Think independently
Each participant forms an initial view of what matters most in the survival situation.
Learn with Protocol15
The classic exerciserebuilt for live team decisions
Protocol15 takes the Moon survival format and turns it into a live team simulation with ranking, scoring, and a reveal built in.
The experience
A simple task creates a real decision.
Participants understand the challenge quickly: rank the survival items. The difficulty begins when the team has to defend priorities, negotiate disagreement, and commit to one answer.
Decide together
The team must turn competing priorities into one shared ranking under a time box.
Compare and reflect
The reveal gives the group specific choices and assumptions to discuss afterward.
Why it works
Why one shared ranking changes the conversation
A private opinion can remain vague. One shared ranking cannot. The team has to explain what it values, test competing assumptions, and decide which argument should change the order.
That makes decision-making visible without pretending to diagnose the people in the room. The value is a concrete record of the team’s reasoning, not a label or personality score.
“What would have to be true for this choice to be right?”
Why Protocol15 works
Seven conditions turn one ranking into a useful conversation.
Protocol15 is a modern, facilitator-led evolution of the classic survival-ranking exercise. The value comes from the decision process and the debrief, not from treating the reference score as a verdict.
01
Forced prioritization
A complete ranking makes the group choose what matters more instead of treating every option as equally important.
02
Consequential disagreement
The fictional constraints give competing priorities a consequence, so disagreement has something specific at stake.
03
Collective judgment
Different knowledge, assumptions, and confidence levels must become one shared answer.
04
Reasoned consensus
Agreement is useful when people understand the reasoning behind the decision, not merely when discussion stops.
05
External calibration
A reasoned reference guide adds another model to test, challenge, and compare with the team’s own.
06
Observable decision behavior
Arguments, turning points, and changes in rank give the facilitator concrete moments to revisit without diagnosing the people involved.
07
Reflection and transfer
The debrief connects those moments to a real decision the group expects to face outside the exercise.
What becomes visible
The value is in the reasoning behind the moves.
The exercise gives a group something specific to notice and discuss without turning the session into an assessment.
Prioritization
People must choose what matters most instead of treating every option as equally important.
Influence
The final order shows which arguments changed the group’s direction and which did not.
Assumption checking
A confident choice can be revisited when someone asks what evidence or condition it depends on.
After the reveal
The result is a prompt, not a verdict.
A difference from the reference ranking does not prove whether a team collaborated well. It gives the room one choice to reconstruct together.
Team reasoning
“Rescue depends on contacting someone quickly.”
Reference comparison
Range, receiver access, and mission constraints challenge that assumption.
Debrief prompts
- What made this item feel essential when you placed it?
- Which assumption did the group accept without testing?
- What argument changed the ranking most?
Where it fits
Useful when the conversation matters as much as the answer.
Workshops
Give a room one concrete decision to examine instead of discussing collaboration in the abstract.
Classrooms
Turn reasoning, disagreement, and revision into an activity students can experience directly.
Team sessions
Create an energetic shared task with a result that supports a useful conversation afterward.
Planning to facilitate a session?
The facilitator's guide to running a team survival ranking exercise covers briefing, observation, and practical room guidance. The decision phase (15-20 minutes) is documented there alongside the debrief.
See what one shared decision creates.
Participants join free without accounts. Choose a scenario and bring the group into the same ranking.