Updated: May 01, 2023

69 Unusual Icebreaker Questions For Work In 2023

This is a list of creative, unexpected, and unusual icebreaker questions for work meetings.

Unusual icebreaker questions are prompts that you can include at the top of a meeting to jumpstart engagement between employees that may not have had the opportunity to get to know each other yet. For example, “when you were a child, what was your favorite dinosaur?” or “If your aura had a color, what color would it be?” The purpose of these questions is to open up opportunities for personal connection while engaging the group’s sense of humor.

These prompts are a subset of icebreaker questions, get to know you questions, and icebreaker question for virtual meetings.

This list includes:

  • unique icebreaker questions
  • creative icebreaker questions
  • humorous ice breakers
  • new ice breaker questions for virtual meetings
  • weird icebreaker questions
  • unexpected icebreaker questions
  • icebreaker questions to shake up the routine
  • unusual most likely to questions

Let’s get weird!

Unique icebreaker questions

  1. When you were a child, what was your favorite dinosaur?
  2. If you could animorphs-style transform into one animal for 30 minute increments, what would that animal be?
  3. If you could set up a teleporter in your house that could go to one location, where would that location be?
  4. If you ended up with the dream job of your 5-year-old self, what would you be doing right now?
  5. What holiday tradition do you wish you could do every single day?
  6. What is the best witty comeback you thought of hours or days later?
  7. What is something you tried to blame on a sibling? Did you get away with it?
  8. What is an interaction you had with a stranger that you still think about from time to time?

Creative icebreaker questions

  1. If your aura had a color, what color would it be?
  2. Who’s your favorite painter or what’s your favorite piece of visual art?
  3. If your likeness was to be turned into a statue, in what pose would you like to be immortalized?
  4. If your life had a soundtrack, which music artist or composer would you want to create it?
  5. What scent would you turn into a candle if you could use any scent?
  6. If you had to become a supervillain, which hero would be your arch-nemesis?
  7. What is the strangest thing you have ever eaten?
  8. Share an “am I on a hidden camera show?” moment.
  9. If you were a ghost, who and where would you haunt?
  10. What is a song you love that might surprise people?

Humorous ice breakers

  1. If you were a cartoon character who wore the same outfit every day (as they do), what would that outfit be?
  2. Do your best impression of the goofiest laugh you could possibly think of.
  3. If you could have any pet, what would the funniest pet name be for that specific animal? (ex. Naming a Corgi “Stumpy” because of their short legs)
  4. Do an impression of what your favorite animal would sound like if they could speak our language.
  5. Action heroes always say “Danger is my middle name.” What would be your middle name if it was an attribute that describes you? And say your full name.
  6. At what point did your life seem most like a sitcom scenario?
  7. Describe the most awkward photograph you have ever taken.
  8. You have a budget of a million dollars to pull an epic prank. What’s your plan?

New ice breaker questions for virtual meetings

  1. What are you wearing from the waist down right now? WRONG ANSWERS ONLY.
  2. What is the last thing you’d want to hear from someone who thought they were muted but weren’t?
  3. In which of your virtual backgrounds would you most like to be located right now? (show us!)
  4. Get as close to your microphone as possible and whisper your favorite or least favorite word into it.
  5. Show us your favorite Virtual Meeting dance move, seeing as you can only be seen from the waist up.
  6. Who or what is most likely to crash your Zoom meeting screen?
  7. Finish the sentence: “Just off camera is…”
  8. What is your worst work from home habit?
  9. What is the strangest place you have ever taken your laptop to work?

Weird icebreaker questions

  1. If you were a rock, where would you be located and why?
  2. How many arms would you like to have if you could have as many as you wanted (bearing in mind they still have to fit on your body), and what additional uses would they provide you?
  3. If you could bring one kind of fruit or vegetable to life to be your new pet, which would you choose and why?
  4. If you could split your consciousness into two halves so you’d never have to sleep, would you rather be the day half or the night half and why?
  5. If you could shoot one food item out of your eyes, what would it be?
  6. You have two minutes to fashion zombie-fighting tools with the objects available to you in your current room. What’s your plan?
  7. What is a proper punishment for people who say the word “moist” liberally?

