hello everybody i am here today to share with you some of my cool new tips around agile and scrum
so if this is your first time here my name is karen for my phone your
agile evangelist and welcome back to my channel so you know that as a seven leader
you cannot impose on people you cannot instruct people you cannot tell people what to do
you cannot mandate anything to people now how do you successfully do your job without coming
across as all of these things that i just listed ice breakers are your secret weapon
ice breakers are one of those powerful tools of a seven leader of an agile practitioner
that you can never ever go wrong with if you use them right today we're gonna be addressing some
ice breaker ideas i have put together a list of my favorite ice breaker tips that i love to use from
time to time and i am very sure that it will be very instrumental to you you may normally a scrum
master so agile practitioners i know that you would definitely already have something in place
maybe some four or five key icebreaker ideas that i go to but you agree with me that from time to
time you need fresh ideas you need fresh cool tips so that you keep things interesting with
your teams so that is exactly the purpose for this video today i want to be sharing with you some of
these icebreaker ideas that you can take into your toolbox and add to the options you already have
so that you can continuously um add value to your team and be very very effective as an adjunct
practitioner now before we go to start addressing all the icebreaker ideas that i have for you if
this is your first time here you're very very welcome and you're loved just so you stay in sync
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know the same way come here and share my ideas i'm always always very very open to getting some tips
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so appreciative and god bless you now let's get into our topic for today before we even go into
um addressing some of um as the icebreaker ideas what exactly is icebreaker in the first place
i need you to see icebreaker as that technique that you implement as a seven leader
to provoke conversations that's what an icebreaker is it is just that technique or that approach
that you use to jumpstart conversations see it as an engine oil for cars you know from time to time
you have to keep your car rolling and for you to do that you have to make sure that the oil
is always renewed they always always clean you oil the engine and fit and water that ground
set that stage so that people will feel safe to have conversations you know so
it is really that technique that you use to um set an environment or a conducive atmosphere
for people to feel safe to have open and honest conversation and it really use it as well to build
trust within your team connect with your team on a personal level outside of just work
that is what an ice breaker is now before um we go into discussing these tips these different ideas
of eyes breaking i would just like to highlight about two three four key benefits of ice breakers
the number one um benefit of ice breaker is icebreaker can enhance trust within your team
it is that powerful weapon where just having people talk on things outside of the ordinary
work or the day-to-day work it builds trust is that opportunity to for team building it creates
a bond within your team you know that's one key benefit of using an ice breaker the second one is
it um it creates a space for people to feel safe in being vulnerable
acceptance of vulnerability it creates that atmosphere where people feel
they feel safe to open up even on things that they would normally not feel okay to opening up with
that is the way i call this in a nutshell is it creates that environment where people feel
confident in being vulnerable you feel confident in their vulnerability you see
and then a third one would be ice breaker is a great transition tool
that is team members transitioning from whatever they've been doing into another face
icebreaker is that powerful tool to help them transition well and start whatever new thing
that is in whatever new initiative started on a positive note for example a typical great time
to use an icebreaker would be at the end of the sprint in your retrospective that's the safe space
where you started with an icebreaker you know it would create that atmosphere of people you
know connecting before transitioning into a whole new sprint so that is one of the benefits of um
of using an icebreaker and last but not the least icebreaker is also that cool um
technique that is used to energize the team help them to think creatively think outside the box
you know and with that you know that once your team gets creative it helps them become highly
performing so ice breaker seems very simple but it's a powerful powerful technique now now that
we've addressed some of the four key benefits of of leveraging ice breaker let's jump into what
i have on my list are some of the cool ideas for eyes breaking number one is visual eyes breaking
technique so on this visual ice breaking technique they have different ways to do it the common one
that i use is i asked my team to share with us an emoji or a series of emojis or you know a picture
that describes how they they're currently feeling you see so with that you will see team members
are coming up with different emojis some emojis maybe angry face or emoji maybe confused some
emojis maybe smiling some emojis may be exciting and now with those emojis we talk around them we
have conversations around them and dig more into it flesh it out to um really get an insight and
