Team Building Trivia: A Fun Team Building Exercise

bring people together

A collective eye-roll usually gets triggered whenever the words team building get mentioned.  Well, fear no more, because Team Building Trivia (aka People Trivia) is an awesome exercise that helps with building collaboration, improving workplace communication and does not feel like another task at your job!

As you all know, happy and engaged employees are 12% more productive and have improved health. People with 3 close friends at work are 96% more likely to be satisfied with their lives as well – not just satisfied with their work, satisfied with their lives!!  So, running a Team Building Trivia event will help many aspects of your employees lives!

Team Building Trivia – How it Works

With Team Building Trivia (ie People Trivia), the name says it all: it’s trivia about the people in your organization and it provides the perfect opportunity to learn more about your fellow coworkers.

The setup for People Trivia is easy: a month leading up to an organizational event, send out an email or survey asking people to share something about themselves that most people at work don’t know. You’ll then collect and compile the information and put it into a quiz-form and share it at the meeting.

If the meeting or team is remote, you can take advantage of online polling to interactively engage your audience and let them guess which fellow co-worker is an avid skydiver. If it is in-person, a simple PowerPoint and some in-room discussion can make the presentation more interactive.

Team Building Trivia Questions

The questions you ask can be nearly anything, however this is a perfect opportunity to find out more about your fellow employees than the typical business specifics.

Some example questions that can help you strengthen relationships in your team include:

  • What do you want to be when you grow up?
  • What is one thing your co-workers wouldn’t normally know about you?
  • What was your most memorable moment of high school (or college)?
  • What is one story that you used to feel embarrassed about but can laugh about now?
  • What is something you are very proud of?

You can ask everyone the same questions or switch it up for different people–the key is that you are learning about each other as people, not just co-workers.

For more great questions, check out 50 Questions to Get to Know Someone.

Team Building Presentation

How you present the information is up to you. You can simply share it as “Did you know?” or make it into a team-building game of multiple choice, such as:

Which of your fellow employees used to be a child model:
A) Drew Tarvin
B) Bugs Bunny
C) Jerry Seinfeld
D) Benjamin Franklin

That’s it! Team Building Trivia questions are a great way to build trust and encourage communication among team members. They’ll be learning about each other, having fun, and building an effective team. What’s not to love?

We love this particular exercise because it’s not limited to a physical environment.  If you would like more ideas for team building, checkout our articles on Team Building Activities that are not Awful and Virtual Team Building Activities for Online Teams.

Got your own team building idea or great personal trivia question? Leave it in the comments.

THIS FREE 129 SECOND QUIZ WILL SHOW YOU

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8 thoughts on “Team Building Trivia: A Fun Team Building Exercise”

  1. Pingback: Eight Icebreakers That Are Great for Remote Team Building

  2. There are so many different company team building games that you can participate in. My friend told me that they saw an increased performance of all the members who took part in it.

  3. Pingback: Fun Employee Engagement Ideas for National Boss's Day

  4. I cringe at the thought of having to be involved in activities of this nature. These “team building” exercises are bullish*t and superficial.

    1. Then don’t partake. Be kind, we all have different ideas, that doesn’t mean you have to be nasty about something that you don’t like. Keep it to yourself and move on.

    2. Agree mate, these are so horrible and cant believe people get paid to co-ordinate these! lololol

  5. I came up with this variation of popular icebreaker/get to know you games like two truths and a lie, and employee bingo or trivia. I used your questions from above as examples.

    Materials:
    Index cards
    Pencils/Pens
    Sample Questions (Optional)
    Small – Large Groups (4+)

    Instructions:
    STEP 1: Index cards are placed at each table. Each person is to write down a fun or unknown fact or tidbit about themselves, using the 1st person “I” or “My”. After each person is finished the index cards are placed in the center of the table in a pile. The cards are then shuffled and mixed, so that the order is scrambled. STEP 2: Each card is then read out loud and everyone guesses who they think the card belongs to. STEP 3: After all the cards are read and everyone has made their guess, each person reveals which card/fact belongs to him or herself.

    Fun Twist: When read out loud a person can guess on their own card to throw people off (Optional).

    Example Questions/Answers:
    People can write down what they wish on the card. However, here are some questions that may help spark ideas for those that get stuck or don’t know what to write.
    My first holiday memory is ____________________.
    The famous person I would most like to meet is? And Why?
    What did you want to be when you grew up?
    What is one thing your co-workers wouldn’t normally know about you?
    What was your most memorable moment of high school (or college)?
    What is one story that you used to feel embarrassed about but can laugh about now?
    What is something you are very proud of?
    A food craving I have that others may find odd/weird is?
    e.g. I like to peanut butter and cucumber sandwiches.

    1. Gosh these are great ideas! Geezs DAVE T. and SONIA G are mean….
      If you have something negative to say — Keep it to yourself!
      There are always the few that ruin it for others.

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