# The Trust Timeline — Facilitator Guide

> 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:

1. Laid their team's real moments on one shared line across three lanes — Grew · Broke · Repaired — placed roughly when they happened.
2. Named out loud the pattern the line shows: what trust usually breaks on here (competence, reliability, or care) and which repair keeps working.
3. 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

1. **Nobody will post a break.** Rescue: the facilitator goes first, about the event not a person. Safety is modeled, not demanded.
2. **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.
3. **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
- `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.