Ranking Game
An icebreaking activity that brings energy and movement into the room. It is also a good way for the group to share their own, and learn about others, experiences and thoughts.
You ask the group to physically rank themselves depending on the questions asked. It can also be done in a circle (also called star formations). Works with any sized group above 4-5, but is particularly good for large groups.
5-any
5 -15 min
Medium
Steps
- Ask the group to stand against one of the walls.
- Explain that one end of the wall is ‘the least’/’closest’ and the other side is the ‘the most’/’the furthest away’.
- Pick questions depending on what you would like to get out of the session.
- For ice breaking you might ask questions such as ‘who has worked the longest in this company/industry?’, ‘who lives the closest or furthest away from here’ or more silly such as ‘rank yourself in terms of shoe size’.
- In an established team you may be more specific, like ‘how likely would you be to recommend working on this project?’, ‘how confident are you that this solution will work?’.
- Let the group move around and once everyone is settled into the ranking line, you can ask each person to share their actual answer. For example, the number of months/years or location. If it is a very large group, only pick a few along the line.
Debrief
You may sprinkle your questions throughout the exercise, and reflect once everyone is settled into a ranking for a question. For example, are you surprised by where you ended up in this ranking? Or you can leave questions to the end; such as what did you learn, maybe about yourself, that was most surprising?
Bonus tip
You can use this in a retrospective or post-project review to gain feedback.
Let the group themselves come up with questions for the group.
If you have got a large open area, you can use the same principles by standing in a circle and having most in the middle of the circle, and least at the edge of the circle.
What you need
- No props needed