trust · whole group · offline + online
The Trust Timeline.folder
Trust isn't declared — it accumulates in moments. Plot what grew it, what broke it, what repaired it. Then repair one live break, on purpose.
// lane cards & a timeline · 25 min · print & run · tool pack · no projector, no account
A trust session, built as a complete workshop folder: a timed run sheet, printable lane cards, and a draw-the-line → post-moments → read-the-pattern → repair-one mechanic that turns trust from a mood into a set of moments you can actually see — and one live break you can fix while it's still cheap.
The props are poker-spec print cards (63.5 × 88.9 mm, bleed and cut guides included) — grew / broke / repaired marker cards, a repair-that-worked card, a live-break card, a blank card and branded backs. Nothing needs a projector, and nothing needs an account to download.
the run sheet
// this is the guide file, word for word — read it here, run from it here. the .md at the bottom of the page is the same text, offline.
Folder: `the-trust-timeline` · Category: trust · 4–10 people · 25 min · offline + online · print props · tool pack License: CC BY 4.0
A 25-minute, 4–10 person trust tool. A team lays its shared history on a line — the moments trust grew, the moments it broke, the moments it got repaired — to see the pattern of how trust actually works here, then picks one live break to repair. Trust isn't declared; it accumulates in moments, and most teams never look at them together.
How this relates to the other trust folders: The Trust Timeline reads the *past* to find the mechanics — what breaks trust here, what rebuilds it. The Safety Check measures *now*, in four numbers; The Reliability Ledger repairs one named expectation, in writing; Step In If… shows shared experience in the body. Run the timeline when there's history between the people in the room — especially history nobody has looked at together.
Objectives
By the end of the activity, participants will have:
- Laid their team's real moments on one shared line across three lanes — Grew · Broke · Repaired — placed roughly when they happened.
- Named out loud the pattern the line shows: what trust usually breaks on here (competence, reliability, or care) and which repair keeps working.
- Chosen — only if the team volunteers — one live break to repair, with an action, an owner, and a check-in date.
When to use this activity
- A team with shared history and a sense that something quietly piled up — past breaks nobody ever closed.
- After a rupture you can feel but not place; putting it on the line with the moments around it tells you whether it's a pattern or an outlier.
- Two partnerships or squads that keep losing trust at the handover — each draws its line; the gaps speak.
Setup
Clock: twenty-five minutes end to end. Give it thirty for a team with a long, loaded history — the first honest break card takes the longest.
Space: a wall or shared board with a horizontal timeline and three lanes: Grew · Broke · Repaired. Online, the timeline lives on a shared board.
Materials per person:
| Item | Source |
|---|---|
| The card faces — grew, broke, repaired, "the repair that worked", "one live break to fix", blank | `the-trust-timeline-prop-cards.pdf` |
| 1 × pen; wall tape or board pins | your own |
| Optional: the poster with the two rules in view | `the-trust-timeline-activity-poster.pdf` (A3) on the wall |
Grouping: 4–10 people who share a history — a team, a partnership, a group that has been through something together.
Roles: everyone posts real moments; you draw the lanes, keep the cards event-shaped (no names on break cards), lead the pattern read out loud, and hold the repair volunteer-only rule — never assigned. No projector, no account, no online form required.
How to run it
| Time | Phase | Facilitator does | Participants do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–2 | Draw the line | Draw the timeline and three lanes. Say it: trust grows, breaks, and gets repaired in specific moments — today we look at ours. | Agree to look at real moments, not the official story |
| 2–10 | Post moments | Model one card first (event, not person). Prompt the three kinds: grew = someone showed up; broke = someone dropped the ball; repaired = it got rebuilt. Place roughly when they happened. | Post their real moments across the three lanes |
| 10–17 | Read the pattern | Ask out loud: what does trust usually break on here — competence, reliability, or care? And which repair keeps working? | Name the pattern the line shows; spot clusters and the empty Repaired lane if there is one |
| 17–25 | Repair one | Find the break everyone remembers but nobody names. Offer it as a candidate — only if the team volunteers. Force the close: action, owner, check-in date. | Pick one live break to fix; agree the repair action, an owner, and when to check whether it worked |
Then run the debrief — see `the-trust-timeline-debrief.md`.
The card
The faces sort memory into the three lanes — grew, broke, repaired — so the line fills as data, not as war stories. The repair that worked exists because teams rebuild trust more reliably than they think, and naming the repeatable move is what makes the next repair faster. One live break to fix keeps the tool from becoming a museum: a break with no repair on the line is the one to work — but only if the team volunteers.
Failure modes
- Nobody will post a break. Rescue: the facilitator goes first, about the event not a person. Safety is modeled, not demanded.
- Every break on the line is old, safe, and resolved. Rescue: that's a dodge. Ask what's still open — the live one is the point.
- A break names a person. Rescue: strip the name; describe what happened and what it cost. Blame freezes the room; a pattern lets it move.
Variations
- New team, no history yet: run it forward — agree now how you'll mark growth and repair, so breaks don't pile up unrepaired.
- After a specific rupture: put that one break in the middle and map what would move it to the Repaired lane.
- Two teams that hand off to each other: each draws its lane; the gaps between the lines are where the trust leaks.
- Annual review: re-run against last year's photo of the line — the moved cards are the real performance record.
Facilitation notes
- Real moments, not ideals. A vague "communication" is worthless; "the Tuesday we shipped without telling design" is a data point.
