Whether you’re running a meeting, hosting a training, webinar, or speaking at an event, polls are your best friend. They can help you to interact with the audience and keep them engaged – and awake!
When it comes to polls, there are loads of ways to use them. You can learn more about your audience, break the ice, start a conversation and collect insightful data. What’s not to love?
We’ve put together a list of the 80+ best poll questions to use at any event you can think of. Get inspired by our ideas and try them out.
- Icebreakers & Funny poll questions
- Small meetings: Team meetings & catch-ups
- Large meetings: All-hands & town hall meetings
- Education & trainings
- Online events & webinars
Icebreakers & Funny poll questions
Polls are great for breaking the ice and setting the tone for what’s coming up. They’re your best bet if the setup you’re in doesn’t allow for personal interaction – and that’s why you’ll want the best poll questions.
What’s even more important is that you will involve your audience right from the very beginning and send out a clear message by picking the best icebreaker question – this is not going to be yet another boring meeting/event!
And with Slido’s latest update for summer 2022, you’ll be able to see if participants are still typing or not from present mode – so nobody gets left out before they’ve had their say.
Get inspired by these cool types of polls: word clouds, multiple choice polls, or ranking polls.
Read also: The Best 110 Trivia Questions for Team Bonding Quizzes
Word clouds
#1: Using one word, what’s your state of mind right now?
#2: Where are you joining us from?
#3: What are you most grateful for?
#4: Which industry figure inspires you?
#5: Who is your role model?
#6: What one thing would you take along with you to a desert island?
#7: If you could go for a coffee with a figure from history, who would it be?
#8: What’s the best tech invention of the 21st Century?
#9: What’s your dream holiday destination?
#10: If you had to eat only one food for the rest of your life, which one would it be?
Read also: 52 Word Cloud Examples for Your Meetings and Events
Multiple choice polls and ranking polls
#11. Would you rather live for the rest of your life in the Arctic or in the Sahara desert?
a) The Arctic
b) The Sahara desert
#12: Would you rather have a time machine that can only go back in time or one that can only go forward in time?
a) Back in time
b) Forward in time
Read also: 101 Would You Rather Questions to Cheer Up Your Meetings
#13: Hand on heart – are you wearing pajamas right now? (Multiple choice)
a) Nooo
b) 100% Yes
c) Business on top, PJs on the bottom
d) I literally took them off a minute ago
#14: Are you an early bird or a night owl? (Multiple choice)
a) Early bird
b) Night owl
#15: If age is only a state of mind, which category best describes your state of mind right now? (Multiple choice)
a) Cheeky child
b) Tormented teenager
c) Mad mid-lifer
d) Groovy grandparent
#16: If *your city* were a breed of dog, which breed would it be? (Multiple choice)
a) Jack Russell – small, tough, opinionated
b) Tibetan Mastiff – or some other very rare breed
c) German Shepherd – poised and elegant, but rather hardy
d) Poodle – beautifully presented, but a bit of a poser
e) Golden Retriever – warm, cuddly and great with children
f) Pit Bull Terrier – scary, but kind deep down
g) Labradoodle – or some other cute hybrid
#17: Which superpower would you like to have? (Multiple choice)
a) Mind reading
b) Invisibility
c) Teleportation
d) Flying
e) I already have a superpower
#18: If you could time-travel, which period would you go to? (Multiple choice)
a) The past
b) The future
c) I’m good where I am
#19: What’s the strangest thing you did while attending a meeting online? (Multiple choice)
a) Ate breakfast
b) Wore pajamas
c) Cooked lunch/dinner
d) Brushed my teeth
e) Watched Netflix
f) Other, but my lips are sealed
#20: What type of Zoomer are you? (Multiple choice)
a) The one walking around the house
b) The one who just woke up
c) The one without the camera on
d) The one who always talks
e) The one doing funny faces
#21: Do you multitask when attending a meeting online? (Multiple choice)
a) Yes, I’m guilty
b) My mind tends to wander
c) No, I’m 100% focused
d) Sometimes
#22: How many hours a day do you spend online/on a Zoom call? (Multiple choice)
a) 1-2 hours
b) 2-5 hours
c) 5-8 hours
d) I lost count
#23: Quiz: How many kids do our employees have altogether? (Multiple choice)
a) 33
b) 38
c) 45
d) 47
#24: Rank these Harry Potter/Star Wars/Indiana Jones movies from the best to your least favorite. (Ranking)
#25: Which of these Christmas songs do you love the most? Please rank. (Ranking)
Tip
Polls are effective only if you facilitate them well. Use them where it makes sense. Tie them to the topic of your talk; ask poll questions in reference to what’s being discussed during the meeting/event.
