for the meeting. Some unfortunate sentiments here, a bunch of reasons for them that I think have given ice breakers a bad reputation. If people don't understand the role of ice breakers though, they're certainly not going to value them. So why should you invest the time in running an ice breaker? Because it's very little effort required and it makes an impact. It can affect your working relationships in a very positive way, which can then make the work more enjoyable. It's actually very easy to run an ice breaker once you're sure of what you want to do. It doesn't need to be complicated. I kicked off a discovery workshop with what I would call a very serious client. I didn't use an open question either. I just asked, who are you? Where are you from? One of the PNX's mentioned there from Bundaberg. The client couldn't stop talking about how much he loved Bundaberg. And continue this chat with the PNX up after the workshop was over. Then throughout the project, whenever we talked about needing to see him, he would joke about coming up to Bundaberg instead of us actually trying to see him. So this is a sort of banter you want because it helps people get people talking. And when people are at ease at each other, they have a better chance of working world together. Okay, so here's what else I think ice breakers have the potential to do for you. They can help to build and maintain team connection, even allowing you to kick off meetings with more ease. They also allow people to be themselves, even if it's momentarily. So it's not always about the work. You want to be able to see people other than as a colleague. They can help build rapport amongst the team so that people get comfortable with each other. It can also help to reorient team members who've worked together before and also helps introduce new team members in a really low key way. Finally, get people into the right mindset. So you're pulling everyone into the same space so they're together and present. This can actually help anyone who's feeling a little bit nervous as well. I can safely say that every workshop I run, either in person or remotely, by the time you get to the second or third person who's answered the question, you can actually feel that people are less tense. The reason for this is usually because people are focused on what people are sharing. They might comment or ask questions and this sparks extra conversation throughout the meeting but also throughout the project. So, don't underestimate the importance of kicking off a meeting well and doing solid meeting prep. Also, if your team has confidence in you running the meeting, you're more likely to succeed in getting what you need from them during and beyond. Okay, so I just have some quick caveats. Let's get clear on what ice breakers won't do. It seems obvious, but the ice breaker isn't actually going to magically resolve any current people team issues. It won't strengthen your working relationships on their own. So, other things need to line up. You can't rely on them alone to get to know your team. And you won't get a 100% success rate each time. So, there are nuances to the way people respond and you may be challenged occasionally with people who refuse to participate. They might be quite curt and so forth. You can let them be, mention they can observe. For me, it'd be important to know how I can connect with someone like that. So, there's various things I do to help that along. I'm actually not going to cover that today. But if you have a problem like this, please come and chat to me later. Okay, so what are bad ice breakers? Also pretty obvious, I think. They're inappropriate, too personal, too controversial. You want your ice breaker not to offend or trigger anyone in the process. It's also not about sparking debate or creating more tension. Okay, I'll put some actual examples up just in case. Do you have any phobias? Do you have a criminal record? It's the craziest thing you've ever done. Who do you dislike at work? Describe your biggest failure in life. What part of your job is your least favorite? What is your stance on insert controversial topics? I don't need to tell you what the controversial topics are. All right, so let's just avoid them all together. It's not going to end well. It doesn't matter how well you know each other. Stay away from them. So, what makes a good ice breaker? So, I think they do need to be easy to answer. You don't want people sitting around trying to think of a response. They're somewhat relevant to the session or context you're working with. That's quite helpful. And you're able to learn something new about each other. That'll keep the session really interesting. Okay, so now we're going to go through examples based on actual meeting types. So, my first example is a project kickoff where you have new team members. Doesn't matter if they're new to the company or not. So, my example's up there. What do you need from your team to be successful? The best way to build my trust is how do you most prefer to receive feedback? Now, you could start with something like what's your favorite type of food. I wouldn't in this scenario. There's nothing wrong with food questions. PNX is, no, I love food questions. It's just that it's an introductory meeting. So, I think you and the team will get more value out of the answers to these questions. But, of course, use the food ones later. Okay, so then for a retro planning meeting or similar, where you've got the same team meeting regularly, you can ask less serious questions. And this is mainly because the group already knows each