This or That (Live Vote)
Time for the team building activity: 5–10 minutes
Setup effort: Very easy (prepare question slides or poll)
Estimated cost: Free
Business value: Drives instant group participation, reveals team preferences, and creates fast momentum in team building sessions
What is This or That (Live Vote)?
This or That (Live Vote) is a high-energy team building activity where participants must quickly choose between two options presented live.
It is similar in spirit to Would You Rather but designed for rapid group voting at scale, often using live polls, hand raises, or physical movement.
Typical examples include:
Remote work vs office work
Deep focus vs collaboration days
Email vs instant messaging
Because the whole group responds simultaneously, it creates immediate visibility into team preferences and energizes the room quickly.
How do you run This or That?
Prepare 6–10 binary questions in advance.
At the start of the activity, explain the rule clearly:
Participants must pick one option — no neutral answers.
Then run fast voting rounds:
Display the question.
Participants vote (hands, poll, chat, or move sides of the room).
Briefly react to the result.
Move immediately to the next question.
Aim for about 30–45 seconds per question to maintain strong momentum.
The full team building activity typically runs 5–10 minutes.
Why it’s great for a team
One of the biggest early-session challenges is getting everyone involved at the same time. Many activities only activate a few voices.
This or That works extremely well because it creates synchronized participation across the whole group. In just a few minutes, it helps teams:
activate even large audiences quickly
surface interesting group patterns
create light, safe debate
warm up decision-making energy
build shared awareness of team preferences
It is particularly effective in:
all-hands meetings
large workshops
kickoffs
hybrid team building sessions
From a facilitation perspective, live voting creates visible group dynamics, which increases psychological engagement.
Teams that use quick collective voting formats often see faster discussion flow afterward.
How to organize it effectively
The success of this team building activity depends heavily on question quality and pacing.
Write questions that are:
clear in under two seconds
professionally appropriate
likely to divide the room
relevant to work culture when possible
Avoid overly obvious or overly controversial topics.
As facilitator, keep transitions fast. The moment you linger too long on one question, energy drops.
For in-person sessions, physical movement (left/right side of the room) dramatically increases energy compared to hand raises.
For remote team building, live polls are the gold standard. If polls are unavailable, chat voting (A/B) works well.
For very large groups, display results visually — seeing the split is part of what makes the activity engaging.
Used at the right moment, This or That (Live Vote) is a simple but highly scalable team building activity that rapidly activates participation and reveals useful team insights.