As for the facilitation part: Always introduce the poll, explain to your audience how they can participate, and after the votes come in, comment on them or build a discussion around them. Read more about how to facilitate polls here.
Small meetings: Team meetings & catch-ups
Even at smaller meetings, interaction doesn’t come easy. With the help of polls, you can break the ice and take your meeting from 1 to 100.
Has decision-making taken many painful hours of your time? Create a poll, and settle things through voting – democratically. Can you hear crickets chirping whenever you’re about to discuss something? Run a poll, and build a conversation around the results. And so much more.
Here are some example poll questions to make your team meetings more interactive.
Openers
#26. From 1-10, what is your energy level today? (Rating)
#27. What was your personal highlight of the past month? (Open text)
#28. What would you like to discuss during this meeting? (Multiple choice)
#29. In one word, how would you describe last week/month? (Word cloud)
#30. Who from the team would you like to thank? (Word cloud)
Decision-making poll questions
#31. Should we keep our Wednesday syncs? Yes/No (Multiple choice)
#32. Which projects should we prioritize this quarter? (Multiple choice or Ranking)
#33. What gift should we give to our business partners? Rank these based on your preference. (Ranking)
#34. Which campaign should we go with? Rank these according to your level of excitement. (Ranking)
#35. How should we measure the success of this project (the KPI)? (Multiple choice)
Brainstorming poll questions
#36. How can we increase our brand awareness? (Open text)
#37. What new marketing channels should we experiment with? (Open text)
#38. What are the key jobs-to-be-done for our target personas? (Open text)
Discussion starters
#39. On a scale of 1-7, how would you rate our remote collaboration? (Rating)
#40. What’s the most important area for us to focus on this quarter? Please rank. (Ranking)
#41. Which content distribution channels should we focus on? (Open text or Ranking)
#42. On a scale of 1-10, how clear is our new team strategy to you? (Rating)
#43. Who should be responsible for L&D? Individual, team lead, or HR? (Multiple choice)
#44. From 1-10, how excited are you about this opportunity? (Rating)
#45. Is this deadline realistic? Yes/No (Multiple choice)
#46. What’s blocking us from meeting the deadline? (Open text)
#47. Which metric do you think is the most important for our team? (Multiple choice)
Retrospective poll questions
#48. What one thing should we stop/start/continue doing in the next quarter? (Open text)
#49. Rank these project phases from our strongest suits to our weakest suits. (Ranking)
#50. What’s the most valuable thing that you learned during this project? (Open text)
#51. What can we do to improve our team collaboration? (Open text)
#52. Which of these areas should we focus on improving? (Multiple choice or Ranking)
Team retro example survey
- How would you rate the past month? (Rating)
- What went well? (Open text)
- What can we improve? (Open text)
- Is there anything you’d like to discuss? (Open)
Tip
When you reveal the poll votes/submissions, always follow up on the results, and use them to drive a discussion. And if there’s a sharp split in opinions, even better. Encourage people to say why they voted the way they did, or elaborate on their poll submissions.
Large meetings: All-hands & town hall meetings
Larger company meetings, such as all-hands or town halls, don’t offer many opportunities to interact with your teammates. Often, your colleagues just sit through the meeting and listen passively (before they zone out).
But what if you were to ask them questions, or their opinions, throughout the meeting? With polls, this is incredibly easy.
You can interact with your colleagues at scale. It doesn’t matter whether there are a hundred, or a thousand people on the call – you can collect data from everyone equally, in seconds. Your all-hands or town halls will also be more personal and inclusive.
Here are some poll questions that you can use to engage your employees and create some conversation starters.
