Activity Overview

The Four Quarters is a tried and tested ice breaker activity to conduct with a group or team.

It is easy to prepare for and set up and can be modified to work with any group and/or topic (just restructure the questions). It is colorful, fun and visual.

Objectives

• To break the ice within a group or team when conducting an event.

Materials Needed

• Flipchart and markers for each participant

Step By Step Procedures

1. Give each participant a piece of flip chart and some markers.
2. Ask them to divide their flip charts into four quarters.
3. Ask them to draw their response to four questions (one for each quarter).
4. Give them about 5-10 minutes to work individually.
5. Regroup and give each person 4-10 minutes (depending on how much time you have) to share their chart and responses with the group.

Here are sample questions you can ask:

1. What do you kind of skill do you bring to your team?
2. What do you need from the team?
3. What is your hobby?
4. What is your vision for this team?
5. What Legacy do you want to help create through this organization?
6. What is one event that basically shaped your life?
7. A current challenge you are facing outside of work…
8. The types of things that stress you the most at work…
9. What you need others to understand about you when you are under stress…
10. What you need to do when under stress…
11.  

You can restructure the questions to work with your organization. The questions can be aimed at attaining some specific goals for example you can ask questions that help the team on improving how they communicate with each other when under stress. It is remarkable how much participants open up and learn about each other even though they have worked together for years.

Other questions you could insert:

• Defining moment (personal or professional)
• Moment of pride (personal or professional)
• Worst fear (for the team, personally or professional)
• The desired outcome for this day/activity/event
• The greatest challenge for this team
• The greatest success for this team

This activity is so wonderful because you can write any four questions that you think will work for your group. Or have fun with it and let them come up with their own questions. Just think about what you want your team to learn about each other.

Tips for running this activity online

• Pick an online whiteboard tool that allows using a large, zoomable canvas. 
• Users can either draw their quadrant on paper and upload an image into the board, or draw it digitally.
• In the reflection step, invite users to navigate to the quadrant of the person speaking
• If you don’t have an online whiteboard tool, you can use Slack or Google docs to share and comment on the created images
• If using video conferencing software alone, invite the participants to share their screen and show their digital image, or hold up their physical drawing for the group to see
• If you want to add a fun extra dimension, encourage people to sketch quickly and if using digital tools, allow no deleting or erasers. Bad drawings can be fun to try and decode as a team.