This game uses the pattern of trading cards as a fun, non-confrontational way for people to show their strengths and weakness, especially when it comes to working within a team.

How to do it

Make sure everyone has a marker and an index card. 5 x 7 inch is a good size, lines are OK but blank is best. Encourage everyone to have fun with this, and make sure they understand that this isn’t about drawing ability or trying to draw really well; it’s about capturing and communicating ideas as simple pictures rather than words. There’s no right or wrong with this.

Give everyone 5 minutes to draw themselves as a sports player or superhero on their card, and to write a superpower at the top, and their ”˜kryptonite’ (a weakness) at the bottom.

Then, get everyone to take turns showing their card to everyone else, and briefly talking about their superpower and kryptonite. Make sure you collect the cards and put them up in a common area, to remind the group.

Variations

If you’re facilitating this icebreaker remotely, it’s a good idea for everyone to take a picture of their card with their phone, and post the picture to Slack (or a similar online collaboration app).

For extra ”˜trading card’ vibe, get everyone to rate their superpower out of 100, and write the number in the top right corner.

You can take this icebreaker further, as an informal skills assessment game in a team. If you want to do this, make sure that there is a high level of trust and respect amongst the team, otherwise this won’t really work. You’ll need to pick some simple ”˜player attributes’ ahead of time, that make sense for your context and your group. For example, you could use attributes like Creativity, Communication, Detail.

Get everyone to draw themselves as above, but also to put number ratings (out of 100) on their cards for each of the attributes. This helps everybody to understand more about each other’s working style.

Source: Gamestorming