Five Moves: UWT Strategy Worksheet

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Audit team decision habits, capability gaps, and operational bottlenecks to agree on tested systems and evidence-based planning.

Use it when: Use during quarterly planning sessions, team retreats, or project retrospectives when an established team needs to review past decisions and build reliable operational routines.

Skip it when: Skip when the team has formed within the past month and lacks shared operational history, or when an active workplace conflict requires mediation rather than process planning.

Group arrangement: Individual work, pairs, small groups of 3 to 4, and whole-group synthesis.

Timing: Source timing allocated 10 minutes for context, 20 for Move 1, 20 for Move 2, 25 for Move 3, 20 for Move 4, and 15 for Move 5, totaling 110 minutes.

Materials and tools

• 5 wall flipchart sheets or whiteboards
• Marker pens for each group
• 1 pad of sticky notes per participant
• 1 printed Five Moves strategy worksheet per participant
• 1 digital timer

Before participants arrive

1. Hang five flipcharts around the room labeled: Move 1 Themes, Move 2 Decision Lessons, Move 3 Team Capabilities, Move 4 Priority Systems, Move 5 Alternatives and Tests.
2. Place markers, sticky notes, and printed worksheets at each seat.
3. Arrange seating into clusters of 3 to 4 people.

Say this to open

Welcome. Today we will work through five structured moves to examine our habits, decisions, and systems. You will reflect individually, compare notes in pairs and small groups, and finish with concrete operational systems to test. You control your own notes; share only what serves the team's learning.

How to run it

1. Frame workshop and introduce structure 10 minutes

   Read the opening script. Explain the session flow across the five moves: self-knowledge, structured decision-making, team capability, scalable systems, and evaluating options. Emphasize that the goal is practical operational alignment, not personal performance reviews.

2. Reflect on drivers and personal capabilities 20 minutes

   Participants spend 5 minutes completing the Move 1 section of their worksheet. They record professional drivers, main strengths, and support needs. For the next 10 minutes, participants work in pairs, discussing their answers and offering constructive feedback on work styles. For the final 5 minutes, collect recurring themes on the Move 1 flipchart without naming individuals.

3. Review past decisions using ITR 20 minutes

   Explain the Investment-Time-Return (ITR) framework for 5 minutes. Participants spend 10 minutes analyzing a past complex decision using the worksheet prompt, identifying resource investment, time spent, outcome achieved, and root causes. For 5 minutes, invite three or four volunteers to share structural lessons. Record common decision traps on the Move 2 flipchart.

4. Assess team capabilities and accountability 25 minutes

   Organize participants into groups of 3 or 4. For 10 minutes, groups complete Move 3 on the worksheet, discussing current team strengths, missing capabilities, and one practical accountability routine. For 15 minutes, each group presents its recommendations while the facilitator logs actionable commitments on the Move 3 flipchart.

5. Prioritize scalable systems and routines 20 minutes

   Conduct a 10-minute open brainstorm on manual processes, recurring bottlenecks, or communication breakdowns that fail under high workload. For 10 minutes, the full room selects one or two specific systems to formalize, naming a clear owner and a simple metric of success for each on the Move 4 flipchart.

6. Analyze options, assumptions, and close 15 minutes

   Direct small groups to the Move 5 prompt on the worksheet. Groups analyze the fictional library case, identifying unstated assumptions across the three options and designing one low-cost investigation to gather facts before choosing. Spend 5 minutes gathering investigation plans on the Move 5 flipchart, then run the debrief questions.

Debrief questions

• Looking across our decision patterns, what is one assumption we regularly make without checking facts first?
• Which single system or routine from Move 4 will the team document and test over the next month?
• For the Move 5 case, what low-cost question gave the most useful information before committing resources?

Finished output: Completed worksheets and five documented charts detailing individual strengths, decision lessons, team capability needs, one or two prioritized systems, and an investigation plan for unknown assumptions.

Remote

Set up five labeled virtual whiteboard spaces matching the five moves. Run solo reflections on mute, use two-person and four-person breakout rooms for paired and small-group discussions, and call on representative sticky notes during full-room synthesis.

Hybrid

Keep remote participants in digital pairs and breakout tables. Mirror the five in-person wall charts on a single live digital board. Have a facilitator or designated room partner read out virtual notes during whole-room synthesis.

Access and participation choices

• Participants can keep personal reflection notes private and share only broad work patterns.
• Teams can analyze the supplied fictional library case instead of disclosing real internal operational decisions or performance gaps.
• Spoken contributions are optional; written notes on shared flipcharts or digital canvases are equally accepted.

If the session gets stuck

Participants spend Move 1 critiquing colleagues instead of reflecting on their own habits.

Intervene promptly and remind everyone that Move 1 focuses entirely on personal work habits and drivers. Direct conversation back to individual worksheet prompts.

Small groups debate team decisions during Move 5 instead of analyzing assumptions.

Redirect the room to the fictional library case on the worksheet. Ask them to isolate what data is missing before making any service recommendation.

Terms used here

• ITR Framework: Investment-Time-Return: a structured review comparing invested resources and labor against actual outcomes to identify root causes of success or failure.