Unexpected icebreaker questions

  1. What date (Day and Month) is the best date of the year and why?
  2. If you could create an entirely new flavor of tea out of a vibe, situation, or environment, what would it be? (ex. A tea that tasted like a sunset viewed from a mountaintop)
  3. If you could only speak in lyrics from one individual song, what song would you choose?
  4. If you could summon an endless amount of a specific office supply, what would it be?
  5. If you won the lottery, what would you miss most about life before being a millionaire?
  6. What was the strangest name for a pet you have ever heard?
  7. Show us your signature dance move.
  8. The CEO has ripped the back of his/her pants and has asked you to create a distraction so that they can sneak to their office unseen. How do you cause a ruckus?
  9. What’s your favorite letter of the alphabet?

Icebreaker questions to shake up the routine

  1. If you could freeze time to add literally anything to your morning routine, what would it be?
  2. If there could be a vending machine in the office that dispensed literally anything, what would you want to be in it?
  3. If you could add any topic of conversation to the agenda of this meeting, what would it be?
  4. If you could hire any human being from history, real or fictional, to help out in your IT department, who would it be?
  5. If casual Fridays had one requirement for a specific article of clothing, what would that article of clothing be? (ex. Everyone has to wear a bow-tie).
  6. You get to have one rich person house feature installed in your home. What are you choosing?
  7. You discover a random door. Where are you hoping it leads?
  8. What is the strangest talent you possess?

Unusual most likely to questions

  1. Who in this room is most likely to disappear for eleven months to circumnavigate the Earth in a sailboat?
  2. Who in this room is most likely to interrupt a meeting by climbing on top of the conference table and presenting their idea from there?
  3. Who in this room is most likely to actually be a fictional character who accidentally found their way into the real world?
  4. Who in this room is most likely to have their favorite flavor of ice cream be mint chocolate chip?
  5. Who in this room is most likely to be the *first* to say some form of “bless you” after someone sneezes?
  6. Who in this room is most likely to randomly burst into song?
  7. Who in this room is most likely to crowd surf at a concert?
  8. Who in this room is most likely to go overboard decorating their house for Halloween?
  9. Who in this room is most likely to have a picture of a fish on their phone?
  10. Who in this room is most likely to binge watch a really obscure Netflix show?

Final Thoughts

Many employees are used to standard icebreakers like “where do you live?” or “what is your favorite food?” and have answered these questions dozens of times. Shaking up the routine with unexpected questions can grab employees’ attention and make a more lasting impression.  The more unusual an icebreaker question is, the more personality and uniqueness you will receive from the responses! These icebreaker questions are perfect for any team wanting to add variety and extra fun to the top of a meeting. Discussing these prompts will not take much time, and will start the meeting with positive energy!

FAQ: Unusual icebreakers

Here are answers to common questions about unusual icebreakers.

What are some unexpected icebreaker questions to ask teammates?

Unexpected icebreaker questions will be any icebreaker question that breaks the mold from your regular “share something interesting about yourself!” The more unusual or unexpected, the more fun the results will be, which will allow your teammates to both learn more about each other and have a few laughs along the way.

Some good examples include:

  • When you were a child, what was your favorite dinosaur?
  • What holiday tradition do you wish you could do every single day?
  • What scent would you turn into a candle if you could use any scent?
  • If you could bring one kind of fruit or vegetable to life to be your new pet, which would you choose and why?

These questions prevent automatic answers and make for more memorable responses!

How can you make icebreaker questions more interesting?

To make icebreaker questions more interesting, step into the realm of the ridiculous! We deal with monotony every day, often following the same mental paths over and over throughout the day. You want your icebreaker questions to pivot your teammates into a pathway of thought that they don’t usually explore! Oftentimes this is best accomplished through “what if” scenarios.

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Author:

People & Culture Director at teambuilding.com.
Grace is the Director of People & Culture at TeamBuilding. She studied Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, Information Science at East China Normal University and earned an MBA at Washington State University.

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