Microsoft Teams games: livelier meetings and channels.

At many companies, Microsoft Teams handles both video meetings and written conversations. That makes it a great place for small moments of play, as long as you pick the right spot: a game that works at the start of a meeting isn't the one that will keep a channel lively all week. Here's how to use both, with concrete ideas, a simple way to launch a game during a call, and the traps to avoid.

Two places to play in Teams

Teams gives you two very different spaces.

• The meeting: everyone is there at the same time, camera on or off. It's the right setting for a short live game, to open or close.
• The channel: messages stick around and people drop by when they can. It's the right setting for asynchronous games that stretch over the day.

A meeting creates an intense but brief shared moment; a channel keeps a looser but steady connection. They work well together.

Games to open a Teams meeting

The first five minutes of a meeting often go to waiting for latecomers. You might as well use them.

Quick round

One question, a ten-second answer from each person. For example:

• What's the best thing that happened to you this week?
• What's the last thing you bought that you didn't need?
• If your week were a weather forecast, what would it be?

Call out the speaking order to avoid awkward silences, and let people pass.

The five-minute game

Instead of a speaking round, launch a real short game where everyone plays at once: a drawing game, an estimation quiz, a guessing game. It's the format that loosens people up the most, because nobody is alone in the spotlight.

Launching a game during a call

The simplest method works with any multiplayer web game.

1. Open the game in your browser before the meeting.
2. Paste the link (or show the QR code) in the meeting chat.
3. Everyone joins on their computer or phone, keeping the call open to hear and talk.
4. Don't share your game screen: each person needs to see their own to play.
5. Stop after ten minutes, even if the mood is great. Better to leave people wanting another round.

The game runs in the browser, the audio goes through Teams. Keeping them separate means nothing to install. For external guests, check that the game you pick lets them in without an account at your company.

Games to keep a channel alive

For the written side, create a dedicated channel and offer formats that take a few seconds to play:

• Poll: a multiple-choice question, run with the built-in polling tool or simply with reactions.
• Monday riddle: a riddle posted in the morning, the answer at the end of the day.
• Photo of the week: one theme, and anyone who feels like it posts a picture.
• Mystery desk: someone describes their workspace in three clues, and the others guess who it is.

Keep the pace slow: one or two posts a day at most, or the channel ends up hidden.

Using Kwoji with Teams

Kwoji is one option for live games. It's worth being precise about how it works with Teams: there is no Kwoji app inside Teams. Kwoji is a web app; you share a game link in the meeting, and everyone plays in their browser, on a computer or phone, joining by link, QR code, or a short code you can read out loud.

On the channel side, an admin can paste a Teams incoming webhook URL into Kwoji's admin settings. From then on, every open game is announced in that channel, with the game, what it's about, how many players it needs, how long it takes, and a link to join. The free plan gets this too: it covers up to 200 members and 4 games with unlimited play.

For a first game at the top of a meeting, Kwoji Ezagutza is a good pick: number questions, everyone estimates with a slider, and you find out who has the best feel for orders of magnitude.

For something more creative, Kwoji Whisper chains sentences and drawings like an illustrated game of telephone. The Kwoji for business page covers the full offer, and the Microsoft Teams page describes the setup.

Traps specific to Teams

• Meetings that already run long: adding a game to an hour-long meeting that always runs over will only annoy people. Take the time from the agenda, not on top of it.
• Mandatory cameras: some people can't or don't want to turn theirs on. No game should depend on it.
• Forgotten external guests: if people from another company are in the call, check they can join the game without a work account at your company.
• Screen sharing for everything: a game where one person holds the mouse and everyone else watches isn't a group game.

Start without overplanning

Pick a recurring meeting where the mood is already relaxed, tell the team there will be five minutes of play at the start, and try it three weeks in a row before judging. If your company also uses Slack, our guide to games for Slack has more ideas, and our list of icebreakers for team meetings offers other opening questions.