Rush Q Cards

The 60-minute run of show

Five phases. The middle three rounds are the heart of it: present a tension, let the table pick a card, reveal the instinct each card leans toward, then discuss. The prompts and notes for every round are written out further down.

1. 0–8 min

   Arrival and framing

   Set the frame out loud: there are no right answers today. Every card on the table is a defensible way to lead, and the point is to notice which one you reach for first and why. Say the room is a safe place to be honest about instincts. Keep real names and real incidents out of it.

   Start 8 min
2. 8–48 min

   Instinct rounds × 4

   For each round: read the tension aloud, give the table two minutes to privately pick one of the four cards, then reveal what instinct each card leans toward and open the discussion prompts. Around ten minutes per round. The full script for all four rounds is below.

   Jump to the round scripts
3. 48–56 min

   Debrief and Style Compass

   Ask each person which card they reached for most across the four rounds. That tally is their Style Compass. Name the pattern in the room out loud: where did it cluster, where did it split. The split is the interesting part, not the consensus.

   Start 8 min
4. 56–60 min

   Close

   One takeaway each: name one instinct you want to lean on more, and one you want to catch yourself reaching for. Point people to the other modes if they want to keep going on their own time.

   Start 4 min

Round scripts

Read the tension, let the table pick, then use the facilitator note and discussion prompts. Each round has a built-in five-minute timer for the pick-and-discuss window. Run the live version in Instinct if you want the Style Compass tally done for you.

Format B — Plan the Year: a 90-minute consequence workshop

Classic Mode doubles as a consequence simulator. Beneath the visible reputation score sits a hidden Foundation — the health of the team and the codebase. Expedient plays (shipping on tech debt, chronic understaffing, letting work rot) quietly erode it, and when it craters the bill arrives quarters later: someone burns out and quits, or a deferred problem blows up in production. Every decision and its downstream consequence is recorded and replayed at game end as a Story of the Year — a cause-and-effect timeline (“the Q3 crunch → a senior quit in Q6”) that is the debrief artifact. This format compresses months of organizational karma into one session and teaches two things: planning ahead and that shortcuts are loans.

1. 0–10 min

   Framing and written forecast

   Stations of 1–2 people, each with Classic Mode open. Frame it: “You are a tech manager with eight quarters to prove yourself. The score on the screen is your reputation. It is not the whole truth.” Before anyone plays, each station fills the forecast box on the handout: projects they expect to complete, final reputation, and where they think their team health will end. The forecast is the hook — the game will confront it.

   Start 10 min
2. 10–65 min

   Play the year, with two forecast checks

   Stations play at their own pace. Pause the room twice — after Q3 and after Q6 — for a two-minute check. Read aloud: “Look at your Foundation band. What bill have you already run up that has not arrived yet? Say it out loud before the game says it for you.” Naming the coming consequence before it fires is the planning-ahead rep. Watch for the station that is winning on reputation while its foundation reads Cracking — they are your best debrief material.

   Start 55 min
3. 65–85 min

   Story of the Year debrief

   On the game-over screen every station opens Story of the Year and reads its timeline. Project one or two on the shared screen — pick a station whose consequences carry a “seeded in Qn” tag. Then work the debrief questions below. Keep the thread concrete: every in-game consequence gets matched to a real-world equivalent the room has actually lived.

   Start 20 min
4. 85–90 min

   Close: one commitment

   One sentence each: “The shortcut I will stop treating as free is…” Collect them; they are the follow-up email.

   Start 5 min

Debrief questions

Ask them in order; each moves from the game outward to the room.

1. 1. Which consequence in your Story could you have named back when you seeded it? What told you?

2. 2. Compare your Q1 forecast to the final screen. Where was the gap — and was it optimism about output, or blindness about cost?

3. 3. Your foundation ended Solid / Strained / Cracking / Crumbling. What is the real-life version of that band for your team right now?

4. 4. Which shortcut felt free when you took it? Who paid for it, and when?

5. 5. What would “playing for the foundation” look like in our next real quarter — name one concrete behavior.

Which mode for which session

Instinct is the engine of this 60-minute kit, but the other modes fit different rooms and time budgets. Pick the one that matches your goal.