Everyone passes the same big piece of paper (or digital whiteboard) around and builds a picture together, piece by piece... and behold! A random story evolves!

How to do it

This icebreaker helps everyone to get into a more creative mindset, AND gets them to show a little bravery by drawing. Drawing can be unfamiliar to a lot of people, but it’s always interesting and insightful when people express themselves in pictures as well as words. Emphasise to your group that this isn’t about drawing ability; it’s about using simple drawing to build on each others’ ideas, in ways that words can’t do alone.

If you’re doing this face-to-face, you start with a large piece of blank office paper (A3) and a marker, while everyone else has a marker. If you’re doing this remotely, you can use the Whiteboard feature on Zoom (you share your screen and select Whiteboard), or some other digital whiteboard like A Web Whiteboard, Mural or Miro. As facilitator, start by making a simple mark or two. Pass it to the next person. They add something to the drawing, pass it to the next person, and so on for a round or two around the group.

This is an ingenious way of letting a random story emerge from the group. I’s also a way to help people realise that they can’t always control the outcome of a creative group session, and to relax into the idea of a truly collaborative collective outcome.

Variations

Here’s a face-to-face variation. Everyone starts with their own piece of paper, and makes the first drawing on their paper. Everyone then passes their paper to the person on their right, who adds their drawing, and so on, until everyone has their own piece of paper back again.

Surprise! It’s always interesting seeing what kooky stories emerge from this activity.

Source: Eva-Lotta Lamm’s visual improvisation game

Download this icebreaker

---

Log in or sign up to get access to all the downloads.

---