other. They already understand how everyone works together. You're meeting regularly enough. Quick games or activities are also really good in these scenarios. So, yes, please mix it up. Here are my examples. What's something you couldn't live without? What's one thing we would never guess about you? I work best when? What's something you think is totally underrated? Or is your last song a Spotify? Just examples, you know, you might think of better ones. For meetings with multiple vendors or people from mixed disciplines, you might want to ask about collaboration or communication styles. But I also think it's fine to keep it light. So, my example's there. The most effective communication method for you. What is your secret strength? My hopes for this team are, what would you do if you had a fully paid year-long break from work? What's something you're looking forward to and why? Now, one day you might get asked to facilitate a meeting for big wigs. Maybe it's their strategy day or their quarterly planning. Personally, I think this is a great opportunity to cut through the expected seriousness of these sessions and see what people are actually like when they don't need to talk about work. So, I'd consider asking anything that isn't related to work. What was the first thing you bought with your own money? What's your guilty pleasure when you have free time? What's a hobby or side project you've been meaning to take up? What do your loved ones think you do for work? You get the idea. Hey, it's time for me to recap. I've got three takeaways for you. Make icebreakers your facilitation friend. Use them to know your team better, to get to know your team better. Encourage team connection. It's best to put some thought into the icebreaker and the session. Tailor it to your audience. It will pay off. The beauty is it doesn't require much time or effort to get people talking and collaborating more. And as a facilitator or meeting attendee, I encourage you to lean into the next icebreaker with curiosity and enthusiasm. If you've always disliked participating, think about what you have to gain from sharing. If you've not cared to use an icebreaker before, give it a go. Your next meeting, just have some fun with it. And finally, if you're not sure how to start or really need some help with it, please don't hesitate to contact me. Thank you so much. What is my go-to icebreaker? I don't have a favourite one because I always have to tailor it. But I mentioned that I quite like food questions. And with previous next, we like talking about food. Any angle. And so that can get quite fun. I do an open question every Thursday to the team. And what I'm looking for is a lot of responses. Because it means it's created that banter that I'm after. Percentage of time where I've said a crap. And I assume you mean I've started an icebreaker. It's not going very well. Okay, so I'll read the room. Look, I don't think I've run a bad one, I'll be honest. But that's only because I do a lot of research before him. I need to know who's attending. And if I don't know who's attending, I need to find out at least demographics. What area of the business are they from? What are their positions? And I go from there. But if I had to pull it back or something like that, I'd have a backup icebreaker or I'd just move on with the meeting. But I think that's where facilitation is really important. You have to know when to steer conversations. You have to know when to jump in when someone's struggling. And yeah, and my point about bad icebreakers is important because if you pick one that makes people uncomfortable, you're definitely not going to get what you need. Yes, I hope that answers it. Okay, so the question was, what about over successful questions where it might take too much time? Again, that hasn't happened to me, but my advice would be always time box. So don't think a few seconds per person is sufficient. Say you have a two-hour workshop, 15 minutes is good. And I would time box it now. If it runs into 20 minutes, that's fine. But yeah, as a facilitator, you get to pick the pace too. So you don't cut people off, but you can say, okay, you're next or whatnot. I'm a bit of a, I like to be punctual with things. And so I always look and looking at the time. The thing is, if it gets out of control, that's a good thing because people are talking. But if you just say, even if you have an agenda, and you say this is how long we're going to spend on this, people will respect that. Okay, so the question is, what do you do when there's someone who's uncomfortable during an icebreaker and you'd still like to include them? Yeah, it's a tricky one because it's not for everyone. So, you know, I would usually say it's totally fine for you to skip this one, but I would want to get to know them one-on-one, and then I'd go from there. So in the session, I wouldn't put them on the spot and say you have to answer the question. But this is the, I guess, the beauty of being a facilitator. You start picking up on who's actually quite shy, who's an oversharer, you know, who talks a lot. And then you use that in your future meetings. So, yeah, you know who to reign in. And so, yes, I would take them aside and ask them if they would be comfortable answering anything or if there are activities they would be comfortable with. I think it's really important to include people like that too because I can be super shy. I don't know if that's believable. But, yeah, so I totally understand that. And I guess I would just over-accommodate for that as a meeting lead, yeah. Thank you so much, everyone.