# The Trust Timeline — Debrief

> 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. |