#405 – Breaking the Ice
Friday Ship #405 | July 26th, 2024
This week, our free random icebreaker generator was highlighted in a blog post about creating more meaningful connections with people you work with.
A big driver of everything we build in Parabol is exactly that: helping teams have more meaningful interactions at work. It’s incredibly rewarding to see people finding that exact value when using it.
- This year so far, ~50% of all meetings hosted at Parabol have started with one!
- And over 200k people have landed on our icebreaker-related resources this year alone.
That’s a lot of icebreaking!
It’s no secret we love icebreakers at Parabol – they’re a big part of our culture and our product.
They’re not just about fun (though we do love the fun!). They help us connect in a non-cheesy, low-pressure way, get comfortable, and set a positive tone for our meetings.
This week, we shared our recent small victories, which was heartwarming; and debated whether we’d rather speak all languages or talk to animals. The team was split pretty evenly on that last one!
One of my favorite things about icebreakers is choosing them. Finding the right question or activity can be a fun challenge. Sometimes, a light-hearted question can break the ice, while other times, a deeper, more thoughtful prompt might be just what’s needed to foster a meaningful conversation.
If you’re using Parabol to host your meetings, you can also modify your icebreaker with AI to make it funnier, more exciting, or more serious, depending on your team’s mood.
If you haven’t tried them yet, I highly recommend giving them a go!
📚 Some of our resources and tools around Icebreakers:
Metrics
Metrics continue to be flat or slightly down, which is expected as people tend to head out of the office during summer. This seasonal trend typically results in lower engagement and interaction rates across the board. We’re keeping a close eye on these numbers in case we need to adjust our strategies as needed to ensure we stay on track.
This week we…
…worked on refining our in-progress Insights Feature.
…released a TikTok video with some tips for running Sprint Planning in a remote setting.
…made significant progress on refining our financial model to improve our forecasting ability.
Next week we’ll
…start preparing some async work to get ready for the Growth Retreat in Minnesota next month.
