Workshop Exercises: Discuss

Team Radar

Visualize team agreement and discord

Illustration of Team Radar
Run a Team Radar play

Also called: Agile Radar

Alternative plays: Hopes and Fears, Sailboat

Follow-up plays: Hopes and Fears, Start / Stop / Continue

Timing: Monitoring and Control

Prep time
30 minutes

Run time
1-2 hours

Group size
4-10

Why: Pinpoint areas of consensus and divergence in team opinions to promote open communication and understanding

When: Gauge team alignment during team-building activities or post-project reviews

This workshop exercise is part of the Workshop Patterns printed card deck.

A collection of workshop exercises that will help you ditch dull meetings and facilitate with confidence. It will help you master the design process and have more productive time with your team. The card deck will be ready for purchase in the end of 2025 and is now undergoing rigorous testing.

Reserve your deck!

Instructions for running this play

  1. Plan the graphic and topics beforehand on a flip chart
  2. Introduce the exercise and explain its purpose of gaining alignment, understanding, or clarity. Explain why each of the listed topics were chosen and ensure a shared understanding of each.
  3. Ask the team to assign and agree on a rating (1-7) for each topic. Timebox discussing each axis to 10 minutes. Ratings could be confidence level in the topic, future outlook, etc. Discussion starts with the first axis and working your way through all, topic by topic, rating by rating.
  4. Discuss. Connect any dots or determine which topics have scored negatively and why.
  5. Gauge general sentiment from the team by asking them to do Roman Voting on each topic on whether it is improving or if they expect it to get worse.
  6. Plan Next steps. Assign action items for 2-3 of the topics. Start with topics that scored the worst (or lowest) and note what steps can and should be taken next.

Topics can vary

Agile values are popular:

  • Commitment
  • Focus
  • Openness
  • Respect
  • Courage
  • Simplicity
  • Communication
  • and Feedback

So is:

  • Customer Centricity
  • Motivation
  • Goal Clarity
  • Pace
  • Trust
  • Process

Tips to perfect this play

Master and adapt the play to fit your context and needs.

Tip: Follow up

Consider introducing the Team Radar as a recurring exercise every quarter.

Tip: Choose topics on the go

More advanced teams can decide on the topics during the meeting

Tip: Contrast cultures

If two cultures collide, consider painting the Team Radar as represented by each cultural mindset to highlight differences and gaps.

This workshop exercise is part of the Workshop Patterns printed card deck.

A collection of workshop exercises that will help you ditch dull meetings and facilitate with confidence. It will help you master the design process and have more productive time with your team. The card deck will be ready for purchase in the end of 2025 and is now undergoing rigorous testing.

Reserve your deck!

Want to learn more?

Receive a hand picked list of the best reads on building products that matter every week. Curated by Anders Toxboe. Published every Tuesday.

No spam! Unsubscribe with a single click at any time.

Ice Breakers

Relieve initial group awkwardness and establish a safe space

Educate

Broaden knowledge or insight regarding the behavior or situation to inform decisions.

Demonstrate

Show practical examples or models of the desired behavior for clear guidance.

Alert

Highlight current actions and their reasons, bringing unconscious habits to awareness.

Train

Develop necessary skills and competencies to enable effective action.

Community events
Product Loop

Product Loop provides an opportunity for Product professionals and their peers to exchange ideas and experiences about Product Design, Development and Management, Business Modelling, Metrics, User Experience and all the other things that get us excited.

Join our community

Made with in Copenhagen, Denmark

Want to learn more about about good product development, then browse our product playbooks.