Protocol15New or mixed groups
Use a clear turn-taking prompt and keep teams small enough for introductions and reasoning. Avoid putting one new hire alone with a large established group.
Team building
Put team decision-making on the table.
Give the group a shared problem with no easy answer.
Reaching one shared ranking requires the group to explain priorities, challenge assumptions, influence one another, and work through disagreement. Those actual decisions become the debrief material. Protocol15 supports facilitated reflection. It is not a diagnostic assessment of individuals or teams.
Psychological safety before competition
Frame the exercise as practice, not evaluation.
The ranking creates useful tension only when people can disagree without being scored as employees. Say what will and will not be inferred from the activity before teams begin.
- Tell the group that the activity creates discussion material; it is not a test of intelligence, leadership, or team health.
- Ask for reasons before names: discuss the idea or tradeoff without turning one choice into a judgment about a person.
- Make disagreement explicitly welcome and give participants permission to revise an earlier position.
- Do not use the score to rank employees, teams, candidates, or managers.
Group composition
Build teams for the conversation you want.
Random groups can create energy. Deliberate groups can surface cross-functional reasoning. Choose the mix before opening the room.
Cross-functional teams
Mix functions deliberately, then ask which professional habits or assumptions appeared in the survival discussion.
Leadership groups
Consider asking the most senior person to speak later in the first round so authority does not settle the ranking before dissent appears.
Leadership and team dynamics
Observe decisions without pretending to diagnose the team.
Use concrete moments from the ranking round. Ask what happened and what the team wants to try next; avoid turning one short simulation into a personality or performance claim.
Authority effects
Notice whether status closes discussion early. Do not diagnose the group; ask what changed after a senior or confident voice entered.
Dissent and challenge
Invite one alternative before the team locks a disputed item. Useful dissent questions the reasoning without attacking the person.
Decision rights under pressure
The participant controlling the shared list has an input role, not extra authority. Make the team decide before the controller moves an item.
Uncertainty
Ask teams to name one assumption behind a confident choice. The goal is a decision the group can explain and defend.
Remote and hybrid setup
Design the audio path as carefully as the link.
Protocol15 runs in the browser. The more common failure is not the interface; it is a participant who cannot hear the team or tell who controls the shared ranking.
- 01
Before the call
Send the join link, confirm browsers can open the room, and decide who will share the host view.
- 02
Breakout rooms
Give each team a private audio space and keep the Protocol15 tab open. Post the return time in chat.
- 03
Shared control
Ask teams to say when control changes hands so remote participants can follow who is moving the ranking.
- 04
Hybrid rooms
Give remote participants their own audio path and avoid one distant room microphone becoming the only voice the team can hear.
Debrief the work connection
Move from the fictional ranking to one practical team habit.
Choose two or three prompts, then close with one behavior the team wants to test.
Which disagreement made the final ranking better?
When did confidence outweigh evidence?
Whose idea arrived late but changed the list?
How did the person controlling the list influence the pace?
Where did the team decide without resolving the uncertainty?
What decision habit from this activity is worth carrying into real work?
Plan the session