have an understanding at that point i subscribe myself what i'm really doing is i'm listening
i'm listening to truly connect with my team i see that opportunities as a connection period you
know so that's one of the ice breaker techniques that i use often and it's pretty easy and then um
and for this to to to really work very well um if you're working in an um in a virtual environment
um you will need a virtual whiteboard like mirror like mural like microsoft teams virtual
whiteboard whatever your team is using yeah so um that's what that said and then still on
this particular visual icebreaking technique also i can even ask my team to share with us
a youtube link or maybe a spotify link to a music that describes how they are currently feeling
you see with that people come up with different things that you can never even think about and
then another way is i can ask team members to share with us an image that describes what they
are currently looking forward to and with that you see people coming up with image of blue calm
and gentle sea you see people coming up with with a vacation beach location and all that cool stuff
yeah so those are some of the techniques that i've used under visual ice breaker techniques
and then another um category of ice breaking technique that i use is what i call one word
icebreaker technique one word and with this one word icebreaker technique what i usually do some
of the things that i would do with this kind of technique is i can ask the team to share with us
in one word how they currently feel just give give us in one word tell us how you currently feel you
know and then from there team members will come up with different things and then you can now
flesh it out have a conversation around it and then still under this one word another thing
that i typically do is i would ask my team to tell with us in one word if a sprint was a car
what would that car be remember i remember one time i used this icebreaking technique and
a team member said it would be 1925 subaru
the team ever said it's going to be 1925 to borrow i say ah because my dad used to have
the old race to barrow car and i didn't like that car at all you know the car with the big
big mouths and big um um buttocks so i didn't like that car also when i heard that i laughed so hard
yeah but that's one of the icebreaker techniques i always use under the the one word category yeah
and then based on what they would come up with we now have conversations around need and then
we just said that atmosphere for conversation and then another category of icebreaker is what i call
appreciation icebreaker or celebration icebreaker with this icebreaker i usually ask team members
to take a minute to appreciate a specific team member on a particular pointing out the particular
thing they did you know clearly communicating why they are appreciating them let me tell you
that's a great motivation um technique because most people love to be recognized
most people love to be recognized so just team members having in their head that
that we may be carrying out like an activity they will be their best they will be their best and you
know that usually little drops of water forms a sea you see so they would always they would
strive to be their best and through that we will become mature and will reflect our scrum
values as we intended to yeah so i usually just ask the team to take a minute and appreciate
um each other on some specific pointing out the specific and usually we focus on the scrum values
pointing out the specific scrum value that a team member reflected and how helpful it was yeah
yeah so still under this um appreciation category another thing that i typically do is um we may not
uh focus on individual but as a team we dedicate that first um ice-breaking period to celebrate
the wins the little wings in our team celebrate the little wins in our team you know and just
point them out and appreciate ourselves as a team for the little wins you know and it's also again
it's a very great motivating factor yeah so that's the third category and the fourth category is um
physical um ice breaker that's how i categorize it physical icebreaker under this physical icebreaker
what i usually ask the team to do is i would ask them to bring maybe pets bring bring in pets
and just share with us you know and talk about the pets and then another time is for those who
have um kids you know come with a kid come with your kid connect online with your kid
if it's an in person come come with your kid and we just have a good time just spend a moment just
celebrating each other you know or any loved one you have in your life bring them along
you know and it's a very it's usually very very very fun and um still under this physical
another thing that we usually do is just around your office space you know just pick anything
around your office space and talk about it pick anything around your office piece and just show
show everyone else and talk about it you know it's usually very very fun yeah so um those are my four
categories of ice breaking ideas i'm sure that um you should have learned one or two things
to bring into the other options you already had
yeah so um that will be it for today i hope this session was helpful and as you always know always
very open to feedback leverage the comment section to drop your thoughts drop your feedback and we'll
always always always really really appreciate it thank you so very much again
this is caring for my phone yo agile evangelist by the way my son finds it so hard to pronounce
it for my phone's name you know but he's gonna be okay and hope to talk to you another time bye