Private beta Join the waitlist
Use cases

Any session with a running order and more than one mind.

The machinery does not know it is running a focus group. It knows there is a stimulus, a cast, a moderator and an order. Change those and you change the exercise.

  1. 01

    Pre-mortem

    Run the failure before it happens. Cast the people who would be blamed, the people who warned you, and the person who signed it off, then ask each of them privately what went wrong.

    Cast
    The sponsor, the engineer who flagged the risk, the support lead who takes the calls, the sceptic.
    The part that matters
    Private-first. In a real pre-mortem the most senior voice sets the failure mode and everyone else elaborates on it.
  2. 02

    Design critique

    A room of practitioners with different tastes and different axes to grind, all reacting to the same screen without seeing each other’s notes first.

    Cast
    Five designers with incompatible convictions about density, motion and colour.
    The part that matters
    The rapid-fire round. It separates taste from usability, which a live critique rarely does.
  3. 03

    Red-teaming a plan

    Participants briefed to find the failure rather than to be helpful. Each one attacks independently, then they see each other’s attacks.

    Cast
    A regulator, a competitor, a journalist, a disgruntled former employee.
    The part that matters
    Isolation. One loud sceptic otherwise sets the tone and the rest pile on to the same weakness.
  4. 04

    Stakeholder rehearsal

    Run the meeting before the meeting. The questions arrive in the order and the tone they will actually arrive in.

    Cast
    The CFO who asks about margin, the lawyer who asks about consent, the head of sales who asks what changes on Monday.
    The part that matters
    The wrap-up. Each stakeholder states their own condition, which is the thing you need to prepare for.
  5. 05

    Positioning test

    Three ways of saying the same thing, put to a room that has never heard any of them, with the order randomised per participant.

    Cast
    Buyers at different levels of category awareness — one who already shops for this, one who has never considered it.
    The part that matters
    First reaction. Positioning is judged in four seconds, and only the private round catches that.
  6. 06

    Brainstorm

    Private ideation first, so the first good idea does not anchor the rest of the room, then a group round that builds on what was independently generated.

    Cast
    Deliberately mixed — two people close to the problem, three who have never seen it.
    The part that matters
    The order. Group-first brainstorms converge on whoever spoke first, every time.
Join the waitlist