# The Turning Point — Facilitator Guide

> Folder: `the-turning-point` · Category: reviews · 4–12 people · 25 min · offline + online · print props · tool pack
> License: CC BY 4.0

A 25-minute, 4–12 person review that reconstructs what actually happened. Most retrospectives collect opinions about a project; this one rebuilds its timeline — start to now — and marks the moments the story turned: up or down. Then it names the decision or habit behind each turn, so the team stops arguing about how it feels and starts seeing what caused what.

## Objectives

By the end of the activity, participants will have:

1. Rebuilt the project's timeline from kickoff to now as dated events — launches, decisions, incidents, quiet weeks — not moods.
2. Marked the turning points, up and down, and named the decision or habit behind each one.
3. Committed to keep one habit that turned things up and kill one that turned them down — each with a name and a date.

## When to use this activity

- Retros keep producing opinions and everyone remembers the project differently; the team needs one shared map before it needs actions.
- A project is about to restart, and you need the list of what not to repeat.
- One team ran two projects; laying both timelines side by side shows whether the same habit turned both.

## Why a timeline beats a vibe

Projects don't succeed or fail all at once; they turn at a handful of moments, and each turn usually has a decision or a habit behind it. Once you can point at the turn and name its cause, the lesson stops being a vibe and becomes something you can keep or kill on purpose.

## Setup

**Space:** a wall or shared board with a horizontal timeline from kickoff to now and two lanes around it: **Turned up · Turned down**.

**Materials per person:** sticky notes and a pen — real moments, one per note, with a date where you can.

**Materials for the room:** the card faces from `the-turning-point-prop-cards.pdf`: a "the turning point" card, a "what caused it" card, a "keep this" card, a "kill this" card, and a blank.

**Grouping:** 4–12 people who were on the same project or initiative from start to now (or a meaningful stretch of it).

**Roles:** everyone places events; you police the two rules — dated moments, not vibes; a named cause behind every turn — and drive the final two commitments.

**Optional:** put `the-turning-point-activity-poster.pdf` (A3) on the wall so the two rules stay in view. No projector, no account, no online form.

## How to run it

| Time | Phase | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 0–5 | Draw | Sketch the timeline from kickoff to now. Everyone adds real moments — launches, decisions, incidents, quiet weeks — as sticky notes along the line. |
| 5–12 | Mark | Circle the turning points — the moments the project clearly went better or worse. Place each in the up or down lane. |
| 12–18 | Cause | For each turning point, name the decision or habit that caused it. Not "the market" — the thing you did or didn't do. |
| 18–25 | Lesson | Pick one habit that caused a good turn and one that caused a bad turn. Commit to keep the first and kill the second — with a name and a date. |

## The card

Circle each turn with the "turning point" card and pin its "what caused it" card beside it. The last two cards of the deck are the output: "keep this" holds the habit that turned things up, "kill this" the one that turned them down — each with an owner and a date written on it.

## Failure modes

- **The timeline is empty.** People are recalling outcomes, not events. Prompt for dated moments — "the week we shipped," "the day the stakeholder changed their mind."
- **Every cause is external.** "The market," "the budget." Push back gently: what did you do or not do in response? The team only gets to keep or kill what was in its hands.
- **Nobody will name a down-turn.** Someone's decision is on the wall. Reframe from blame to mechanism — "what did that decision make possible at the time?" — so the cause can be said without a person being tried.

## Variations

- **Mid-project check-in:** run it on the timeline so far; the pattern of turns tells you whether you're accelerating or drifting.
- **Two projects, one team:** lay both timelines side by side; the same habit usually turns both the same way.
- **Before a restart:** mark only the down-turns and their causes — that's your list of what not to repeat.

## Facilitation notes

- Insist on the date, or the moment quietly turns into a mood; a turning point you can point at is the whole format.
- Keep the two commitments small enough to survive the next busy sprint — oversized lessons are the ones nobody comes back to.

## Put it on the wall

Print `the-turning-point-activity-poster.pdf` (A3) to hold the timeline shape, the two rules and the keep/kill prompts on one wall while you run it.

## Props in this folder

- `the-turning-point-prop-cards.pdf` — poker-spec print sheet (63.5 × 88.9 mm, bleed and cut guides): turning-point, what-caused-it, keep-this and kill-this cards, blanks, branded backs
- `the-turning-point-run-sheet.pdf` — the print edition: this run sheet + the debrief, bound as one A4 document with bookmarks (`-Letter.pdf` is US Letter)
- `the-turning-point-activity-poster.pdf` — the whole review on one A3 wall sheet
- `the-turning-point-guide.md` · `-debrief.md` · `-start-here.md` — the facilitator guide, the debrief, the one-page start here
- `the-turning-point-license.md` — what you may do, how to rebrand, what shipped when
- `SKILL.md` · `the-turning-point.zip` — the machine-readable manifest, and the whole folder in one download

## 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 timeline on a wall, sticky notes and a pen each.