This or That Questions for Work

This or that questions for work

Most meeting icebreakers either take too long or ask people to share too much. These this or that questions for work do neither. Each card is a quick choice about how people like to work: meetings, email, desks, breaks and schedules. The page has 51 of them and draws one at random when you press Next.

Three from the deck:

• “Camera on or camera off?”
• “Planner or improviser?”
• “Lead the meeting or take the notes?”

How to run it in a meeting

1. Open the page before the meeting starts.
2. Share your screen or read the card out loud.
3. Everyone answers, out loud or in the chat.
4. Ask one or two people to explain their pick in a sentence.
5. Press Next, the space bar or the right arrow for the next card.

Previous takes you back one card. The “Seen so far” list keeps track of what you have used, and the copy button copies the current card for pasting into chat.

Formats that work at work

Chat vote on remote calls

Ask everyone to type 1 for the first option and 2 for the second. It works with cameras off, includes the quiet people and takes about thirty seconds.

Hands up in the room

For in-person meetings, raise a hand for the first option. Count it out loud and move on.

Team profile

Over a few weeks, keep a simple list of how the team answers the cards about work style, such as the planner card above. It is a light way to learn how colleagues prefer to work.

Majority guess

Before each reveal, people guess which side the team will land on. The person with the most correct guesses at the end of the month picks the next team lunch spot.

Good moments to use it

• Weekly team meetings, one card at the top of the agenda.
• Remote team calls, to get people talking before the real topics.
• New hire onboarding, so a new person learns about the team and the team learns about them.
• Workshops and offsites as a warm up between sessions.
• Retrospectives, to ease into the conversation.

Facilitator tips

Keep it short and keep it optional. A “pass” is always fine. Answer the first card yourself to show how light it is. On mixed calls, alternate between people in the room and people on the screen so remote colleagues are not an afterthought. If a card sparks a useful thread about how the team works, note it for later instead of letting it eat the meeting.

Random and fair

The cards are shuffled with your browser’s cryptographic random generator, so the facilitator is not choosing favorites. It runs in any browser, needs no account and is free.

Related tools

For non work topics at an after hours event, try the this or that questions for adults. For open ended conversation starters, use the random question generator. To pick who answers each card, spin the random name picker.

Examples from this deck

A few of the 51 questions you can get above:

• Coffee or tea?
• Handwritten notes or typed notes?
• Camera on or camera off?
• Early start or late finish?
• Whiteboard or sticky notes?
• Desk snacks or desk plants?
• Team trivia or team scavenger hunt?
• Lead the meeting or take the notes?
• Short meetings or no meetings?
• Four-day week or flexible hours?
• Learn a new tool or master an old one?
• Big team or small team?