Circles and Soup

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Sort project issues by degree of control to direct action toward items the team can directly manage or realistically influence.

Use it when: Use during a retrospective, project reset, or planning session when discussion stalls on external blockers or complaints about outside departments.

Skip it when: Skip when the session focuses solely on setting broad executive policy or when team members have no decision authority over their immediate workflow.

Group arrangement: Individual writing, followed by full-group sorting for up to 8 people, or parallel subgroups of 4 to 6 people at separate posters for larger groups.

Timing: Source suggests 1 hour for detailed planning; UWT specifies 45 minutes to keep sorting crisp and action-oriented.

Materials and tools

• One large whiteboard or flipchart poster with three pre-drawn concentric circles per group of 4 to 8 people
• Pad of 3x3 inch sticky notes per person
• One fine-tip marker per person
• Low-tack masking tape to mount posters

Before participants arrive

1. Draw three concentric circles on the poster or whiteboard.
2. Label the inner circle 'Team Controls', the middle ring 'Team Influences', and the outer area 'The Soup'.
3. Provide sticky notes and markers at each seat or station.

Say this to open

When projects get tricky, it is easy to spend all our energy wishing external things were different. Today we are sorting our challenges and ideas into three zones: what we directly control, what we can realistically influence, and the soup, which is the wider environment we must adapt to. Your task is to write one issue or action per sticky note, place it in the right zone, and pick actions we can take right now.

How to run it

1. Introduce the concentric circles 5 minutes

   Explain the three zones. Inner circle is direct control, meaning decisions the team can execute without external permission. Middle ring is influence, meaning people or processes the team can persuade or advise. The outer soup includes organizational policies, market factors, and company rules that the team must live with. Share one neutral example: team meeting agendas belong in direct control; cross-team handoff formats belong in influence; annual enterprise budgets belong in the soup.

2. Draft items silently 7 minutes

   Each person writes challenges, frictions, or project actions silently on sticky notes. Limit each note to one short phrase. Participants may write as many notes as they wish or choose to write just one or two.

3. Post and sort without debate 10 minutes

   Participants step up to the poster and stick their notes in the zone they believe fits best. Allow silence or quiet reading. If someone places a note in a debatable spot, leave it for now without arguing.

4. Review placements and shift items 10 minutes

   Walk through the board zone by zone, starting with the soup, moving to influence, and ending on direct control. Ask the group if any soup items have an underlying element the team actually influences, or if any influence items are really direct choices. Move notes only when the author agrees or the group reaches clear consensus.

5. Commit to immediate actions 8 minutes

   Focus entirely on the inner circle (direct control) and actionable items in the middle ring. Ask the team to select two to three immediate adjustments they will execute in the next work cycle. Assign a named owner and date to each selected note.

6. Debrief the board 5 minutes

   Ask the group two debrief questions. Hear three to four quick observations across the room to close the session.

Debrief questions

• Which items in the soup took up team energy in the past without producing results?
• What is one direct-control action we will begin immediately?
• How will our approach to an item in the influence ring change after seeing it here?

Finished output: A sorted three-zone diagram containing team issues, with two to three immediate actions assigned to named owners.

Remote

Create a shared digital whiteboard with three concentric circles labeled Control, Influence, and Soup. Give participants 7 minutes to add private sticky notes, then reveal them simultaneously. Review and move notes together using live voice or cursor chat, ending with tagged action items in the center ring.

Hybrid

Maintain the master board on an accessible digital whiteboard displayed on a shared room screen. In-person participants post physical notes that a designated scribe copies onto the digital board, or all participants post directly via personal laptops so everyone sees real-time updates equally.

Access and participation choices

• Participants may dictate ideas to a partner or facilitator instead of writing on paper.
• Anyone may choose to observe the sorting step without posting individual notes.
• Physical posters should be mounted at seated eye level to ensure wheelchair access.

If the session gets stuck

Participants spend the whole session venting about items stuck in the outer soup.

Acknowledge the frustration briefly, then ask: 'Given that this rule will not change this month, what is one direct response our team can choose right now?' Redirect attention back to the inner circle.

Team members place everything into direct control, overestimating their mandate.

Ask: 'Do we need sign-off from another department or manager to change this?' If yes, slide the note out to the influence ring.

Terms used here

• The Soup: The wider organizational, legal, or environmental context that a team cannot alter and must learn to operate within.