- No names on break cards — describe the event and what it cost, not the culprit. A named break freezes the room.
- Repair is offered, never assigned. A forced repair is a second break wearing a bandage.
Put it on the wall
Print `the-trust-timeline-activity-poster.pdf` (A3) to keep the three lanes and the two rules — real moments, not ideals; no names on break cards — in view while the line fills.
Props in this folder
- `the-trust-timeline-prop-cards.pdf` — poker-spec print sheet (63.5 × 88.9 mm, bleed and cut guides): grew, broke, repaired, the repair that worked, one live break to fix, blank card, branded backs
- `the-trust-timeline-guide.md` — this run sheet
- `the-trust-timeline-debrief.md` — the debrief questions and the failure modes of the debrief
- `the-trust-timeline-run-sheet.pdf` — the print edition: this run sheet + the debrief, bound as one A4 document with bookmarks
- `the-trust-timeline-activity-poster.pdf` — the whole tool on one A3 wall sheet: the three lanes, the flow, the watch-outs
- `the-trust-timeline-start-here.md` — one page, thirty seconds, then print and go
- `the-trust-timeline-license.md` — what you may do with all of this
- `SKILL.md` — machine-readable manifest for AI agents
- `*-Letter.pdf` — US Letter editions of the print documents
Agent version
Every file in this folder has a stable public URL — an AI agent can fetch the cards, the debrief and this run sheet with three curl commands (see `SKILL.md`). The paper version needs nothing but a wall, a line and a deck of lane cards.
the debrief sheet
// the debrief questions, in full — the .md version prints on one page for the room.
The line is only a picture until the debrief reads it — trust here has mechanics, and the questions name them. Use with `the-trust-timeline-guide.md`. The repair phase at minute 17 is the compressed version; this sheet is the full one.
How to run this debrief
- Keep the whole line visible — all three lanes. The pattern lives in the spacing and the empty lanes, not in any single card.
- Read before repair: the pattern conversation comes first, the chosen break second. Fixing without reading repairs one card and loses the lesson.
- Close on one live break, one action, one owner, one date — and only a break the team volunteered for.
Read the line
- Look at the Repaired lane. Is it as full as the Broke lane? If not, breaks are piling up unrepaired.
- Which grew-moments surprise you — the small ones someone noticed that nobody else did?
- Are the break-moments clustered in one period, or spread out? A cluster usually points at a cause, not a person.
The six debrief questions
1. The empty lane.
"Is the Repaired lane as full as the Broke lane? If not — what happens here to breaks that never get repaired?"
→ Targets: the accumulation itself; unrepaired breaks are the quiet tax every later project pays.
2. The missing card.
"Whose break is missing from the line? If someone stayed quiet, what does that tell us about what's safe to say here?"
→ Targets: silence as data — the room's safety readout from what didn't get posted.
3. What it breaks on.
"What does trust usually break on here — competence (we doubted the skill), reliability (we doubted it'd get done), or care (we doubted they had our back)?"
→ Targets: the recurring failure mode, named; different kinds of break call for different repairs.
4. The repair that keeps working.
"Which repair shows up again and again on this line — the thing that actually rebuilds trust for this group? Can we do that on purpose, earlier?"
→ Targets: the team's own proven move; the fastest future repair is the one already in the archive.
5. The unnamed one.
"Is there a break everyone remembers but nobody will name? What would it take to make naming it safe — just as an event?"
→ Targets: the live break hiding in plain sight; strip the name, keep the fact, and let the room decide.
6. Fragile or repairable.
"What would each of you do differently if you assumed trust here is repairable, not fragile? And when do we check whether this repair moved the line?"
→ Targets: the belief that changes risk-taking, plus the check-in that turns the repair from a promise into a dated experiment.
Failure modes of the debrief
| Failure mode | Why it happens | The rescue |
|---|---|---|
| Nobody will post a break | The first break card is the most expensive one | The facilitator goes first, about the event not a person. Safety is modeled, not demanded. |
| Every break on the line is old, safe, and resolved | The team is doing history, not honesty | Ask what's still open — the live one is the point; a dodge read aloud is usually enough to break it. |
| A break names a person | Grief or anger wants a culprit | Strip the name; describe what happened and what it cost. Blame freezes the room; a pattern lets it move. |
Who is The Trust Timeline for?
Teams with shared history where trust has quietly accumulated breaks nobody has looked at together, or after a rupture you want to repair on purpose. It needs 4–10 people and 25 minutes; it runs on a shared board online.
What does it produce?
A shared timeline showing what breaks trust here and what rebuilds it, plus one live break with a chosen repair, an owner, and a check-in date. No pre/post measure; the artifact is the timeline plus the repair.
Can my AI agent use this folder?
Yes. Every folder ships a SKILL.md skill file: frontmatter for matching plus runnable prep commands — fetch the cards, pull the debrief. The three-step workflow (discover, install, run) lives on the skills page, every folder ships a one-command zip bundle, and the machine index is skills.json.
Is it really free?
Yes — CC BY 4.0, no account, no email wall inside a folder. Download it, run it, copy it, rebrand it for your own workshop. Attribution keeps everything free.
make it yours
This timeline needs no online form and no account — a line, three lanes, cards. The lane names are the one file to change: rename Grew / Broke / Repaired to how your team already talks about trust, and reprint at poker spec; the no-names-on-break-cards rule stays.
Files in this folder
All files are free under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: “The Trust Timeline · WorkshopSkill · CC BY 4.0.”