Openers
#53. Mood barometer: On a scale of 1-7, how are you feeling today? (Rating)
#54. If you could describe last month in one word, what would it be? (Word cloud)
#55. What was your personal or professional highlight of the past month? (Open)
#56. On a scale of 1-10, how’s the WFH life been treating you so far? (Rating)
#57. Who was your unsung hero last month? Nominate one of your colleagues. (Word cloud)
Check-ins and re-engaging poll questions
#58. How well do you understand our new company strategy? (Rating)
#59. In which of our company goals did we make the biggest progress last year? (Multiple choice)
#60. From 1-7, how excited are you about our new feature? (Rating)
#61. What would be your ideal work setup? WFH, office, or combo? (Multiple choice)
#62. From 1-10, how would you rate your remote experience? (Rating)
#63. Which of our company values do you identify with the most? (Multiple choice)
#64. What are you most proud of about our culture? (Word cloud)
Tip
Spread out polls evenly throughout your all-hands meeting or town hall to keep the engagement level high. After presenting a new business update, ask your colleagues what they think, or how they feel about it. Or, before revealing a business result (sales, revenue, etc), make it more interesting and let people guess the number first, using a multiple choice poll.
Education & Trainings
Every trainer has a clear goal: To help trainees acquire new knowledge, skills, and adopt new practices. But this rarely happens if the style of the training relies on one-way information broadcast. In order for your content to stick, you have to actively interact with your trainees.
Understand your audience better – find out what information would be most valuable to them, and get to the bottom of things to tailor your training to your trainees’ needs.
Polls will help you here. You’ll be able to learn more about your trainees and do regular check-ins during your talk to learn whether they’re following what you discuss. You can use polls for creative hands-on exercises or ask for people’s feedback. The possibilities are endless.
Learn more about your audience poll questions
#65. Which of these topics would you like to learn the most about? Please rank. (Ranking)
#66. What do you expect to get out of this training? (Open text)
#67. Have you used this program/app before? Yes/No (Multiple choice)
#68. On a scale of 1-7, how skilled are you at Excel? (Rating)
Checks-in and hands-on poll questions
#69. How well do you understand the topic so far? (Rating)
#70. How are you going to apply this technique in your work? (Open text)
#71. Can you summarize what we’ve just discussed in one-two sentences? (Open text)
Feedback
#72. How would you rate today’s training? (Rating)
#73. What are your main takeaways from this training? (Open text)
#74. Is there anything you wish we’d talked about more? (Open text)
Tip
Use quizzes to effectively check your trainees’ knowledge. After a chunk of information, fire a quiz question regarding the topic, and see how well your trainees understood it. If more wrong answers come in, come back to the topic and re-explain whatever’s unclear.
Online events & webinars
Do you run a webinar or speak at an online event? Then you surely know how hard it is to have any kind of interaction with your audience. Often, you don’t even see them.
Polls allow you to build at least some sort of connection with your audience. They help you gain invaluable insight into your online attendees. You can ask them a question and then address their answers in your flow. Or, ask them for their opinions and use their answers as springboards for your arguments.
Get inspired by some of these poll questions.
Get-to-know-your-audience poll questions
#75. From where are you joining? (Word cloud)
#76. Which topics/trends/areas did you come to learn more about today? (Word cloud)
#77. What is your current role within your company? (Multiple choice)
Thought-provoking poll questions
#78. In one-two words, what do you think is the major challenge with___? (Word cloud)
#79. How would you rate the quality of interaction when attending online events? (Rating)
#80. In one-two words, describe what ‘diversity and inclusion’ mean to you. (Word cloud)
#81. What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear ___? (Word cloud)
Feedback
#82. How would you rate this webinar/event? (Rating)
#83. Is there anything that you feel we’ve missed out, or that you’d improve? (Open text)
Tip
Before presenting an argument, run a poll first, and collect your audience’s thoughts on the topic. It will give you insight into how your audience feels about the topic and allow you to talk more accurately to them. On top of that, you’ll bring more perspectives into the discussion.
Over to you
Thanks to polls, you will be able to make your meeting, event, or training much more inclusive and engaging. Your audience will be able to actively participate and share their thoughts, while you will have their attention. A win-win situation, isn’t it?
We hope you will try one of the above poll ideas to turn your online meetings and events from yawn to yay in 2022!
Try Slido polls for free and play around. Oh, and we have a new ranking poll, check it out!
