How to assign breakout rooms for online workshops
Breakout rooms work best when participants are assigned quickly and the room mix supports the activity. This guide covers room count, group size, repeated breakout rounds, and when to avoid repeat pairings in remote or hybrid sessions.
Group 1
Round 1
Group 2
Round 2
Guide setup
- 36 participants
- 6 breakout rooms
- 3 repeated breakout rounds
- optional attribute balancing by role, location, or experience
- optional fixed hosts or facilitators assigned to rooms
In a live online workshop, people are waiting while rooms are created. The grouping process needs to handle the participant list, room count, and repeat rounds without turning into manual spreadsheet work.
Breakout room assignments need to be fast, fair enough, and easy to explain
- remote facilitators often need room assignments before attention drops
- room count and group size need to match the activity format
- multi-round breakout rooms should avoid obvious repeated conversations
Why manual breakout room planning gets messy
Room count changes under pressure
A few missing participants can change the right number of rooms or room size, especially in live online sessions.
Repeated rounds create accidental repeats
If every breakout round is generated independently, participants can end up with the same people again.
Hybrid and training sessions add constraints
Facilitators, hosts, language needs, or experience levels may need to be distributed instead of shuffled blindly.
Example breakout-room setup
Imagine a 36-person online training with three breakout rounds. You want 6 rooms per round, a reasonable mix of experience levels, and fewer repeated conversations.
- 36 participants
- 6 breakout rooms
- 3 repeated breakout rounds
- optional attribute balancing by role, location, or experience
- optional fixed hosts or facilitators assigned to rooms
Recommended GroupMixer setup
For breakout rooms, start with the room count or room size that matches the live facilitation plan.
- 1
Paste the participant list before the session or after attendance is known.
- 2
Set the number of groups to the number of breakout rooms, or set the people per room.
- 3
Use multiple sessions for repeated breakout rounds.
- 4
Enable avoid-repeat pairings when repeated rooms should introduce new conversations.
- 5
Use participant attributes or pinned people only when facilitators, roles, or experience levels matter.
When breakout rooms need constraints
Use constraints when the room assignment has real facilitation requirements, such as fixed room hosts, people who should not be placed together, or roles that should be spread across rooms. For a simple one-round discussion, a quick random split is usually enough.
Related guides
How to avoid repeat pairings in workshops
Use this guide when breakout rooms are part of repeated workshop rounds.
How to run speed networking rounds without repeat conversations
Use this guide when the breakout-room format is closer to repeated networking rounds.
Random groups vs balanced groups vs constrained groups
Use this guide when deciding whether room assignments need balancing or explicit constraints.